Newbie introduction to straight razors

Hi guys, nice to make your acquaintance.

I'll introduce myself by saying that I have no experience with straight razors whatsoever. I hope to change that.

I do, however, have a good deal of experience with sharp metal objects from woodworking. I have a quite decent collection of sharpening media:

· Course stones – 120 grit, 240 grit and 400 grit Sigma Power stones (ceramic)
· Medium stones – King 1000 grit and King 6000 grit waterstones (traditional clay binder)
· Fine stones – Chosera 10,000 grit.
· Strops - kangaroo leather and horse butt leather strops (glued to flat hardwood timbers), some dressed with Veritas green rouge.

I also have a lovingly restored hand-cranked grinder with a range of grinding and buffing wheels and compounds.

I don’t have a barber’s strop, but I believe that I could make one without too much difficulty. (Please correct me if I’m wrong). I’ve some nice brass Chicago bolts and rivets put aside for that purpose, and some high quality vegetable-tanned kangaroo tail leather (I'm in Australia, so it's cheap and easy to find).

I also have a lovely marblewood badger-hair shaving brush and a maple burl scuttle, courtesy of my girlfriend.

I do not, however, own a razor. I’m working on that. Right now I have my eye on a vintage razor stamped Wald Ern (Solingen) from eBay, which I’d expect to pay about $30-50 bucks for. I know nothing about this razor and can’t find much on the net about it. However, I know that pre-war Solingen steel is considered excellent for knives and woodworking tools, so I’m willing to take a punt on this one. Doesn’t appear to be bent, or have any visible nicks.

I realise that buying an unrestored vintage razor is a bad idea for a newbie. However, I’ve restored many dozens of knives and antique woodworking tools and hope that the fundamental principles of restoration, honing and sharpening will be the same, more or less. (Other than stropping, which is very different indeed– the idea of taking a flexible strop to a chisel makes me shudder.)

So with that lengthy introduction (of sorts) out of the way, I’ve the following questions:

1. What more should I consider purchasing at this stage? Is this little kit a good intro to the hobby?
2. Can anyone direct me to a good resource on restoring vintage razors?
3. Am I right in assuming that, very broadly speaking, anything made in Sheffield or Solingen before WW2 is likely to be high quality?
4. Is there anything in particular I need to look out for buying a vintage razor, other than nicks in the blade?

head to the straight razor forum

1. Whipped dog.com
2. Restoration sub-forum
3. Mostly yes
4. I look for good scales, a straight edge, hone wear and rust.

Some might suggest the jump from 1K to 6K to 10K is big. Don't know if it can't be done, probably can.. But it appears atypical.

As long as you aren't buying Pakistani Damascus , gb buckinghams or props, most vintage razors should be okay.

Thanks to the administrators for relocating this thread for me.

global_dev said:

Some might suggest the jump from 1K to 6K to 10K is big. Don't know if it can't be done, probably can.. But it appears atypical.

As long as you aren't buying Pakistani Damascus , gb buckinghams or props, most vintage razors should be okay.

Click to expand...

I think that it is possible to skip between those grits, because the King style stone has a very soft clay binder and releases a lot of slurry, which effectively breaks down into smaller abrasive particles. You need to have enough practice with the stones to know how much water to use, what pattern strokes and whatnot. You can't do this with a lot of more "modern" stones with resin or ceramic binders, where a 1000-6000 leap would normally be too great, unless you have a super fast cutting fine stone (like the Sigma Powers). Trade off is that the King stons are far slower, dish easily and generally make a mess.

HOWEVER all of that applies to woodworking tools. No idea whether it applies to razors. I also don't know whether it applies to knives (beyond 1000 grit I use a steel).

@Charliefoxtrot, is "hone wear" to be determined by looking at the spine, or can you tell by looking at the edge?

I've been doing a little more reading on this forum and boy, is this a daunting topic.

Hone wear is seen at the spine, but is only an issue if the geometry of the bevel is too acute because of the wear.

Seems you are motivated, you will excel. Welcome