Thread: Art of Shaving - they found a loophole

Originally Posted by cudarunner

The new Revisor that I purchased from the factory a year ago had a pretty decent edge on it right out of the box. It became one of my favorites after a proper honing!

Funny you should mention Revisor as that was my experience with one too. It really smoothed out with a light touch up and is also a fovourite of mine now.

Bob

After about 4 weeks of straight razor shaving, and having started honing right away, out of necessity, it occurs to me that my limited experience can only reinforce the "necessity" part of honing:

1. I rolled the edge upon my first attempt at stropping my new Dovo from SRD that was no-doubt expertly honed by Lynn. Still kicking myself over that one. (If I finally spring for a Bismark, I'm getting it from SRD and I promise I won't screw it up this time!)

2. Honing out that chip from the rolled portion took quite a few strokes, and helped my hand to "learn the tool". My next shave was instantly better, just because I was suddenly "somewhat-used-to-manipulating-a-straight-razor" as opposed never having held one before.

3. Honing gave me a feel for the hardness of the metal and the nature of the material I was really working with. It also gives me a feel for the quality of the edge (even beyond a thumbnail or hair test) before I have to find out on my face.

4. I now have 6 razors in my rotation and two projects, so I have quickly followed my investment in stones with plenty of justification for learning to hone.

5. I don't have to worry! Even if I just need to touch up a razor, I have a C-MON barber hone as well as my Shapton 16K that are pretty convenient for that. Otherwise, Lynn and Glenn have some great vids out on how to reset an edge and options on preferred ways to do that.

6. It's good to be in control of one's own edge!

I actually sent AOS a long note on their website a couple of days ago in response to 2 or 3 threads on another shaving site with the same problem as yours. This is the response I got.

Thanks for contacting The Art of Shaving, John.
We appreciate your taking the time to write about your concerns with our straight razors, and you can be sure I’m sharing your comments with the appropriate people in our Corporate Office so that they can look into the situation.

Thanks again for getting in touch with us.

Vered
The Art of Shaving Team


I'm concerned about the number of people who buy an AOS straight believing it to be shave ready and give up because they can never get a decent shave from it.

I've decided, having encountered this in most "high street" razor stores in Australia and the places overseas I have visited, that pretty much we - or those associated with us here at SRP - are the only ones that are even aware of the idea of "shave ready" being something additional to the factory edge.

Generally I don't care unless they are flogging it as a "ready to use" or "be careful!! The edge is SHARRRRRPPP!!!!!!" razor. Then I will usually just have a word with them. A gentle word - you have to be discrete about these things.

As a result I now hone for an online store, two Shaver Shops and a King of Knives on the Sunshine Coast. At least these 4 shops can honestly say they sell, or at least offer, shave ready razors. And I figure that even though it is a small start, it may domino out eventually as people see how much nicer their mates' shave is to theirs etc etc.

But if you get all up in their face about it they become defensive, and you become just another freakazoid nutcase they can palm off as a wacko OCD trainspotter.

James.

Originally Posted by sheajohnw

I acquired a NOS Torrey O146 straight razor that still had its original packing grease on the blade. This razor is probably more than 80 years old. I cleaned off the old grease, stropped up the blade, and was pleasantly suprised because it was good to go for my first shave with this razor.

I've had the same experience with 2 NOS ERNs,1 J A Henckels, 1 Bartmann, ! Schulz. The factory edges were perfection. I didn't strop on the first shave and have been only stropping after each shave ever since.

I started off by buying everything at AOS and my first attempt at using was very good, the edge lasted about 4 month before I needed to have it honed. It still is one of my favorite razors. I did ask the guy there if I could shave with it that day, he told me it was already sharpened and in shave ready condition.

Since then I have bought three Revisor razors from the factory and all three were awesome to shave with, the 8/8 is my personal best to date.

Maybe I got lucking but using a straight razor is by far the best thing I do for myself!!

I probably would have had the same type of experience had I just gone out and bought a new razor to use/learn with. I remember the answers I got to questions in knife shops and such when I looked into Straight razors. They didn't convince me for some reason so I started looking online, watched You tubes and tried to sort out the facts. After I had already been trying to shave with a $40.00 complete package deal I learned more on 9 to 20 dollar razors from e-bay. I must say I might have given up had I not found SRP. Wet shaving is the type of thing dad teaches son and without that the next best thing is friends. Now you may not be on my friends list but I consider everyone at SRP a friend because that is just the kind of place this is. Everybody wants to help and I for one have benefited by coming here. Now don't get all misty on me, I just wanted to say thanks because this thread made me think of my beginnings and how I got from there to being able to have a nice shave with a straight. :<0)

So many times I’ve posted a welcome to ‘The Most Friendly, Informative and Helpful site on the web’!

I stand by that statement and I’ve made some really good friends, one who I keep in contact either by email or phone almost daily!

I started with my uncles Genco Grant, I hadn’t found SRP and sent it to another well known website’s honer. Now I know that I’ve learned so much more and do my own honing now but not only was it sharp, it was very, very ‘Crisp’ as pinklather refers to it, it wasn’t smooth at all! Oh it did shave well, and even as I wasn’t getting any razor burn and only a weeper here and there, it wasn’t comfortable! I wasn’t trying more than a single pass (I didn’t find out about that until I found SRP) so after 2-3 months with stropping on just leather it was starting to pull.

I bought a 9/16 German made called a Red Point from HNSB in the classified and what a difference! SMOOTHNESS!!! My shaving technique hadn’t changed just another razor with a different finish on it!

HNSB took the time to help guide me along and he’s been a great friend and advisor!!

Well this thread is supposed to be about factory edges and I’m getting way off topic!

As I posted before, my Revisor factory edge was nice but after a full honing it was Fantastic!!

Watched a vid on youtube a while back on the Dovo factory i think, right at the end there was a lady furiously stropping a blade and doing what appeared to be the HHT on the razor, so you would have thought it would be shave ready. I have picked up three NOS razors now, and all of them i could shave with, quite surprising really, considering the youngest was probably forty years old. All i can say to you moderngentleman is stick with it, i am up over 60 shaves and getting really good results, and this is the best place to learn. It's not easy but certainly worth the effort.

I have seen that video and if you look closely that hair is so thick that you could use it in a broom.