Hi !

My name is Nicolas, I am 36 and I live in France (Brittany if you ever come by...)

I am a newbie here but I am one of SRP Yahoo group members since... 2004. Not very active but you get the idea, I did not give the idea up since !
Well, that is not true, I mostly went back to DE razors from 2006 to just a few weeks ago

My first encounter with a shave ready straight was a 8/8 Henckels Friodur I got from Lynn in 2005. I still have it and honed it yesterday
I remember on the same year Lynn shipped me a tube of MAAS as I couldn't not find such product around here and wanted to restore some old blades. He did it as a free gift just out of pure kindness.

BTW Lynn, if you read me, you are my SR mentor, no matter what !

My shaving gear has stepped up a bit lately, I now own an Ali's Blade custom (8/8 SC145 Chopper) that I just love, a 7/8 C135 Thiers Issard, a Lezcha 6/8 Dwarf and some old and small blades. My second Ali's is in the works right now.

My long DE journey allowed me to me get a far better technique than I had a few years ago, no more blood or rarely and far better results.

So here I am back at it with now more time to devote to straights. My main concerns are about honing as I wish I could maintain my razors without ever having to use pastes as I just hate that. So I may get to the point of jumping the shark and get a Zulu or high grit Shapton GS just to be able to just strop and shave right out of the stones.

But hey, this is the goal, not the journey so I will read a lot before doing so and your advices will sure be more than welcome.

Thanks for your invaluable knowledge as I have been reading you for a long time

P.S. : please bare with my poor English or should I dare : excuse my French