Well.. after a long absence from the forum, I'm finally back to posting. I have picked up a pair of straight razors and a strop. Am completely fine shaving with a safety razor.. and making (going to be) the jump to using the straight soon. Have a TI and a Dovo to try with.. they are both PRE-Sharpened, but what does that mean. Shave ready? Should I be stropping before? Any tips or suggestions would be great. Chris
Hi Chris, Nice to see you again. My first suggestion is to not use a PAIR of straights right now. Learn with one to start. Then you can use both at the same time if you want Where did you get the razors? If they are from the factory, pre-sharpened does not equal shave ready. Send them off to a honemeister (Lynn Abrams comes to mind first but there are plenty). You should always strop the razor on the leather before every shave. The use of canvas/linen is debated but always use the leather first. About 30 strokes with the edge trailing should be sufficient. Keep the blade flat on the strop at all times and use very little to no pressure. Just enough to keep the blade flat on the strop through the whole stroke. Keep us posted and enjoy!
Dont strop before your first shave though. You should know what a real sharp str8 feels like before stropping it, in case you screw it up.
lol.. They were bought for my by the ex-girlfriend (talked about straight razors long enough and she broke down and bought me some). Picked up from Classicshaving.com. Anyone know if there is someone that can hone them for me located in Toronto, Ontario? (not actually sure where Lynn is located)
Are you on SRP? I can think of a couple of guys in Canada but I'm not sure where they are. Lynn is in OH and you can go through Classicshaving and order their honing service. They send those directly to Lynn for honing. I don't know of anyone here at TSD in Canada that would offer honing services but I'm sure we must have a honemeister or two.
Welcome back to TSD, Chris. Good to see you again. Ken (Sejanus) is in Canada, but I can't remember if he was using a straight. He may have an idea where you could get yours honed, though.
"Pre-sharpened" at Classicshaving is hardly better than machine sharpened If Classicshaving has not shipped the razors yet, they will let you add the sharpening service to your order so that you don't have to send it out later. Give them a call!
Straights Unfortunately, the straights were bought for me and I only found out where after I had to "extort" the information out of her. I'm looking for the honemeister so I can have at least 1 (probably both) have a proper edge on them. C Pics will be posted soon enough.
The only guy I know of in Canada is in Montreal. He goes by the colourful online moniker of "floppyshoes" and he comes highly recommended among straight users. You can find him at straightrazorplace, just check the member services area in the classifieds. I'd link you directly to him but I don't know if that's kosher here. If I remember correctly, he charges $12 per straight plus shipping.
He's the guy I've already found. I'll be shipping my straight to him soon enough. Good to see that he's recommended by the community. Thanks for the input. Chris
You can find out for yourself if your razors are shave ready by using the hanging hair test. The idea behind the hanging hair test is to pluck a hair (yours or someone elses) and lower it against the blade to see if it will cut. It should catch the blade and then just lop in half. There are youtube videos showing it being done. These days, I just run my razor over a patch of arm hair or chest hair (not touching the skin, of course) and if it lops off a few hairs, I shave with it.
Maybe and maybe not. A shave ready blade will slice a hanging hair from my head, but maybe not from yours (or your wife's, and certainly not my wife's) If you want to know if it is shave ready, someone who can tell needs to shave with it.
Honing I've seen the videos of all of the tests. I'm actually already shipped my straight to Floppyshoes to have honed. I'm expecting it back soon enough, as it's been just under a week away. Looking forward to having it properly honed by someone. I also picked up a 4000/8000 stone and am playing with honing on my other straight. I can tell you that after just playing on the grits, I have already a substantialy sharper edge than when I got it. Not shave ready (as a guess) but closer than when recieevd. Will be able to do a more thorough comparison once my blade comes back from Floppyshoes. C
Good to know. Thanks for that. I find that my chest hair is a superlative canary in the preverbial shaving coal-mine for testing the sharpness of my razors. Straight razor shaving is still very new to me and there is so... much... information out there. Not to mention product. At any rate, I've been learning a lot and I have a lot to learn. And I'm really enjoying it so far.
Excellent! me too! Although sometimes I am literally irritated by my lack of skill, it still improves overall on an increasingly gradual rate
Straight Razor I got my straight back from Floppyshoes today. It was both sharpened (obvious, isn't it?) and fixed (the blade wasn't going straight into the scales and rubbing at the tip). Thank you for fixing that problem. In reference to the sharpening, it seems to have been ground down a fair bit (nothing major, and probably because of the existing edge <or non edge>). I'll have a go at it and see what a sharp razor really shaves like. Chris
