So it begins...

Well, I resisted for a few years, but I recently bought this straight on the BST. Will ship on Monday, but I have a few questions:

Who is a great honemeister?

Is that a decent straight for a new straight shaver? I figured vintage, German, should be ok?

Is that what would be called a hollow ground?

If I get a good hone-job done on it, can I keep it in good shape for awhile with a strop?

Speaking of strops, since Tony Miller is no longer making strops, can you recommend a good one?

How often do I need to have it honed?

Sorry for all the questions, but well, oh heck, you guys understand, look who I'm talking too!

Welcome aboard!

Looks like a nice razor, even if it does say junkwerks!

pcullens said:

Is that a decent straight for a new straight shaver? I figured vintage, German, should be ok?

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Looks like a very nice quality vintage straight. My only concern would be using a spike point for your first straight shave. Be extra cautious, so as to not jab the spike point into a protrusion on your face.

If I get a good hone-job done on it, can I keep it in good shape for awhile with a strop?

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A straight can go 10-20 shaves, before needing a touch up re-honing. One can perform this touch up with a Barber's hone, or with some chromium oxide pasted balsa.

Speaking of strops, since Tony Miller is no longer making strops, can you recommend a good one?

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The general recommendation is to buy a cheaper strop as your first one, as you have a great likelihood of damaging it, and you don't want to buy a high end strop, and then destroy it with your newbie stropping technique. So something in the $20-30 range should work great.

Check out the Filly strop from RupRazor.com, and the very nice leather/ felt combo strops from "starshavingsupplies" on Ebay. The Filly is $20 shipped, and a 2.5 inch wide strop from "starshavingsupplies" is $25 shipped.

I think the strop from starshavingsupplies is nicer, as it is quite a bit longer than the Filly, along with having a linen component as well.

How often do I need to have it honed?

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As noted above, depending on your stropping technique, and the roughness of your beard hair, a razor will require some sort of touch up every 10-20 shaves. If you are using Chromium Oxide, you will eventually need a full re-honing, as the Chromium Oxide will eventually round the edge.

There are people who have kept an edge on a straight razor with just a Barber's hone for at least a couple of years. This assumes you don't damage the edge via banging it against the sink (for example).

Sorry for all the questions, but well, oh heck, you guys understand, look who I'm talking too!

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Always happy to answer any, and all questions I am qualified to answer.

I see you are in Texas, Ken Rupalski is a fellow Texan who is highly regarded.
He sells the Filly strop (20 USD) shipped & he is one heck of a honer.
ruprazor.com will take you there

Hey Phil!

Nice to have you on the str8 wagon...best of luck.

My biggest advice to you....one Newb to another...is to take it slow and dont expect great results right off the bat. I watched all the videos, read most of the Newb str8 threads here and at SRP. I still didn't truly appreciate that shaving with a str8 is more of an art form that DE shaving by far....it just takes a ton of skill, practice and technique.

Best of luck and post your results!

Just a few comments:

Chromiun Oxide paste, or diamond paste or other similar fine abrasives do not have to round the edge much, if at all. Excellent results can be had, using a flat paddle or bench strop. Just remember to carefully wipe your blade after stropping with paste, before using your unpasted strop for final stropping. I prefer a hanging strop for the regular, final stropping but an unpasted paddle works well too, if it (an unpasted paddle strop) is large enough; and it can help to prevent a lot of newbie boo-boos IMHO. The hanging strop is maybe faster for most users, but it is easy to develop careless habits of technique with the hanging strop.

