Thread: New from Missouri

I apparently have a lurking problem as I have been lurking on this (and other) forums for about 5 years. I received my first straight razor, a Dovo imitation tortoise shell 5/8, just over a year ago. I read and reread forum posts, watched and rewatched the Lynn Abrams DVD, and then carefully laid everything out on the bathroom counter. I bumped my hip hit against the bathroom counter and knocked my open razor onto the tiled floor. The impact made a perfect half-circle chip in the blade about an 1/8 inch from the rounded point. Crap!

It ended up being somewhat of a blessing. It turns out Lynn lives a a few hours away from me and I readily agreed to drive to his house for a lesson. He wouldn't accept any payment for his time, so I showed up with a few cigars as thanks. Wow! What a lesson. Over a four-hour afternoon, he repaired the chip which was fortunately at the point, and fixed a pin. This was followed by a lesson on honing. He had a Gold Dollar razor laying around which I then honed from bevel to stropping with another lesson on stropping. That is now my reference razor for sharpness. This was followed by his well-stocked bathroom where we discussed brushes, soap pucks and creams, scuttles, aftershaves, alum bars, and much more. He then pulled out a couple towels, told me to use whatever brush, soap, and aftershave that I wanted (and meant it) and left. I used the straight razor with chip twice, so it was technically my third shave with about 4 days of growth and I proceeded to cut myself on the second pass (hence, the Nicked in my name). I bled like a stuck pig all over one of his towels, but he was quite generous about it. We ended the afternoon with a tour of his extensive razor collection and what to look for in a razor. I left after four hours, drove to a nearby Panera Bread, and then typed out 3 pages of single-spaced notes while everything was fresh.

Reflecting on all of this a year later, I am still touched by Lynn's generosity and patience. That was quite an afternoon. I hope to likewise pass along whatever help I can in the SRP forums.

Welcome to SRP, glad to have you among us.
Sounds like you had a brilliant intro into the world of straight razors, there really is no better way than learning at the hands of someone skilled, and in that respect you were very fortunate.
Don't hesitate to jump into the discussions in the forums.

Thanks. I've been thinking about the lesson all day. I turns out that it was almost a year exactly: 27 Feb 2012.