Thread: First shave... not Good

One possibility is you may have lifted the spine of
the razor while stropping and rolled the edge.

Do a hanging hair test on the edge or test against
the hairs on the side of you arm.

Other than this I'm not sure where the problem may
lie. I am sure that with the help of the more experienced
members that the problem will be resolved.

Best of Luck,

Terry

could be,,so what do i do to fix it?
Thanks ,Caesar

Caesar,

If thta's what it is, one of the members can re hone the razor
for you. Do let some of the more experienced guys respond
first though. I've only been at this a month myself and I
could be dead wrong.


Terry

Caesar,

Terry might very well be right. However here is another posibility what angle did you have the blade at relative to your face? It should be about 30 degees, about twice the width of the spine. If it was too upright it would also pull the hair.

Caesar,
Sorry that shave did not go well. I do sharpen all the razors before sending but I do not shave with them as a test. I do a thumb test and hanging hair test but without a test shave I cannot assure you it is as sharp as it should be.
I would work on that pasted strop a bit and am sure that will quickly get you where you need to be. Start again on the 3.0 side, go 20-30 passes slowly, keeping the blade completely flat to the strop. Move to the 1.0 for 30, the 0.5 for another 30 and again on the 0.25 and try it again.

Tony

Its hard to give you real effective advice because there are so many possibilities here. It could be the razor, the stropping, your inexperience or maybe evil spirits.

When I first shaved with a straight I was very careful to read everything I could and I bought the best creams and strops and hones and a new TI razor. Of course I really didn't know to use any of the stuff but I sure thought I did and I expected my first shave to be textbook perfect. Boy was I wrong. My first shave left me with nicks, massive burn and a very poor shave.

So the moral of the story is that before you spend more time ruining you nice new razor by trying to hone it or improperly strop it consider it just might be your inexperience. If thats the case each shave should get better and better. Some pick it up much faster than others but eventually everyone does. Its true that most new razors never shave to their potential out of the box and this varies from razor to razor and brand to brand but you still should be able to get a passable shave from any new one unless you got one honed by a drunk or something. Since tony hones them before sending them out thats probably unlikely so my advice is to go slow and start with just the basic strokes at first and watch the angle of the razor to your skin. Expect to have to finish with a DE or disposable at first.

Most of us here shaved perfectly on our first try .

Be careful once you do get it to the right angle and right sharpness. I had my face pulled tight while shaving with the Cattaraugus from Lynn and barely touched my chin at the wrong angle and a nice sized slice opened right up. Didn't even feel it at first. hadn't even started shaving. just noticed the red popping out at the razors edge.