Best general advice I can give is easy does it. Don't use too much pressure on the strop and don't get in a big hurry. Don't get in a big hurry shaving, either. Stretch the skin well. See the vids for technique. Don't press too hard, and don't use too steep an angle. You want to cut whiskers, not scrape them off. And I think the newbie should, for the first couple of months, concentrate on getting as good a shave as possible going ONLY WITH THE GRAIN. (WTG) Learn to feel the direction of growth, and learn your face, especially where the hair grows in unexpected directions or makes whorls. Make a complete pass over the entire face, re-lather, and do it all again. When you are getting a decent shave WTG and not cutting yourself, work into XTG (across he grain) and finally ATG (against the grain). Slowly slowly catchee monkey, as Confucius said. Or somebody. At the end of this learning process you should be getting excellent barber quality shaves with few if any cuts.

Even when using a pasted strop, you will want a proper honing every couple of months, IMHO. The pasted strop is not as flat as a well-lapped stone, and you will be able to restore that nice, crisp, flat bevel on a good rock. If you choose to do your own honing and you start out with a shave-ready razor, you will not need any coarse stones and you can even skip the 1k or equivelant stones, since the bevel is aready set and you are only maintaining it. A 4k-8k combination stone is a good choice, and if you touch up with a pasted strop, you don't absolutely need any finer stones though a 12k would be nice to have. So that gets you down to just one stone.

If the razor you buy is not claimed to be shave-ready, then it most probably is not shave ready. I'm not saying that you can't hone it yourself-- there is enough information here in these forums to walk you through the process if you have good mechanical aptitude-- but having someone more experienced do it for the first time is well worth whatever it might cost. About $15 seems to be the going rate these days. Once that bevel is initially set, you can probably teach yourself how to maintain it, and like I said, you can get away with using just one stone.

The Star Shaving Supply strop looks like a great one for the newbie, though I have never used one of theirs. It is cheap so if you damage it beyond salvage you are not out a big pile of money. Its quality is definitely in the "good enough" level. They also sell a pretty nice black badger brush that I have, and like, and I believe I got a new shave-ready Gold Dollar razor from him, too, at a decent price. I would avoid buying a vintage strop for your first strop, unless you get it from someone you can trust to give you a good one that does not cup excessively and has no major damage. Later you can learn how to recondition old strops, but for now start out with one that you can assume to be adequate for your needs. The fewer wild cards the better.

As for the razor you selected, it looks perfectly okay to me, though I do have some reservations about the spike point for beginner, and my crystal ball sees a nasty cut or two in your near future. Learn from them. A spike is a great razor for the experienced shaver. You are just gonna get your experience a little faster, that's all. Be meticulously careful where you let that point touch you. I love the spike for getting right up there below the nostrils but this is delicate work and must be done carefully. Some would say it would be a good idea to have your honemeister mute the tip slightly, but I think maybe it should be left alone, and you should learn to live with it and see if you can eventually use it to its fullest potential.

Just about anybody on BnB who offers on the forum to hone your razor or who has a standing offer to all and sunry to hone their razors is going to be capable of putting an excellent edge on your new prize, and will have the tools to do it with. Of course all bets are off when it comes to offers via PM. No peer review, you see. I pretty much do all my own honing, cause my edges are good enough for me, and I don't hone for anyone else because I know that there are others who will do it better than me. The guy who says he can will be capable, or else get shouted down on the forum.

Just about any razor can be called hollow ground, but there are degrees of hollowgroundedness. Yours is most definitely hollowground, yes, but I don't consider myself authoritative enough or discriminating enough to judge just were it falls in the range, nomenclature-wise.

I doubt you would be interested in a honemeister on this side of the atlantic but if you need one Mr. Nienberg in Münster Germany did a grat job on my razors.

Whatever you choose to do, good luck and enjoy the experience. YMMV and admittedly I have only had 15 shaves but I find that the straight razor shave itself is really not as difficult as it is made out to be.

Good advices up here...

Honemeister: http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/index.php/Honemeister

I would search their usernames and check what they do.

.Slowly slowly catchee monkey

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If I had the power, Slash, that'd be your new user title! Great post, but that little bit cracked me up!

Seraphim said:

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If I had the power, Slash, that'd be your new user title! Great post, but that little bit cracked me up!

