New guy with old razors

**kimo** · 10-15-2006, 04:13 PM

I am just now getting into shaving with a straight razor. I have purchased some razors on ebay, 2 wade and butchers, one double duck gold edge, one Keystone, and 2 Zeepk (these were part of a purchase that included a strop brush and stand).

I don't know how you would rate the quality of these.... but I do wonder what to do regarding sterilizing them.

There is a thread here that deals with sterilzing DE razors that speaks of boiling them..... seems to me that would ruin the handles on a straight edge.

What do yall do?

I look forward to my first shave once I hone the blades. Purchased a natural 12000 stone for the honing.....

Sandalwood soap arrives soon too....

Hope I don't commit harry canary

**jbasl** · 10-15-2006, 04:24 PM

Depending on the shape of the blades you may need more than just a 12k hone. Most moderate restoration jobs require at least a 4k/8k and more restoration will involve lower grits. I'd talk to the people at SRP.

As far as concerns sterlization, dip them in alcohol or barbicide for a little bit but don't worry too much. The honing will take care of any infectants.

If you are new to a straight I highly recommend sending out one of your blades to be honed by a pro (Lynn or Joe at SRP, if you are in europe send it to Alex LX_emergency on this board). You'll want to see what shaving sharp is for comparison so that you'll know how much to hone your blades. Also WBs and Duks are good blades so be careful not to overhone. It is hard to tell the shape of the blades with no pics (and I"m not expert but someone here or at SRP could chime in). If the blades were in good shape I'd have them all honed and get some junkers to practice on. If the blades are not in great shape but are restorable, you might consider contacting Bill Ellis.

All the best and enjoy the razors,

John

**kimo** · 10-15-2006, 04:28 PM

thanks John,

What does a honing usually cost? Being new to this it does seem daunting.

I do like to sharpen knives and am fairly patient with the process.

**jbasl** · 10-15-2006, 04:33 PM

I think the advertised price is 20 bucks, but I bet you if you pmd lynn you'd get a good price (maybe a discount for multi blades).

Honing is really one of my favorite parts of straight razor shaving. I love maintaining my own blades. However, at first its good to have some razors that are done by pros so you know what you are doing. I'd go get some guides off of SRP on honing. If you end up not wanting to do the honing yourself, you can get away with just getting a pasted paddle strop for touch up maintenance (these are technically honing tools but are more like stropping than honing). Then you send out your razors once or twice a year for a tune up but mainly once a month or every six weeks you just hit your pasted strop.

If you decide you want to learn to hone, the investment will probably cost you another 70 dollars or so for a Norton 4k/8k combo hone (unless you have something like that already) and thats on top of the costs you'll incur for razors and a strop.

Honestly your best bet is to make friends with the guys on SRP. They really helped get me off the ground with straight shaving. Many of them are willing to get on skype and talk you through stuff (Randy gave me a honing lesson).

**kimo** · 10-15-2006, 04:39 PM

sorry guys, I don't know your abbreviations.... What is SRP

I also don't know the individuals you have mentioned or how to contact them.

When I say new, I mean a newbie..... just found your site.

Thanks

**jbasl** · 10-15-2006, 04:53 PM

Sorry to be so quick with that.

SRP = straight razor place (www.straightrazorplace.com)

Lynn = founder of SRP his forum name over there is adjustme69
Joe = Joe Chandler; a member of SRP that fixes and sells razors
Bill = Urleebird; member of SRP who is very good at restoration
Tony = Tony Miller; member of SRP and stropmaker (AMAZING STROPS)
Alex = lxemergency; member of SRP and this site also knows what he is doing
Randy = randydance; member of SRP and knows his stuff as well

Most of these guys are members here too but they mainly hang out at SRP. If you go there and scour for info you will find a ton of stuff. I wish I had a link to a place with all the info in one place but I don't. When I started i just scoured and collected.

