Thread: soooo i started straight razor shaving.........

ok a little background 1st i am a semi professional knife maker and have been honing and sharpening my own and other peoples knifes for many years so i figured i could save money and learn a good hobby by taking up shaving with a strait razor .................

i was pretty in informed i dont know of any one in person that shaves this way i read articals online and what not and after i thought i was informed i decided to buy my 1st razor sooooo i did something horrable i went on ebay and got me a cheap zeepk and yes i know i hear its the kiss of death

well i was astonished at how the crappy craftsmen ship i had to re shape the whole damn thing by hand and machine to get a decient bevel and well i had my 1st shave .......... two scars later i was questioning my ability to sharpen a blade months later of trial and error i got the damn thing shaveable.......sorta i have never used pasted strops or anything like that as i have always just sharpened a knife well enough to shave arm hair

finally i mastered shaving with the damn thing and i find this web site

so heres what i did i crafted my own razor out of 01 tool steel and it turned out pretty good i also got me a dovo to compair and the dovo dose work better but hey i have always made pig stickers not grooming tools so i dont think i did too bad of a job..........

dovo is very fine craftsmenship 5 stars but now i wanna get that velvet squeegie feeling ive herd about so i still got this crap zeepk strop and i hear it is horrable and i want to get a new strop (btw out of spite i melted the zeepk blade and made a scribe out of it ..... not the best scribe ive made the metal is not as hard as they claim) i want to get more into this and i have a couple questions if yall would be so kind

i hear tony miller has nice strops and i plan on getting one but i want a strop for pasting i saw some nice stickies on proper pasting (another failure on my part i got a tube of water based .5 micron diamon paste and used the whole damn thing on the back furry side of the strop i wish i was more informed huffff) and i still have no idea what the linen side is for please any suggestions?

Hi and Welcome to SRP, besides reading some posts and etc... a nice place to visit is our WIKI Straight Razor Place Wiki
theres some great info on intro to SR shaving,strops,resto work etc... so continue seeking the knowledge and the shaves will get better.

Welcome,Tramadar!

I'm sure some more knowledgable will be along to advise you on strop making, or purchasing, but can I ask you if you can post some pics of the razor you made? Which Dovo razor did you buy by the way?

Welcome Tradmar,

As said above, it would be interesting to see your handmade razor.

What a great story! I hope you decide to keep making razors!

The linen side of the strop provides more abrasion to help touch up the edge a little before stropping with the leather side. Most folks do something like 20 laps on linen, then 50 or 60 laps on the leather (some do a lot less than that).


-Chief