I have decided, for now, to stick to the Shavettes. I am getting great results with my parker srx and will go back to my Dovo shavette too, but for now I am looking for either a Feather artist club ss scotch wood or a DX...the DX seems to get better appraisels, it costs a fair bit more, but I intend for it to be my last Shavette, maybe then I will tread the path towards the SR. My honing skills on knives are above average, but I have no idea if that level will carry over to a straight razor, most of my knives (I have a few :-P) will all shave your arm hair cleanly and will feather cut paper into tiny feathers but I have never tried shaving with one, my big japanese waterstone is 1200grit and i have a nagura stone to get some slurry on top, there are a range of higher grits and wet n dry paper along with a Lansky system sharpening kit...very nice tool, some steels... And diamond grit hones that are good for when outdoors, tho imo the Fallkniven dc3 or dc4 are the best pocket sharpeners out there..dc3 is 3 inches long and dc4 is 4 inches long...great piece of kit, the metal side is slightly course but wears down nicely, where the stone side id nearly like glass and leaves a very clean sharp edge...a few strops and you will have a very sharp blade...probably too sharp, I see no need for large blades to be so sharp...these kinda blades are more meant for kindling, cutting small branches etc...a shave sharp edge will curl in a few hits...I like my smaller cutting knives like Opinel's to be sharp..for cutting food etc... Filliting knives too...iv'e turned this into a camping/fishing post ;-);-) Robert
FWIW........ In case you do decide to pick up a straight, my experience with Glen @gssixgun was positive, I'd recommend it. My first straight from him is still one of my best shavers. You can have the confidence of 'shave ready'. Even if you went new with a TSS Dovo kit you are in about $150 of which you could easily recover 50% if you jump back out. Again, 'known edge'. I've done knives for years, use an Edgepro Apex. I seldom go a finer than 1000 and a pasted leather strop. All the knives I do pass 2 tests; shredding newspaper and slicing tomatoes (even hunting knives). For razors, it is a little different, but folks generally start at 1000 grit. If you wish to do your own edge maintenance I think you would be in another $150. Maybe less if you went with film abrasives, but I have no experience there. I'm still contemplating shavettes, which I believe to be more difficult instrument to master.
I love my Feather folding SS with Pro Guard blades. I bet those wooden handle DX would be very nice as well. I am happy I learned to hone my own razors. I'm currently finished with acquiring more of any razor type. Most of my true SR are from eBay auctions and $20 range. Some were more used and abused than others. All were honed and currently in use from a packet of 3 M films.
$15 to $20 depending on the condition of the edge - e.g. micro chips, etc. Well worth it. You can maintain it for years with a small investment in lapping films.
