Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your input, it's amazing how much help and information is available from this place . James has offered to help me out with honing my razor so all i need now is the strop . I've done some more research and called the local shave shops. A lot of green horns like myself seem to be saying that they get quite a few nicks in their strops when they first start out, so i think i might do what Ashley did and make a strop to learn on before i get a new one (I PM'd him about how he made one earlier, just awaiting a reply to get started).

As far as getting a new one once i've learned how to strop goes, i've contacted both the razor shop and the shaver shop. The razor shop is only selling the carbroundum strop and it's going for $109. The guy said "If your getting a strop it has to be carbroundum, the leather just won't work". After reading some other threads here i think i'll pass on that one. The shaver shop only has the junior black beauty and that's going for $99.95. Even with the high postal fees to Aus Tony millers strops are pretty competitive with these(assuming the Aus dollar stops plummeting). So my only other question really is how do the black beauties and the tony miller strops (artisan and apprentice) match up? Tonys strops definitely have a good rep and I would be inclined to buy from someone who supports this forum.

Thanks again for all the help,
Michael.