Shaving questions from a newbie
Last week I did my first straight shave with my SRD Dovo, I shaved right out of the package without stopping first because I read great things about Lynn's honing but most of all I ordered the strop from another vendor and it hadnt shown up yet and I just HAD to try shaving. I only went WTG and although my face felt a little raw I survived. I did miss a few spots but I did my whole face and I hadnt purchased aftershave balm yet which probably contributed to the rawness. I had to wait for another week for the strop to arrive(got here yesterday) so I went to shaving and even though I had a strop I still didnt trust myself completely so I shaved a little before stropping just to see if when I did strop the shave got better or worse to grade my stropping. Well the stopping felt so unnatural and I was really worrying about messing up the edge that I quit and just went back to shaving, I did have another shave ready Henckels 16 so I used it but it was just too small in my hand for now so I decided to shave with the razor I had tried to strop, I finished but I still missed quite a few wiskers. I had a lot of pulling but I think that probably had more to do with my angles than the sharpness of the blade. So that brings me to today. I shouldve probably waited another day or two but I just couldnt do it. I didnt have much stubble but I went for it any way. I decided to go to the strop and I would have to say that over the course of one day my stropping got much better(still a long way to go) and the razor shaved well, I did WTG and XTG on my face and WTG and ATG on my neck. My angle of approach is getting better and I didnt miss a spot nor did I get a nick. Afterwords when I put on the aftershave(nivea sensitive balm) it burnt a lot though. My experiences have raised a few questions I would like to ask, so here goes.
1) I have read that it is not advised to strop till 24-48 hrs after shaving as the edge will repair itself and I have also read to stop immediately before and after shaving. I would say that as sharp as my razor was after one shave and sitting for a week there might be some truth to the waiting, what has been your experience?
2) Is it a good idea to keep an extra shave ready razor just in case I mess up the edge stropping or does having only one handy force a person to pay more attention to properly maintaining the razor they have?
3) When closing my Henckels I lightly touched the blade to the side of the scale, should I leave it alone just to be safe(or sent off to hone) or can I strop it to fix any problems I might have caused? The blade went straight in and straight up when I realized what I had done. It doesnt feel rough when sliding my thumb over it and holding it to the light I cant see any damage, I have been thinking of getting a small microscope to check it out.
4) Does the ATG pass cause more irritation than XTG or WTG when first starting out or is the burning by the aftershave caused by small scraches from a less than completely sharp razor or is it all in the angle of approach?
5) What is up with the small size of the Henckels 16, I assumed(you know what they say about that) that all straights were the same overall size and only the blade width was different, how wrong I was. Do all smaller blade sizes(4/8, 5/8) come in smaller scales or just some? Do any of you like shaving with the small razors cause it seems like it will be easier to fit into small places like my neck, where the scales of my 6/8 dovo seem to always be in the way. It feels to be about half the size of my DOVO, same length more or less but just smaller.
What started as a question about shaving has turned into questions about a lot of other stuff so I hope I dont upset anyone with my choice of forums, I shouldve probably just put it in the newbie section or split it into three seperate ones(shaving, stropping, and razors). Thanks in advance for any and all answers.