Thread: Greetings from Canada.

It's a really good idea to learn to shave with a professionally-honed razor, and hold off on the honing until you're OK at shaving and stropping.

Without knowing what a really shave-ready edge is like, you won't know what you're aiming at when you start to hone. Sharpness is a very broad church, and it would be a pity for someone to put up with poor shaves because they've never experienced a great edge. When I started to hone, I quickly got to a stage where my edges would scrape off the whiskers, but if I hadn't had a pro-honed blade I might have thought that was the best shaving experience possibe, and believe me it wasn't.

Welcome to SRP. Very nice Boker. I just skimmed the thread so I don't know if its been honed up by a pro, but if it is not get it sent out and honed up right.
Keep a eye out for our Toronto Area Meets. We get together about every 6months.

Colin

To add to the advice of having it professionally honed, get a junk razor to practise honing on until you mastered it. It's a shame if you would ruin your only blade on your first honing attempt.

Yeah, I agree with not honing it yourself. There is a difference between sharp and smooth and you need a professionally honed (by a razor guy, not a knife guy) razor to give you that reference of shave ready. My neighbour swears up and down that he can get a "surgical edge" on his knives, meanwhile, I quietly chuckle inside at his blasphemy