Hey guys, I have a straight razor that I got "shave ready" from the invisible edge. I forget the name of the razor but it was supposed to be a decent blade. It's all stainless. Anyway I was getting the hang of shaving with it. I was pretty nervous at first but as my hand was getting surer the blade started pulling and tugging my beard instead of cutting. I admit that I cheaped out on the brush (Walmart special. I know, I know but I did use the conditioner trick and I brought decent soap which I always warmed before putting on. At the time I thought it needed to be sharpened and I didn't have the money for an expensive stone. Thinking about it now what probably happened is that I dulled the blade by stropping it improperly. Eventually I got frustrated and went back to my (really bad) electric razor. However I'm ready to give it another try. I was looking around for sharpening stones but I'm wondering now if that's the right move. Any suggestions on what I should do next? I saw someone in another thread mention a balsa hone which is new to me. Try stropping correctly? I was giving it 25 strops between shaves. I only used it for a month or two. I'm open for suggestions. Thanks
I'm sure that the more experienced straight users will chime in soon. In the meantime here's my bit. Most of the older guys like Glen(gssixgun) will tell you that your first honing won't last long. This is absolutely true. You hit on one point yourself. Improper stropping while still learning can mess up the edge. While learning the proper technique and angle the blade edge will get messed up from use. It's natural for it to get more dull and start tugging pretty quickly. First, get the hang of propped stropping. There are some good vids on YouTube. You'll know when your doing it right. The blade has a certain feel on the leather. Also I like to do about 50 laps before each shave. One stroke up and down is a lap. Don't get too worked up about the brush and soap. You can get a decent lather from most any brush and soap. I straight shave with my Barbasol Menthol foam some mornings when I feel lazy. So once you have a feel for good stropping after a little practice, get your razor peoffessionaly honed. There should be a list in the straight razor section on good honemeisters. These fine gentleman will put an awesome edge on your blade. It'll let you know what your shave should feel like. That way if you later get a set of honing stones, you know what your looking for. Also a barber hone is something that you can get to prolong the life of a blade. It's a stone that you can use to touch up a blade between honing to keep your razor sharp. You should post pica of the razor if you can. Or look for the name printed on it. We all love to see razors here. Good luck getting back into straight shaving. It's a lot of fun when it goes well. Hopefully somebody will come along and give some real advice better than mine
I can't help you on questions about straights, but welcome to TSD! This is the best wet shave board on the planet!
Steve at the Invisible Edge knows his way around a hone, in fact he is considered to be one of the elite honemiesters... I am 99.9% sure you are having another issue, but you are going to have to work through them... First off try a true shave test... You hear this a lot on the forums but what is it???? Prep your beard really well then make the best lather you can manage, wet your face and lather up... Wait ,,, wait,,,wait about 2 minutes (During this time normally you would be stropping ) Now wet the razor. And on your strong side using your strong hand stretching the skin by pulling with the weak hand over the top of your head...Start at the Sideburn using a 20-30 degree angle (about 2 spine widths from the face) shave to the jaw line,,, No pressure toward the skin just a nice smooth stroke WTG... The razor should not pull, tug, or skip, in fact you should be rather surprised with how easy it was... That is it, now do the other side and stop... If it didn't work, then it might actually be the edge... and I still say might, because there are still things in there a Newb can mess up, but we eliminated a ton of them... Really until this works well, there is no sense in trying the rest of your face, it will just hurt... Ok now if that doesn't work let's try stropping... Place the strop on the edge of a table so you eliminate the sagging and flipping wrong portion... Strop the razor 100 laps steady and evenly... Now back to the shave test pass = great now you can start working on the shaving... fail = send an e-mail to Steve and refer him to this thread and ask him for help...Tell him exactly what you have tried thus far...
Glen knows his stuff. Do as the man says. Glen, always great information. I learn a ton of stuff just by reading your responses to others.
I suspect that the problem is that the razor needs to be re-honed. A properly honed razor will provide a good shave regardless of lather. I have shaved many, many times using only a little hand soap rubbed on my face. I recommend that you get a second razor so that you can have one that is shave-ready that you can use as a standard by which to judge the other. Regarding stones, if money is a problem I would consider getting a Norton 4k/8k combo.
I think I'll take a look at the stropping vids on youtube and give that a try. There is an edge on the blade it just doesn't seem quite sharp enough. Assuming I did it right there should be a picture of my razor and strop attached to this post. The razor is all shiny metal so it's hard to photograph well... Oh there is no information stamped on it that I could find. So unless someone recognizes it... I do remember that it had gotten pretty good reviews. It's only down side being the weight since it's all metal. I don't find it heavy so that doesn't bother me. It's not an antique but I do think it was made in the 70s? 80s? I think someone said they were produced in Poland? Wackenpencia? That's not right but it might be something along those lines. Sorry I have a horrible memory... While I did buy the razor from Invisible edge it seems impractical to get it sharpened from them. I'm in California... Thanks for the advice guys.
That is a Wapi or Wapenica... They are known to have slightly softer steel, so yes they are easy to hone and take an extremely sharp edge very easily, but they also can lose it almost as fast from improper stropping.... The good news if you should be able to get it back with some correct stropping... This razor reacts poorly with the more abrasive stropping compounds like the diamond paste on balsa... Chromium Oxide on felt or leather would not be bad... The Dovo series of pastes on leather works well with these razors too... IME and YMMV of course....
