Hello, I've been a professional Barber for 48 years and the owner of my own barber shop for 34 of those years. Reading thru a lot of the posts on SRD in regards to shaving and maintaining a straight razor I've learned a lot of great information. Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks! When I went to Barber school back in the 60's we of course learned to shave with a straight razor and also how to hone it (I still have the Belgium water hone that I received in my tool kit) and it seemed like the razors we had in those days, Red Imps, Henkles, and Duble-Ducks (I used and liked the Duble-Duck wedge) would hold an edge a long time and would just require stropping between customers to keep them dialed-in. As the years went by though that was not the case. They would require more frequent honing, I always thought that the quality of the steel in those razors was degraded as time went on. That being the case I started to use straight razors with disposable blades Tondeo is the brand I used, pretty good blades.
But now after lurking around here I've gone back to using an old ERN razor I got from one of my customers and I think I'm going to promote straight razor shaves as a service a lot more actively here at the shop. Also a big thanks to Lynn for all the great info in regards to hones and honing.
Sorry for being so long winded....but you know us barbers!
