Hello to every one from CA

Hi im from bakersfield, CA and new to straight shaving. I have purchased a few things to get me started. i have been researching a lot about straight shaving and stropping, honing etc. So have shaved a few times with my straight razor which i purchased from SRD along with a strop all in thanks to reading SRP threads. I got a DOVO best quality 6/8 along with some other razors i have bought on ebay. So far i have acquired a Norton 4/8 k, and a 12k Chinese hone, a DMT 8" Coarse hone for lapping, a stone holder, a 3" black latigo strop with the webbing from SRD, 20g of chromium oxide 0.50 microns paste, and some other strops and razors for practice. So if anyone can think what else i would need any and all input would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

Oleg.

You sound like your good except for the bevel setter. I use a dmt 1200. Very fast doesn't need to be lapped. Although you can use a Norton 1k. If you use the dmt, rub a large piece of steel on it to break it in like the side of a screwdriver.

get one of your razors professionally honed, you can check the members services in classifieds, use that as a reference as to what to aim for when you eventually in your honing. Get a bevel setter like bill3152 says if your planning on honing razors from blunt all the way to shave ready, but if you just want to maintain already sharp razors I'd say it's not needed, since you've bought some razors from ebay already I assume some of them will be blunt as spoons and you seem to be coming down with some serious RAD so I guess you should get a bevel setter too. I like the Naniwa or Shapton stones myself, but I just tend to sway towards Japanese when it comes to hones I definitely want to get into the natural Japanese stones next but I'm going to perfect my honing up to 8k grit on the Naniwas before I get into more complicated natural stones. You might want to do that as well, because until you can get a decent shave-able edge off the 8k you'd just be polishing an inferior edge with the c12k. The DMT is great I just got one myself, BE CAREFUL when you strop your razors, don't worry about speed it doesn't effect the quality of the edge it just looks cool when you can do it fast but you have all the time in the world to perfect your stropping technique, just go slow and steady and build up the muscle memory, same with honing I guess. Anyway welcome to SRP, don't forget to post some pics of your razors =] if you can find some experienced members that are local to you try and get a meet happening with them, you can learn a lot more in an hour with an experienced person than months and months of reading and watching videos.

So would this be a good edge setter?
10" x 3" x 1" Dual 400/1200 Grit Arkansas Whetstone with Box http://www.naturalwhetstone.com/NWDUAL1031.jpg

Welcome to SRP.

Russell