Thread: First shave with a "real" straight... Is it worth it?

I quit Honing a few mos. back,spent 4 yrs teaching myself,I actually got pretty good at it but I was very slow so I decided it was a waste of my time.
I have all the great stones,I know how to use them,But they will all be gone one day.
The way I look at it,You have the best Honers in the world on this site,People that are at the top tier of the art.
I have maybe 20 blades in my rotation,they only need to be pro-honed about every two years at the most,some even longer.
To me honing is a waste of my time.Esp, when I can trade a custom one off badger brush to get 4 blades honed by the best of the best

You know my friend Pixel does have a point, assuming you are in the US (otherwise shipping is cost restrictive) why don't you send me that DD and I will run it up to an edge Honed & Stropped that I would use for myself and my beard lines and see if that works first.. If so then start looking for hones & strops hehehe
You cover freight


PM me if that works for you

He makes a fantastic point... I wish would have posted this a few months ago! I just moved down here to Southern Utah, but I used to fly out of Spokane a lot and I would have just zipped over to you and dropped it off!

Learn the art first and foremost,have your blades honed by the best of the best.Forget stones and honing for at least a year into the sport,maybe more.
If you think you will be saving money by honing your own blades.Your nutz.
Honing is a totally differant subset to straight razor shaving,IMO has nothing to do with shaving.

There is also a difference between refreshing and honing, perhaps one of the more experienced guys could chime in at this point, I don't know enough to be much use.
Regards ed.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

There is also a difference between refreshing and honing, perhaps one of the more experienced guys could chime in at this point, I don't know enough to be much use.
Regards ed.

I think you make the salient point here, Ed. In my opinion people need some basic skills in tuning up a blade that was originally acquired shave ready. When I started straight shaving I decided I wasn't going to do this unless I took care of the sharpening myself. That doesn't mean learning how to repair it, just know how to maintain it during normal use.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke to a man who used straight razors for religious reasons. He said the reasons would be hard for me understand, but he could use a straight or an electric but couldn't use the typical department store fare. When he was in the Army he had to get special permission to use a straight because the Army considers it a weapon. Anyway, he ordered $500 worth of razors and because the only thing he knew how to do was strop, he discarded the razor when it got dull. Now that he is no longer in the service, he pays someone $35 to sharpen the one he has now when it gets dull. I thought that was kind of extreme. He needs to learn to give his razor a tune up.

I can set a bevel and keep my edges sharp. I can't mold steel, restore, or re-scale. I would like to be able to re-scale and tighten the pins, and I think I can learn that.

Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun

I think you make the salient point here, Ed. In my opinion people need some basic skills in tuning up a blade that was originally acquired shave ready. When I started straight shaving I decided I wasn't going to do this unless I took care of the sharpening myself. That doesn't mean learning how to repair it, just know how to maintain it during normal use.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke to a man who used straight razors for religious reasons. He said the reasons would be hard for me understand, but he could use a straight or an electric but couldn't use the typical department store fare. When he was in the Army he had to get special permission to use a straight because the Army considers it a weapon. Anyway, he ordered $500 worth of razors and because the only thing he knew how to do was strop, he discarded the razor when it got dull. Now that he is no longer in the service, he pays someone $35 to sharpen the one he has now when it gets dull. I thought that was kind of extreme. He needs to learn to give his razor a tune up.

I can set a bevel and keep my edges sharp. I can't mold steel, restore, or re-scale. I would like to be able to re-scale and tighten the pins, and I think I can learn that.

Straights or electric, kind of both extremes isn't it? I wonder why he didn't just put the razors aside and send them out in bulk for honing, or am I misunderstanding you.
I need to learn pin tightening, I tried with a mcguyver set up, and it wasn't Terribly easy, it went from tighter to looser to tighter but never tight, it looks a bit like the washer has sunk into the plastic scale now. I think I might get a proper anvil and peening hammer, as one of my other razors needs a slight touch, but I want to get it right on the crappy one first.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

Straights or electric, kind of both extremes isn't it? I wonder why he didn't just put the razors aside and send them out in bulk for honing, or am I misunderstanding you.
I need to learn pin tightening, I tried with a mcguyver set up, and it wasn't Terribly easy, it went from tighter to looser to tighter but never tight, it looks a bit like the washer has sunk into the plastic scale now. I think I might get a proper anvil and peening hammer, as one of my other razors needs a slight touch, but I want to get it right on the crappy one first.

They are both ends of the spectrum. The guy is Jewish, and he definitely said I would have difficulty understanding why he uses straights. He is a highly educated man and is writing a dissertation (I guess for a Ph.D.) on the lingering effects on the Holocaust. When I asked him for an example he said that he's reluctant to tell a potential employer he is Jewish because of discrimination that existed in the past. He didn't like electric razors, so he went to Plan B. He discarded dull razors when he was in the Army, but now as a civilian he sends them out to be sharpened. I guess it was difficult to arrange while overseas on duty.

There is another example of this. The guy who taught me the most about straight shaving through his video, Chiminesch, also started with an electric and didn't like it. His father was a Rabbi and had to use an electric for religious reasons. This is the video, which I'm sure many of you will remember:



I'm sure one day I will get to learning how to re-scale a razor and tighten the pins. I have extreme difficulty using a razor with a loose pivot point. I have a few others that really need new scales. I think a straight razor shaver should be able to do these things and when I have more time I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Learn the art first and foremost,have your blades honed by the best of the best.Forget stones and honing for at least a year into the sport,maybe more.
If you think you will be saving money by honing your own blades.Your nutz.
Honing is a totally differant subset to straight razor shaving,IMO has nothing to do with shaving.

I'm just over a year SRS....joined the site finally several months ago...and I just ordered a refresher kit from Classic Edge....it's a Belgian Coticule with a charged balsa board...it's simply a "refresher" kit, when the blade starts to tug and pull a bit, the idea is to touch it up on this stone...the idea being to extend the life between full honing's. Aside from the debate about natural vs synthetic...it's my first, and only step to honing.

I agree with Pixelfixed, hey, if I can extend the life of a blade with a refresh, great, but so far with many nice razors available for me to choose from, all professionally honed, it's more efficient in time and cost to send them out.

So I received the razor last night in the mail and decided to approach this slightly different, normally the first thing I do when testing a razor like this is to pull out the Magnifier and check the edge, this time I wanted to try more like a newb would

So I take the DD Dwarf with a freaking loose pivot (I HATE loose floppy razors) and do a KISS shave as a test..

Hot water splash followed by two hot towels
Col. Conk Amber
Semogue 1305 Boar
25/50 Linen / Leather SRD Premium 1

No special prep just a simple shave to test the edge..

Is it shave ready ?? technically yes it shaves, rather rough feeling, my poor Hollywood face feels a bit beat on, it cut hair, especially at the front 2/3 of the blade, a bit grabby, not something I would want to shave with again tomorrow...


So I come downstairs to write this, and stop by the hone table and check the edge under a 30x well lighted Lopue, and I find that the back 1/3 of the edge is badly chipped and rough (My poor face) the bevel goes from good at the front of the blade to about halfway down then gets weak to non-existent by the heel..

Many times we say that and experienced hand can shave a much less refined edge then a newb, this just proved it once again ..
In my hands the razor technically shaves, because I can move it to get the best out of it, but to a newb this is just not good enough, and by simply looking at the edge under a loupe it becomes very apparent that is was not honed completely nor correctly

Anyway that is JHMO...