Closed Straight razor waiting list and status (learn to straight shave - need new guys!)...

Okeydokey (sorry), you're after Greg/jeepie. I'll put you up for it and maybe you can contact each other, if the razor needs refreshing on hones I can do it or someone close to ither you or jeepie maybe...
 
I still have the razor. Need to give it another try to confirm it is blunt and it's is not just my crap technique giving me a terrible shave. I have tried 3 times now and it does not feel like it is slicing through the hairs, just tugging. Tried my pretend straight and that is fine.

Any suggestions before I give it a final try.
 
bigfatbloke71 said:
I still have the razor. Need to give it another try to confirm it is blunt and it's is not just my crap technique giving me a terrible shave. I have tried 3 times now and it does not feel like it is slicing through the hairs, just tugging. Tried my pretend straight and that is fine.

Any suggestions before I give it a final try.
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It may well be blunt - however i will say that your pretend (i presume shavette) is a entirely different creature. your straight will never be that sharp, work on your angles - or it may (even for peace of mind) be worth getting it honed as a place to start from.

However even in the short time I have been straight razor shaving - i have seen many many people say exactly the same thing upon first use of the straight. (me included by the way).
 
Please take me off the list, I was sharing me concerns with Jeepie, probably gonna end up blaming the blade sharpness for my crap technique. I will instead invest in something shave ready, or get something shave readied for me. I have enough new toys to be getting on with atm anyway!
 
bigfatbloke71 said:
I still have the razor. Need to give it another try to confirm it is blunt and it's is not just my crap technique giving me a terrible shave. I have tried 3 times now and it does not feel like it is slicing through the hairs, just tugging. Tried my pretend straight and that is fine.

Any suggestions before I give it a final try.
Click to expand...

I think this would be an ideal opportunity for a beginner to give some feedback. If you are getting on OK with a shavette then that means you are getting used to the technique required even though the angles are different.

So, get a shave ready razor of your own - I'll send you one if you want, which I guarantee is shave ready, use it for whatever number of times is necessary and then report back on whether it's the razor or your technique that was the problem.

The only condition is that you invest in a strop - say £15 from EBay. The razor I send will be worth far more.

Rob
 
Hi Rob,

I'd be very happy to take you up on your kind offer. I'm very interested in straight shaving having thoroughly enjoyed the experience of DE shaving for the past six months. I have no experience of straights at all, so definitely qualify as a beginner. I've never held a straight nor sharpened a knife so am really looking forward to learning new skills. I am next on the list for the pass around straight so this sounds like a suitable alternative.

I like the ceremony of shaving now and think a straight fits well with this idea of taking time to get a great shave but the skills learned and results being worth it! I love pampering myself too as I'm worth it! :icon_razz:

I'd be happy to do a diary on here or participate in a thread to help newbies like myself similar to Mylo's excellent reports. Let me know your ideas and we can take it from there.

Cheers

Greg
 
@jeepie - I was responding to post 82 really because it would be interesting to establish whether what he thinks is a non-shave ready blade is in fact the case.

There are quite a few threads where beginners report that the blade is not sharp enough when it's the technique that's at fault - so I thought it might help anyone on the list to understand that there is a steep learning curve.

Give it a day to see if he responds and, if not, we can work something out as I like the idea of your diary.
 
It might be that bigfatbloke's chin is a bit sore, I think he may have found himself working his way through the Digress, Clog Pruf and Fatboy pass arounds at the same time, probably started on his legs and arms by now, hehe!
 
Hi All,

Just to let you know that the straight razor pass around arrived yesterday evening in Reading massive. Thanks very much to bigfatbloke for passing it on to me.

So far, I've just shaved the dominant hand cheek. Got up at 6am when my young kids were safely sleeping! The "dipping my toe in the water shave" seemed to go OK and the razor was very fun to use. The razor is much lighter than I imagined and it's easy to twirl and twist about - it's lighter than my DE89 safety razor which means you have to apply some pressure to get the razor to move. I wasn't expecting this as I thought it would be heavy in the hand and the weight of the razor and gravity would do the job.

I reckon this is definitely an option for a weekend shave as it wasn't as technically challenging as I expected and once you have the blade at the correct angle you can cover quite a bit of your face in one go. Tomorrow I'm going to try both cheeks. I'm going to try left handed and see how that goes; so the dominant and non-dominant sides.

Couple of questions guys: is there a test I can do to validate the razor is sharp. I know this is a newbie question and gets asked a lot but the razor is not as sharp as I anticipated. For example, the test for knife sharpness is can you cut a sheet of paper by cutting in the direction of the shortest side. Is there a similar objective test for sharpness of a straight?

Also - just wanted to know the "polite" amount of time (as this is my first pass around) to hold on to the razor for before passing it on to Okeydokey who is next on the list I believe.

After I've shaved both cheeks I'm going to attempt stropping the razor.

Thanks for your help so far. Really pleased I've finally got to give a straight a go! Thanks for your support!

Greg
 
Hi All,

Really loving my first straight shaving experience with UKRob's lovely Leresche frameback. I've had 3 shaves with it so far and stropped it once - I'm more nervous about the stropping aspect than the shaving! Now Okeydokey was on the list but has been taken off, so I don't believe there is anyone waiting at this point in time. This suits me well as I can only try straight shaving on weekend days as I am customer facing at work - when I'm more competent I'm hoping I can shave with a straight in the week. Therefore I'd like to try the straight next weekend as well if possible?

If you need to co-ordinate the next pass around please do contact me. I still have some way to go, but am enjoying straight shaving enough to purchase my own straight. I'm once again going to be seeking advice as to how to go about this and what the best route would be so would appreciate if you guys could look out for my post and offer your knowledge.

Cheers

Greg
 
OK Mr Bean. No worries at all. When you get back PM me your address and I'll pass the straight on. I'll have had time to give it a few goes by then and have actually purchased my own straight from UKRob as I've enjoyed using this one so much. It's a really different experience from DE shaving. Very tricky though!
 
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