Hi all......i recently acquired this....i know it needs honing....can anyone give me some tips on the basics and equipment needed?........ty......rick
J. R. Torrey Co. heron with fish straight razor
Rick that's an easier said than done one. To start with, go to the SMF Home page (see link above) and read Dr. Chris Moss's excellent article on Straight Razor Shaving. Then, you need to visit Straight Razor Place and go to the classified section where you will find a helpful video created a few years back by the legendary Lynn Abrams on the same subject. Or you can do what everybody else does the first time and send it to one of the guys who can fix you right up. The one that comes to mind first is Glen, also known as gssixgun, one of the moderators over at SRP. Send him an email, the sooner the better. He'll ask you to send the razor to him, and he'll take it from there. That is truly the only thing you should do if you're only wanting one razor made shave ready. Good luck! Here's Glen's email address: gssixgun@gemstarcustoms.com
Gary
SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
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Hi Rick,
There's some reading/watching to do - Brothers tells you right. In browsing the forums, it can be overwhelming. In your initial research - only 3 things are critical up front: the shave technique itself, beard prep/making lather, and stropping.
The shave is well covered by
http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/i ... azor_shave
For making lather, Mantic is excellent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7Aj9vwrtc
Once you can make lather (practice several times), you can do a normal beard prep. Wet face, lather up, massage the lather into your beard for a FULL 2 minutes. this will erase the lather, but that's not a prob. Re-wet, re-lather - shave according to the first link.
One of the harder things to get right is the stropping. I was HORRIBLE at it, destroying 5 strops in the process.
http://straightrazorplace.com/beginners ... 011-a.html
Be sure to watch the embedded vids of afdavis showing the all important 'flip' at the end of a stroke - its where all the carnage happens. Another great thread was
http://www.razorandstone.com/showthread ... your-strop
As far as honing goes - I would urge you not to try to learn to shave with edges that come from learning to hone. That blade seems to be in good enough shape (little restorative grinding needed) I'd be happy to hone for free - just pick up actual cost of bubble-pack env. and postage to get it back to you - about $3.25. I've done it for over 200 others, and honed blade #355 earlier this week.
There's some reading/watching to do - Brothers tells you right. In browsing the forums, it can be overwhelming. In your initial research - only 3 things are critical up front: the shave technique itself, beard prep/making lather, and stropping.
The shave is well covered by
http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/i ... azor_shave
For making lather, Mantic is excellent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7Aj9vwrtc
Once you can make lather (practice several times), you can do a normal beard prep. Wet face, lather up, massage the lather into your beard for a FULL 2 minutes. this will erase the lather, but that's not a prob. Re-wet, re-lather - shave according to the first link.
One of the harder things to get right is the stropping. I was HORRIBLE at it, destroying 5 strops in the process.
http://straightrazorplace.com/beginners ... 011-a.html
Be sure to watch the embedded vids of afdavis showing the all important 'flip' at the end of a stroke - its where all the carnage happens. Another great thread was
http://www.razorandstone.com/showthread ... your-strop
As far as honing goes - I would urge you not to try to learn to shave with edges that come from learning to hone. That blade seems to be in good enough shape (little restorative grinding needed) I'd be happy to hone for free - just pick up actual cost of bubble-pack env. and postage to get it back to you - about $3.25. I've done it for over 200 others, and honed blade #355 earlier this week.