Thread: Hello, from Oakland!

Hello everyone, I’m a new SRP member and new to straight razor shaving, so I just want to say hello and introduce myself to the group.

I don’t recall what inspired my initial interest with straight razors; however I do recall the negative feedback from my family when I verbalized my interest years ago, back when I was still in high school. My family somehow succeeded with instilling the fear that I would cut up my face, so I abandoned the idea for over two decades, without much further thought of it. I recently typed up a “bucket list”, and apparently learning to shave with a straight razor was at the surface of my subconscious, as it was the third thing that I added to the list. Upon reading it, the fear I once had was immediately replaced with excitement. For the past two months, I have stayed up all hours of the night reading forums, watching videos on shaving and blade maintenance, in addition to perusing straight razors.

I opted to start with the Dovo Prima Klang with redwood scales. The blade size and weight is comfortable and I’ve successfully completed about 6-7 smooth shaves (once every 3-4 days). I currently have a circle beard, so I’ll get a couple more shaves in before moving onto the moustache and chin. I’ll need to continue working on my technique for the front of the neck (around the Adam’s apple area), but the rest of the shave has gone much easier than I had anticipated.

Despite my research, the appropriate use of stropping paste and spray is still a grey area for me. I have ordered a copy of Lee’s video (which I am told covers this), but if anyone has additional tips or can post links with information on this topic, I would greatly appreciate it.

My initial order to get me started (razor, strop, brush, etc.) was placed with SRD. I now have my eye on a Thiers-Issard straight, but unfortunately I haven’t found any sold that are shave-ready. If there are any honemeisters in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, it would be great to hear from you. Otherwise, it appears that I have some great options listed in the classifieds.

At this point, I would not attempt to put a bevel on a new razor, but I’m very much interested in getting started with learning maintenance honing. At this stage, I’m not certain whether I should start off with a finer stone that I would be less likely to cause damage to the blade if were to do something incorrectly (in addition to getting accustomed to the motions of honing) or if I should purchase one of the combo stones and then purchase a 12,000 grit stone later.

Any feedback would be appreciated and thank you all for the wealth of information that has already been posted.

Christopher

I was able to find the answers to all of my questions on here. Thanks!

Hello right back atcha and all your fellow hells angels. Just to answer your question about hones and honing in general, given that I am not the foremost expert, but that I do hone my own. For maintenance of an already shave ready razor something from about 10k and up in grit is what you'll want.Eventually you'll need to pick up an 8k and and a 4k or a 4/8k combo from Morton is the usual recommendation.
Honing itself is not hard, unless you have the misfortune of having a tempermental blade, which does happen often enough. Keep the pressure off the blade, keep the blade flat on the hone so that both spine and edge are in contact and the marker pen is your friend. put some along the edge of the blade to see where contact is being made on the hone and where it isn't. This will show you whether you need to adjust your honing technique to something a little more complex than just a straight run.


Mick

Thank you for the suggestions, Mick. Can a Sharpie (alcohol based) be used or is there a specific type of marker that I should use, so I don't stain the blade or cause any other potential problems. Also, do you know if using a marker before stropping functions as a guide in the same way. I've notice that during stropping I occasionally lift one edge of the blade up slightly from the strop. I think that I'm doing this, due to my concern of putting too much pressure on the strop. I'll hold off on the honing for another month or so, until my stropping skills are more proficient.

The 'sharpie' marks will come off with a cotton wool ball and some rubbing alcohol, but I keep them to a fine line of a couple of mm's along the edge. Don't cover the whole blade. I've never thought to try it for a visual aid for stropping. I think I would try it on a newspaper 'strop', and not my leather one though.


Mick

Originally Posted by MickR

The 'sharpie' marks will come off with a cotton wool ball and some rubbing alcohol, but I keep them to a fine line of a couple of mm's along the edge. Don't cover the whole blade. I've never thought to try it for a visual aid for stropping. I think I would try it on a newspaper 'strop', and not my leather one though.


Mick

Thank you, Mick. I'll see how the newspaper stropping goes.

wellcome to SRP,forget the straight razor stuff can you do anything to help the raiders

Welcome to the forum. Always a pleasure to have a new member with us. And as pixelfixed pointed out any help with the Raiders would be welcomed.

When you need to touch up the edge you have 2 options.
1. An abrasive pasted paddle strop. A lot of us use one pasted with 0.5 micron chrome oxide.
2. A fine grit finishing hone usually 10K/12K or finer.

Both work just fine.