Thread: It wont shave!

hey guys xecompany here. i recently received a robeson shuredge razor from holli4pirating. It seems sharp to me. it does pass HHT and doesnt cut hair off my arm without touching my skin but if i put it down on my skin it certainly cuts hair. when i went to shave with it i prepped my beard correctly and shaved at a 30 degree angle but it simply pulled and didnt cut hair. i have very thick whiskers but how did people in the 1800 and back shave if they had thick whiskers! please helP!

Greetings I have been useing a straight for just about six months. I have six razors and all are vintage. I tried to hone mayself but am just learning that art. I got a shave ready form e-bay it was a night and day differents with the edge. Then I sent off three of them to a friend form this site to be honed and now know how a sharpe razor should shave your face. Do your self a favor and sned it out to be honed. Have you been stropping this you could have rolled the edge. Again sned out to be honed. Raymond has a ad in the classifed on this site and is quick and good. Lynn is a hone Master and started the site both of them will do a good job for you.

Would you care to elaborate on the following?

1. How did you strop your razor? Passes, pressure, hand movement.
2. How did you prepare your face? Method, lather, products.
3. How exactly did you shave? Face mapping, pressure, strokes.

Regards,
Robin

hi there. i did not strop the razor because it was honed by holli4pirating and he stropped it before sending it out. in terms of preparing my beard. i took a shower then put some shaving soap on then put a towl with boiling water on my face then relatherd. i only tried about 3 strokes. i started from my sideburn down to my jawline with the grain at about a 30 degree angle. after that didnt work i tried different angles and i tried also down on my neck. no place worked. it did not cut the hair.

Interesting. Did you stretch your skin properly? Without that, every razor will pull.

i did stretch my skin properly

If it was bought shave ready, Holli wouldn't have sent it out to you unless he was happy with it. What is shave ready to one man, may not be the same for the next though.
It could be that you have very coarse stubble. In that case, you'll have to concentrate on the prep more, though it does seem that that aspect should be fine.
30 degrees can be very hard to judge as you manoeuvre round the face, so aim for the spine to be around two spines width from the face.
As Robin has mentioned, stretching properly is vital. There's a little helpful info here.

Sorry, my typing's not the fastest, & i now see you've replied regarding the stretching.

+1 on what Ben said about the angle. I found thirty degrees to be much shallower than I thought. Two or less spine widths were right for me.

Hi there, welcome to SRP!

Please take these comments only as attempts to help, not as criticism.

First, your razor would have been as sharp as any razor needs to be... he wouldn't have ever knowingly sent out a sub-par blade. So the sharpness element should be taken out of the equation, unless he just made an honest mistake.

That does leave a few things such as beard prep and technique. It may be that you need more beard prep than most, so you may try spending more time there.

The most likely suspect IMHO is technique...

Now, you have said that you prepped properly, and that you were using the right angles, and that you stretched the skin properly but it is probably beyond your experience at this time to make such evaluations. Even with the right angles (which you may or may not be getting in reality), the wrong pressure and stroke can make for a poor shaving experience. It's like the other guys have said, you may find that the things you thought you were doing correctly may need some tweaks.

(BTW, have you spoken with the previous owner about this before posting? It would be a good courtesy to do so before writing this post about a razor that won't shave)

of course i did.