Where are the inexpensive razors?

My opinion is for the cheapest, but still high quality starting point, visit rup razor. Ken had a starters kit with a quality checked and honed gold dollar razor and a filly strop, but on my latest visit to his site I couldnt find it. IIRC it was offered at around 60 bucks and he also has a boar brush starter set, you could be completely ready to go for around 80 bucks, that is if he still offers the razor set. I bought his filly strop to use as a beginning strop, but the more I use it the more I like it, I find myself putting off pulling my TM Latigo/linen strop out of the box and using it. I havent used the gold dollars from him but have read plenty of positive reviews around here, just make sure you dont look for one on ebay, from what I hear they are a crap shoot, and they will not be shave ready, Ken gets them picks the best fixes them up and throws away the ones not worth a s**t. It seems to me that more times than not bargains turn out to be too good to be true, that is not the case with Ken Rup's products. Good luck.

The $10 shave ready razors in mint condition are certainly out there, the problem is finding them before anybody else and recognizing them for that.
Considering that you have no experience whatsoever I'd say your chances are pretty slim and it gets smaller by the day as more people get access to them through internet.

I don't think you can realistically expect a razor made of steel that can be sharpened to hold a shaving edge to cost comparably to a shavette. The later is essentially a holder for the high quality steel blade, so the requirements for quality and precision are next to nothing.

Personally, I think buying from SRD is a great idea - you know you'll get good stuff and great service for the best price. However, also from my personal standpoint, I think buying new razors is a waste of money given the prices you can find for vintage, shave ready blades.

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Originally Posted by ChrisL

Since you have a desire to purchase more than just a razor, you're thinking of buying all that you'd need to start off, I personally wouldn't hesitate to buy the offer that you've described. I haven't looked at SRD if a few weeks, but they have a great razor honing offer and no question they would stand by their products. I don't see how you could go wrong.

Chris L

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Thats what I was thinking. I've checked quite a few sites, and they seem to have the lowest price for an all inclusive, shave ready kit. I'd certainly like to buy razors individually, but for the sake of learning the art, and beginning to refine my technique, I thought this was a great deal.

Keep in mind, they're offering a coupon for a free additional honing. That's an added value to be sure. Keep in mind, it's very easy to compromise an edge when you're learning to strop. You can use that free additional honing to your advantage regardless.

Chris L

No, I'm not at all put off by the price of the razor. Before I even considered straight razor shaving, I had quite the passion for Katanas. I was fascinated by the metallurgy, as well as the form and function of the blade. Maybe having see those prices had in some way prepared me for the straight razor prices.

I was considering the strop upgrade. Is there a major advantage? In the videos I've seen, as well as the articles I've read, The X pattern is still used on even the widest strop, so would I gain all that much from upgrading from the 2" to the 3"?

Oh and as for ebay, I didn't know much about straight razor when I started searching for one on the site, but I did know about swords, and just general shopping. My experience has taught me that if it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. Besides, if people could get a straight razor set up for $20, then there'd be a lot more people doing it.

Could you? Sure. Should you? Hmmm...

Like the others said, once you factor in shipping it out to be honed, it will cost easily as much as just buying a shave-ready vintage from the Classifieds.

Also, since this is your first experience with straights, you may not be able to tell the difference between a straight that just needs a clean-up and a honing, and one that's going to take a lot more work than that.

Even for $30, you should be able to find a razor on decent shape that's shave-ready. It may have some wear, it may not be a looker, but it'll work just dandy and you can be sure of its suitability to shaving.

As far as strops, there's no need to get all fancy. You should probably just go a starter 2" strop, so you can perfect your X-pattern without having a wider strop to get lazy on, and you won't have blown a lot of money on a strop that you're likely to nick.

My strop is only 1 1/2 inches wide and it works just fine.

Where you'll want to spend money is on soap/cream, shaving prep, and a decent brush.

The strop can be cheap, and so can the razor as long as you're sure of its quality. Check the Classifieds, RupRazor, and SRD.

I just ordered a complete wet shave set from SRD. it includes a dovo best quality, a 2" strop, a brush, a mug and soap. It's a very basic set up from all that I've been reading on this site, but it will certainly be an upgrade from my can of barbazol and my shavette.

The shavette has served me well, and I plan on continuing to use it even after I get the dovo. My favorite part of the shavette, is that whenever I'm tackling a new area of my face, or trying to work on my non dominant hand, I can just pop out the blade, and mock out the motions, and really get comfortable with them, rather then just going at it and hacking up my face.

But believe me, I did a good deal of hacking before I took that little bit of advice, and have now seen the error in my ways.