If you have any specific questions once you get started feel free to PM me and I'll see what i can do. My hunch is that after visiting SRP (mainly the forum) you'll find everything you need.

Hope that helps,

John

**kimo** · 10-15-2006, 04:56 PM

Thanks,

I tried to drop over with the link but keep getting an internal server error message.

Could just be timing.... Ill keep trying.

**sphughes** · 10-15-2006, 04:57 PM

SRP is the Straight Razor Place. www.straightrazorplace.com. Currently the site is undergoing maintenance and it is down so don't be discouraged if you don't get it right away.

Read through the posts in the forum for some general info and contact info for the referenced people can be easily found either through the member list or direct links in the forum postings.

Feel free to pm if you have any questions. Shaving with my straight edges and quality soap/creme is a quantum leap beyond the old Mach 3 - Barbasol experience.

-Scott-

**jbasl** · 10-15-2006, 04:58 PM

I think SRP is down for maintenance today. Sorry about that.

I might have some guides in pdf on my laptop. If I can find them I'll send them along to you.

Do you have any pics of your razors? I'd love to see the WBs and the Duk

**Steelforge** · 10-15-2006, 09:34 PM

Yeah SRP is down while they switch to a new server, we're all suffering withdrawal symptoms!

It would be best to get your razors honed by a pro the first time, that way you'll get them shaving sharp and you'll also have a useful benchmark for the future when you start trying to hone yourself.

The 12K stone will be fine for periodically refreshing an honed edge which has started to go dull from shaving, but as others have said you'll need a 4K/8K stone too for any real honing. Honing is not easy when you are new at it, I've tried honing a cheap ebay razor and I can't quite get it shaving sharp yet - though I can refresh the edge of my other razor which was honed by a pro.

www.straightrazorplace.com should hopefully be back up later today, so if you can - try to hold out until it's back up then register there. There's a great bunch of folks there who will help you out.

By the way the 2 W&B's and the Goldedge sound like great finds if they're in good condition, they are very popular on SRP!

Edit: Actually it seems SRP has been back up for a while but the DNS servers of some peoples ISP's are taking a while to pick up the change of server.

**kimo** · 10-16-2006, 07:54 AM

The WB and Gold edge were $7 respectively.... their photos looked good. I hope they haven't been overhoned.

Still can't get into SRP

Thanks for you info guys.

As to honing.... I do have Arkansas hard and soft stones.... should I start with those before going to the 12000?

**Steelforge** · 10-16-2006, 01:31 PM

Yeah I can't get into SRP either, it is up but my ISP's DNS server hasn't updated the change yet so it is still looking for the old server. I guess yours is doing the same.

Hopefully all will be well tomorrow. It's worth hanging on and then contacting Lynn or Joe to get your razors honed, they are experts.

**randydance062449** · 10-18-2006, 08:06 AM

I would not use the Arkansas stones on your razors. Some people have done so but they are not really suitable for a Str8.
There are much better stones available.

Forget about the Zeepk razors, they are made of very poor quality steel that gives a poor, scratchy shave and does not hold an edge. Usually the grinding is also "off".

The 12,000 stone is a finishing hone. For vintage Ebay razors you should have 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, to remove the old oxidised steel on the edge and remove nicks, a 4000 hone to establish the bevel, the 8000 hone to refine the edge to shaving sharpness and then something finer to finish off the edge.

Hope this helps,

Originally Posted by kimo

The WB and Gold edge were $7 respectively.... their photos looked good. I hope they haven't been overhoned.

Still can't get into SRP

Thanks for you info guys.

As to honing.... I do have Arkansas hard and soft stones.... should I start with those before going to the 12000?

**kimo** · 10-25-2006, 02:01 PM

Got the word from the wife that buying a 4000-8000 stone has to be put off till next month.

How do I proceed without it? I have some 2000 sandpaper that I could use to shape up these used blades.... should I move ahead or just wait?

