Thread: Newbie with questions regarding recent ebay purchase

I recently decided to start straight razor shaving. After some debate, I decided to buy a good used blade off of ebay. I found this one, a Henckels Twin, which arrived yesterday. As I expected, there was some tarnish on the blade, most of which polished off rather well.

1) I don't have a hone, strop, or pastes, and I hope someone can suggest only what I need in order to maintain a proper edge for shaving.

2) I don't want to spend a ton of cash, so keep a budget in mind. Can it be done with one hone and one strop?

3) Also, what product (if any) should I use on the blade to prevent future tarnish/discoloration?

A hearty welcome to SRP! Don't be afraid to ask questions here, lot's of knowledge and experience to draw upon.

As to your razor, the cheapest way to get it shave ready is to send it out to one of our honemeisters (you can find them in the classifieds). This way you won't have your face pay for the learning curve involved with being able to effectively and correctly hone your razor. You will likely have to put a new bevel on it, then the polishing. You can do that with a barbers hone, but only after spending a lot of time trying to accomplish those goals. Look at it this way, $20-$25 is a pretty good investment to get your razor ready to shave. Then you can use your strop and and a barbers hone to maintain your edge for a very long time.

That's a fantastic razor!
I'd send it off to get it honed. You'll know how they're meant to feel & will keep outlay to a minimum. If you try to do it yourself, firstly you may struggle to get it right & maybe even damage it, secondly you've got to pay for hones. If you're trying to learn with a razor that's not honed right, you're far more likely to give up. If you're determined, a Norton 4/8k combi would do it, though most want a finer edge.
One strop is fine if you don't paste it & most guys seem to recommend the Tony Miller starter. You'll probably nick it a few times while you learn, so cheap is good, but the quality is important too & these meet those criteria.
For abrasive paste's you'll need more strops to avoid contamination, so probably best to just forget them for now.
Prevent tarnish by drying it carefully with tissue & letting it air after use. Wouldn't store it in a steamy bathroom either.
Good luck!

Welcome to SRP ! Heckuva nice razor. If you get a hone I would recommend the Norton 4/8 combo. A Tony Miller apprentice strop and a piece of balsa with some chrom ox. Here is a good read to get you started and here is the video section.

dward is absolutely right. For $20-$25 you can send it to an honemeister, which will be the best, cheapest, and most cost effective way to get it ready to go. There could be any number of things that you'll need to do to the razor to make it shave ready, and these guys will be able to accurately assess and effectively execute (like that alliteration? lol) those things that may or may not need to be done.

You will need a strop, because you're going to want to strop before every shave. Check out classicshaving.com. I got the Illinois Strop Co. #208 fo $35 bucks and its a great strop. You'll also want to go to Sports Authority and get some baseball glove oil to condition the leather part of the strop.

However, if you're like me, and want to dive into it head first, the only hone that you really need is the Norton 4000/8000 grit waterstone. You're going to hear a lot about other hones here, like the Shapton 16k, Escher hones, couticles, Chinese 12k, DMT hones, Chromium Oxide paste, .5 micron diamond spray, pasted strops, all sorts of things like that. You can get a lot of different hones that acomplish a lot of different tasks, and once you get deeper into the world of straight razor shaving, you'll find yourself always on the quest for the more perfect edge, so you'll probably want to get some of the finer grit finishing stones listed above. However, if you're on a budget, the Norton 4k/8k is going to be the bedrock that you'll eventually build from, and it will almost certainly be enough to get you through till you find yourself with Hone Aquisition Disorder.

Lastly, great looking razor!!!

I appreciate your advice everybody, and the praise regarding the purchase. It didn't arrive in this condition, but a couple hours of polishing the $65 blade yielded the desired result.

I will send my straight to be honed first (I need to PM Max for his mailing address). In the mean time, I will purchase a strop and leather conditioner as suggested (no need for paste, right?).

Also, I will look for a Norton stone for the future (where should I look and what should I expect to pay). In general, how often should one hone his razor if he uses the same razor every day on avg hair?

Thanks again for the quick responses to my questions. You have been very helpful so far.

There's no set time frame i'm afraid, but it may see you 6 months ok. Maybe more, maybe less. Too many variables though, so it's just when the strop's not working it's magic. If you get another strop in the future & some paste you'll be able to keep it going for a while. By then you'll have stropping down & won't damage the edge!
A search should help with the stone. I'm in England, so can't help you. By then you may decide you'd rather have a Belgian Blue/Coticule combination. Just take time over the next few months to do plenty of reading here & you'll get some ideas, rather than getting overwhelmed by it all in one go!

Just bought my Norton from:

Norton Waterstones

$68- seems to be the cheapest around, and I've heard good reviews of their service. They are backlogged on the Nortons at the moment though, so you'd have to wait a week or two.