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Caught that too!

Seraphim said:

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If I had the power, Slash, that'd be your new user title! Great post, but that little bit cracked me up!

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Thank you, Serphim. It would be a welcome change for the better.

Seraphim said:

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If I had the power, Slash, that'd be your new user title! Great post, but that little bit cracked me up!

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HEY MODS! Don't you think that is a good idea? It would bring great credit and plenty of good karma to the mod who would change poor Slash's title! Come on, guys... have some good taste, and treat your brother shaver with some dignity!

Slash McCoy said:

HEY MODS! Don't you think that is a good idea? It would bring great credit and plenty of good karma to the mod who would change poor Slash's title! Come on, guys... have some good taste, and treat your brother shaver with some dignity!

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Anyone requesting a title change is by default denied a title change.

luvmysuper said:

Anyone requesting a title change is by default denied a title change.

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"There is a first time for everything." (The wise old Master Kan to young Kwai Chang Caine, on his decision to admit the half-Chinese boy to the Shaolin Temple as a student in "Kung Fu")

In the same spirit, undeserving yet hopeful, I present myself, as one who, as suggested by the Tao, wishes not to know the answers, but to understand the questions.

Just because you are saying ancient kung-fu things, does not mean the mods will assign you a cool kung-fu title!

I'm starting to think you are going to be Nancie-boy'd for life..

Slash McCoy said:

HEY MODS! Don't you think that is a good idea? It would bring great credit and plenty of good karma to the mod who would change poor Slash's title! Come on, guys... have some good taste, and treat your brother shaver with some dignity!

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How about "begging and pleading for dignity"?

ouch said:

How about "begging and pleading for dignity"?

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Yes, that sounds like a nice title. Much better than the one I have, anyway.

pcullens said:

Well, I resisted for a few years, but I recently bought this straight on the BST. Will ship on Monday, but I have a few questions:

Who is a great honemeister?

Is that a decent straight for a new straight shaver? I figured vintage, German, should be ok?

Is that what would be called a hollow ground?

If I get a good hone-job done on it, can I keep it in good shape for awhile with a strop?

Speaking of strops, since Tony Miller is no longer making strops, can you recommend a good one?

How often do I need to have it honed?

Sorry for all the questions, but well, oh heck, you guys understand, look who I'm talking too!

Click to expand...

A lot of good advice Phil, good luck with your endeavor.
Remember that crappy shaves are a given for a while.
Keep us posted on your progress!

Crappy shave are not necessarily a given. Just crappy straight razor shaves. I've been cheating and doing my first pass with the straight (crappy) then my second two passes with a SE. This means I get to learn the new tool and I still have a good shave in the end. (+ a few nicks I might not have had if I'd only used the SE)

It seems to be working so far. Each time my Straight shave pass seems to go a bit smoother, and the good thing about using the SE for the next passes is it provides more feedback than a DE, telling me how much hair was left and where. Shaving training wheels.

legion said:

Crappy shave are not necessarily a given. Just crappy straight razor shaves. I've been cheating and doing my first pass with the straight (crappy) then my second two passes with a SE. This means I get to learn the new tool and I still have a good shave in the end. (+ a few nicks I might not have had if I'd only used the SE)

It seems to be working so far. Each time my Straight shave pass seems to go a bit smoother, and the good thing about using the SE for the next passes is it provides more feedback than a DE, telling me how much hair was left and where. Shaving training wheels.

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Alot of folks advocate AGAINST doing this...but I'm not one of them. As a military man who has to be clean shaven during the week...I can't go to work looking like I took a jagged saw to my face. As such, I've adopted a similar method so that I can:

A) still learn str8 shaving
B) still go to work looking halfway decent

The only trick is to ensure and pay attention to what stubble is left over from your str8 passes as you clean up with a DE/SE (as you describe) and then contemplate how to attack it differently with a str8 the next day.

This provides a forward progress to this method.