I'm going to take the leap - need help on a setup

Good day everyone..... I have recently gotten the bug to get into straights but I need help.

I want to get a razor that is good, solid quality that could be my only razor (likely wont be) but could be.....so not looking to skimp too much.


There is a local guy in Denver that can do my honing when needed....the GQ Barber Lounge guys swear by him, so does the AoS staff at Cherry Creek Mall.


so really looking for razor and strop.


so, for a guy with 4 small kids, with two in private school .... what is the best setup thay could carry me for a few years.


lets put total budget at $175 and I really appreciate your expertise.

Also, is there a particular soap or cream that produces the more ideal lather for straight shaving?

Also, I did find a, what looks to be brand new, Puma Inox Special locally at a consignment store, scales were great, original case, but the edge of the blade had the slightest ding in it ..... the price is very cheap, could his be honed out?

Perhaps it could be honed out. Pictures are always the most helpful in terms of diagnosis. Is it a 6/8 or a 5/8? I have a 6/8 Puma Inox that I quite enjoy.

Its 6/8

Good steel. Depends on how large that "ding" might be. Puma's are generally one of the "in demand" brands.

My recommendation is make your dollars stretch as far as they can. You'll need two razors because 9 out of ten new shavers prematurely dull their first razor through poor technique shaving or stropping. This way you'll have a backup in case you need to send the other one out. Buy one of Larry's Sight Unseen Straights at whippeddog.com and then troll the BST for a shave ready straight for under 30 bucks. Almost certainly these will shave as well as the Puma you are looking at and they will already be shave ready.

ALso,get Larry's Poor Man's Strop kit. It's got a cheap strop, balsa with green and red paste and some neatsfoot oil. It also has a tiny package of the Veg which you'll want to destroy, ideally in a coke furnace at about 3k degrees. Do NOT open the Veg package unless you are a connoisseur of cat urine.

If you fall in love with straight shaving, many many razors will pass through your hands to say nothing of strops, stones and soaps. Save your money for later. This is all you need in the beginning.

So the Puma for $40 I should or should not get ... easily in as good of condition at the one pictured above and the local guy is confident he can easily hone iy out

Well get it and if you have second thoughts you can easily flip it for double what you paid for

If he says he can hone it out, then you should buy it.

Jboone78 said:

Good day everyone..... I have recently gotten the bug to get into straights but I need help.

I want to get a razor that is good, solid quality that could be my only razor (likely wont be) but could be.....so not looking to skimp too much.


There is a local guy in Denver that can do my honing when needed....the GQ Barber Lounge guys swear by him, so does the AoS staff at Cherry Creek Mall.


so really looking for razor and strop.


so, for a guy with 4 small kids, with two in private school .... what is the best setup thay could carry me for a few years.


lets put total budget at $175 and I really appreciate your expertise.

Also, is there a particular soap or cream that produces the more ideal lather for straight shaving?

Also, I did find a, what looks to be brand new, Puma Inox Special locally at a consignment store, scales were great, original case, but the edge of the blade had the slightest ding in it ..... the price is very cheap, could his be honed out?

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Yes, definitely buy the Puma. That is a very good price for a 6/8 Puma Inox even with an edge ding. It will probably hone out quite easily. Let's see a closeup of the edge!

Another good option is the Dovo Palisander sold by Jarrod at www.thesuperiorshave.com. This is a Bismarck patterned razor without the fancy sissy gold wash and stuff. Just a very good very ergonomic razor for not too bad a price. The new production Boker King Cutter is just a little over $100, usually, and is a great razor. I bought one shortly after they started making it again, after like a 50 year hiatus or something like that.

My recommendation is first of all snatch up that Puma. You can easily flip that on the bay or on BST at a substantial profit if you don't like it. I would like to see that ding, though. Next, consider a Palisander from Jarrod. His razors come shave ready, by the way. You really should have two razors, not just one.

For a strop it is hard to beat the Big Daddy from www.starshaving.com. I have two of them, one for my boat (my home) and one for my ship (my work). Great price for such a huge strop. Quality is not first rate but quite adequate for such a low price. It will gitter done. If you nick up the right edge, no worries. The hardware is removable. You can swap ends and put the damage over on the left side, where your razor will never see it. Or you can get a replacement leather from Ron and replace it outright. A commonly recommended beginner strop is the Poor Man Strop Kit from Larry at www.whippeddog.com and it is ideal for a newbie in that first of all it is so cheap you can consider it expendable. It is meant to be used and abused by newbies, so some corners are cut and it is a very basic strop, so it can be sold for a very low price. Second, it comes with a pasted balsa strop for edge maintenance. However I suspect you want to start out a little higher grade so I recommend starting with the Big Daddy.

For the first week, strop on newspaper. Fold a whole sheet into a long strip 3" wide and pass one end of it over a towel rod. Pinch both ends together and pull tight. Strop. If you slash it up, not such a big deal. Make your beginner mistakes on newspaper. You can easily make a brand new strop every day if you destroy them that fast. It will save your leather strop from the worst of the damage, and it works fairly well, actually.