When you hone, do you point the blade edge toward the stone or pull it away from the stone having the back of the blade come toward you? Knife honing involves the former and I'm used to doing that.

How do you determine how many passes on the lower level grits?

Also, do you treat the strop with anything? what about the water proofing stuff link mink oil?

I still don't get the use for the linen thing.

Until then, maybe I just polish and clean up the blades using the dremel.

**mparker762** · 10-25-2006, 07:12 PM

You can start on the soft and hard arkansas, but to get it to shaving sharp you'll need at least a translucent or black arkansas. I've got many of the "better" hones, but I keep coming back to the lowly translucent arkansas.

**Steelforge** · 10-25-2006, 09:40 PM

I would say the best thing would be to buy a copy of Lynn Abrams' "World of Straight Razor Shaving" DVD from SRP.

http://www.straightrazorplace.com/fo...ead.php?t=7412

It covers pretty much everything you need to know, and certainly answers all the questions you are asking here. Seeing the techniques of honing/stropping/shaving expained and demonstrated clearly is invaluable IMO. Lynn also covers basic restoration on the DVD too, just cleaning and polishing, and tightening loose pins etc. It's a really worthwhile purchase.

**AFDavis11** · 10-30-2006, 09:07 PM

Each grit has an objective, re-read Randy's post to match the grit up to the objective. Honing takes lots of experience and practice. As I mentioned in my PM, hone into the edge.

Linen is used for gross (as in not finite) alignment and leather is used for finite alignment of the shaving edge. The two work well in tandem.

Leave the strop alone for now.

**kimo** · 11-05-2006, 11:34 AM

Well, just to pass the time, I got out my specially flattened 2x8" block of steel and wrapped a 2000 grit wet/dry sand paper around it.

I took one of the razors, the Double duk and proceeded to hone. I think I took 100 passes just to be sure that any corrosion was removed.

I then went to the 12,000 grit and did about 300 passes to see if I could get it sharp enough. I can get it to the point where it can cut arm hair with multiple passes (I am 1/4 native american and have little body hair and what does exist is not that course).

I did another 200 passes on the hone and then did 25 on the linen and 50 on the leather strop.

I lathered up and tried to shave.... still not sharp enough. It is incredibly sharp, but not sharp enough to shave with.

I wonder if my stropping technique is correct as well. I hold the strop tight and bring the razor with blade trailing toward the rear of the stroke. I put no real pressure on the blade and try to hold it so both leading edge and trailing edge are touching with little pressure.

Seems that after all the passes on honing....even with a 12,000 grit stone, it should reach a point of shaving sharpness.

I guess I'll continue to play with this until I get the other stone. Wonder how many passes on a 8000 grit gets translated into passes on a 12,000 grit?

Do you multiply by a factor of 5, 10, 20?

**mparker762** · 11-05-2006, 11:54 AM

You really need a few grits in between the sandpaper and the 12k hone, which I'm guessing is one of the chinese waterstones popular with woodworkers for honing their chisels.

The sandpaper would have rounded the edge a bit, as well as leaving extremely deep grooves in the blade. I recently did this with a blade that had a nick, and I needed ~100 laps on the norton 4k just to get a clean bevel back. The chinese waterstones do work well, but they are extremely slow compared to synthetic hones of similar grit. So if you're planning on getting that blade into shaving shape with just the chinese you can do it, but it's gonna take a *lot* of time, that hone is a very good hone but it's primarily a polishing hone, it just doesn't remove material very well.

**AFDavis11** · 11-05-2006, 12:40 PM

8,000K/12,000K= 2/3.

Maybe 12K will cut about 2/3 slower or 2 strokes on 8K should = 3 strokes on 12K . . . ok just kidding, I dunno!

Just hone until its sharp! If the razor is really dull you can add some pressure stropping and draw out the sharpness a little but this is an advanced technique most people can't pull off.

Just keep on a honing, remember to ease up on the pressure towards the end.