Straight razor Newbie question..

[sickz284u]

I am new to straight razor shaving and bought myself a few razors, a decent strop, now I need a sharpening stone. How do you decide which one you need? What grit and such?

Any advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!

[mdunn]

if you bought ebay/non shave ready razors you wont be able to hone them yourself (especially the ebay ones, they often need all kinds of fancy tricks). Not yet at least. Sure, it seems pretty straight forward just running the blade back and forth - but its a bit of a dark art that takes a fair bit of practice.

I suggest getting some of your razors sent out to a honemeister for proper sharpening and if youre interested in honing yourself then use leftover blades to practice on.

Barebones, basic setup for sharpening dull razors as far as im concerned is a 1k, 4k, 8k and 12k. For just touching up razors that have dulled through regular shaving all you need is the 12k (or similar).

lots of good info here (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=28547)

good luck!

what blades did you get?

[professorchaos]

Different hones produce different feeling edges. I'd recommend figuring out what kind of edge you like and then pursuing the items you need to produce it. Unless you want a drawer full of rocks. Hones, I find, can be quite addictive.

[gugi]

You decide (1) what you want to do with the stone (i.e. how dull of an edge you want to sharpen) (2) how much time you want to spend learning (3) how much money you want to spend

That narrows the options significantly

[CraigJ]

I am a fan of the shapton glasstone system. It is a bit pricey but nothing works better IMHO.