For a backup razor, Buca is selling shave ready Gold Dollars for $22, which is a crazy low price. You might post a request for a review of his GD's. When these razors ARE properly set up, they are very good shavers even though they look like cheap junk. Not all GDs look cheap, though. Lots of members here take these $4 Chinese razors and really give them the makeover, making things of great beauty and elegance out of them, as well as making them shave extremely well. And let's not forget Larry at the Whipped Dog. He sells shave ready vintage straights pretty cheap. Grab one of his cheap badger brushes while you are at his site. Oh, there is no buy button... email him. Good guy, has helped a lot of newbies get started.

Good luck and happy shaves.

Good advise given so far. Cream or soap? Both are a slippery slope (no pun intended), with many to choose from. I started out with Kent's soap that I picked up on eBay. It's actually Mitchell's Wool Fat made and packaged for Kent. Great stuff! MWF is my go to soap. Speaking of creams, I like Omega, Poraso, and Musgo Real.


Aftershaves are similar, there's a lot to choose from. I love Bay Rum!


You'll need a brush. I started out with a boar bristle brush made by Vulfix that ran about $8. A mug will cost about the same.



Good luck and have fun!

Proraso is easy to learn lathering on. C O Bigelow is too and can be picked up at a bath and body works. It's a good, easy starter soap.

West coast shaving seems to have the best prices on most soaps, etc. you'll have to figure out what you'll like. I prefer tallow based soaps like Mitchell's Wool Fat, Mike's Naturals, or Mystic Water. If you can like the aroma, Tabac is a lather monster. Speick and Palmolive lather quite easily. The tallows are a bit harder to dial in at first, but give the best shaves in my opinion.

Thanks so much everyone.... I have been DE shaving for several years and have many of the soaps and creams above ... I typically use a Hoffritz Slant or Muhle r41 open comb.... my go to soap is Stirling Anise but have many Artisan soaps, Tabac, I Moos, and more.

The ding came right out by the honemaster that Art of Shaving referred me to.



Picked up this very clean Griffon too.... both are now shave ready!!!

Close up of edge...I think he did really well....its a 5/8 by the way... thought it was a 6/8.... still beautiful though.

Very nice score.
Enjoy.

Both are good razors. Very good, actually. I do hope your honer muted the point on the Magnetic, though. If not, do be careful of it. Those square points can dig you up pretty good if you are not careful and don't know what you are doing with it. Very good for trimming and edging, though.

The point really was, those are both fine and generationally usable blades, that you got at a suburb price. You should be perfectly satisfied with them. If you need new vs vintage, you could have mentioned that and others might be more understanding. Had you mentioned you were looking at flipping them vs. keeping them (which is the tone you gave to us, at least how i read it) up front, it would have come across as less disingenuous.

Jboone78 said:

I apologize if this appeared "sleazy" ... which is a strong word until you heard back from me.... but oh well.....I meant no harm and do apologize.

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But you also don't get to define how others feel about your actions, no matter how valid or correct you feel your actions to be.

KW Driver said:

The point really was, those are both fine and generationally usable blades, that you got at a suburb price. You should be perfectly satisfied with them. If you need new vs vintage, you could have mentioned that and others might be more understanding. Had you mentioned you were looking at flipping them vs. keeping them (which is the tone you gave to us, at least how i read it) up front, it would have come across as less disingenuous.



But you also don't get to define how others feel about your actions, no matter how valid or correct you feel your actions to be.

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Valid points and I take them as such and will consider my comments through the more accurate filter of intent when I post in the future....

I am sorry that you appeared sleazy, too, FWIW. Especially since this is the second such thread you have started in the recent past.....With a "Please help me, I am about to spend alot of money on a razor because I want to get into straight shaving...blah, blah, blah". Most here are more than willing to help a newb make an important decision when buying a first straight. That being said, personally, I am not into acting as someone's investment guru.....which is exactly what you seemed to do. From here on out, the response you are likely to get from me is, You pays your money, you's takes your chances. Surely you will be able to grow a pair of beans and decide how to invest your money wisely without appearing to mislead others.

atlanta_hoo said:

I am sorry that you appeared sleazy, too, FWIW. Especially since this is the second such thread you have started in the recent past.....With a "Please help me, I am about to spend alot of money on a razor because I want to get into straight shaving...blah, blah, blah". Most here are more than willing to help a newb make an important decision when buying a first straight. That being said, personally, I am not into acting as someone's investment guru.....which is exactly what you seemed to do. From here on out, the response you are likely to get from me is, You pays your money, you's takes your chances. Surely you will be able to grow a pair of beans and decide how to invest your money wisely without appearing to mislead others.

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You know what ... that is not at all what I was trying to do. I bought the razors, had them honed and got home and read the replies again and really liked the reviews I read on several sites about the Boker being a great razor for newbs , but also one I couls grow with and keep. So I listed the other two razors to hopefully make a few dollars to be able to purchase the Boker and a strop, etc.


I agree that the way it all went down in hindsight appeared like a "razor broker" and for that I am sorry and am pulling the Puma off the auction and will keep it for 15-20 shaves and see how things go. The Griffon's point about took my ear off last night (next to my sideburn) so it will be finding a new home.

please accept my apologies gentlemen.... I value the B&B community and without you guys I will likely end up in the ER as I venture into straight shaving. Your assistance is more important than a profit.

Regards,

Jason