First straight shave

[ghoz]

Well guys,

Today, I performed my first straight shave, the worst shave since months!:redface:
Being a Safety Razor user does not helped at all. I rather felt like a little boy trying to use its ... pencil for the first time. This definitely need some practice. At least I did not cut my throat. :biggrin:

I got a couple of razors, but none of them was sharp enought to shave.
I tried honing for days on a Belgian Coticule stone, but this one seemed to be too fine and should be used more a finishing stone.

After posting questions and getting answers, I decided to order 2 Norton Stones (220/1000 and 4000/8000) and a diamong one ordered on Woodcraft.com's website. I got the stones within 5 days despite being in Europe! Congrats guys...

I soaked my stones for about 15 minutes ... like instructed.
Nhaaa, I could not wait 15 minutes and started honing after 10!
Heuuuu maybe 8. I know I know ... I won't do it any more. Promise.

I started with a carbon type blade, which is supposed to be honed faster.
After a couple of minutes, I could feel my honing was removing material and started to get a sharper blade.

I tried to cut hairs on my arm ... and it was cutting it! :w00t:
I then wontinued with the finer stones, each at a time for a while.
The razor had never been that sharp ... and I finished it on the Belgian Stone. I stopped it and started a shave.

Ok ... we can't really call this a shave yet. :blushing:
But I'll go on and practice further on.

I want to thank you all again for your help, advices and support.
Greg

[izlat]

Bruno is in Belgium and he offers honing services. Why don't you PM him - this way you will have something to compare to your honing results.

LX Emergency is close too - Netherlands.

I am concerned that you are not shaving with an appropriate edge

Cheers
Ivo

[DEwey]

Bruno is in Belgium and he offers honing services. Why don't you PM him - this way you will have something to compare to your honing results.

LX Emergency is close too - Netherlands.

I am concerned that you are not shaving with an appropriate edge

Cheers
Ivo

Good advice, Ivo. Greg, these are nice guys (if you don't know them already) and they can help you out. Worth it to start on the right foot with a keen edged straight.

[heavydutysg135]

I am really not a fan of people trying to learn to shave with a straight AND learn to hone at the same time. Anyone who wants to have the best chance at success really owes it to themself to have their first razor honed by someone who really knows what they are doing. Otherwise the learning curve will be MUCH steeper than it needs to be and there will be a very high chance of failure. Learn to shave with a shave ready razor first, then you can learn to hone on your own.

[ghoz]

Guys,

First I wanted to thank you all for your advices, this site, due to its contributors is definitively a gret source of information.

I'll contact Bruno and see what we can do together ...
The idea to have a mentor, like while I started using a safety sounds the best approach.

Just to be clear, I'm not the kind of man which gives up easilly.
I decided to try to master the Straight, I well understood that it will be a long process and am not in a hurry at all.

Since I leaned to shave with a Safety, shaving became enjoying.
Playing with a new toy ... is definitively a pure joy. :w00t: