straight razor shaving
- Thread starter JOHN F
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I've been using straight edge razors for over about 15 years now. Here's what I've learned...
1) You'll actually cut yourself far less than you will with a safety razor. Don't attempt to shave while your wife and kids are in the bathroom with you, chatting or potentially bumping into you though. Keeping your skin tight as you shave by making all sorts of interesting faces is important, as is shaving with the "grain" of your whiskers.
2) They're incapable of clogging, unlike safety razors. A huge improvement if you happen to shave along the side of a beard or have a few days of stubble to contend with
3) Sharpening: I first thought I'd be sharpening mine on a surgical grade stone. I was wrong, as a stone is completely unneccesary unless you have to remove a serious nick in the blade. What I use now is an antique four-sided strop, which you can probably find on Ebay. Here's a link to one like mine: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-5...0001&campid=5338413729&icep_item=332926513654
A) One side is hard leather supported by wood and impregnated with red rouge. I've never had to apply or renew the rouge in all the time I've owned it. This takes the place of a stone, and is used maybe twice a year. Don't overdo it here, as this removes lots of metal. Wiping it down with a little water on your finger afterwards seems to reset the rouge and keep it cutting well.
B) Two sides are suspended (and flexible) leather which pushes in when you run the blade over it. This is where 95% of your sharpening occurs. You're just using these to bend and break off the wire edge that comes from using the rouge impregnated side; probably about 50 strokes on either side initially after using the rouge side of the paddle. When the razor dulls after a couple months, about 20x on each side here will give you a good edge again.
C) The fourth side is a hard leather just like the first side, but is not impregnated with any rouge. I just give the blade 2-3 strokes on a side with this as a final finishing touch, which centers any remaining wire edge so the razor works well from both sides.
So far as I can tell, a good razor will last a lifetime.
1) You'll actually cut yourself far less than you will with a safety razor. Don't attempt to shave while your wife and kids are in the bathroom with you, chatting or potentially bumping into you though. Keeping your skin tight as you shave by making all sorts of interesting faces is important, as is shaving with the "grain" of your whiskers.
2) They're incapable of clogging, unlike safety razors. A huge improvement if you happen to shave along the side of a beard or have a few days of stubble to contend with
3) Sharpening: I first thought I'd be sharpening mine on a surgical grade stone. I was wrong, as a stone is completely unneccesary unless you have to remove a serious nick in the blade. What I use now is an antique four-sided strop, which you can probably find on Ebay. Here's a link to one like mine: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-5...0001&campid=5338413729&icep_item=332926513654
A) One side is hard leather supported by wood and impregnated with red rouge. I've never had to apply or renew the rouge in all the time I've owned it. This takes the place of a stone, and is used maybe twice a year. Don't overdo it here, as this removes lots of metal. Wiping it down with a little water on your finger afterwards seems to reset the rouge and keep it cutting well.
B) Two sides are suspended (and flexible) leather which pushes in when you run the blade over it. This is where 95% of your sharpening occurs. You're just using these to bend and break off the wire edge that comes from using the rouge impregnated side; probably about 50 strokes on either side initially after using the rouge side of the paddle. When the razor dulls after a couple months, about 20x on each side here will give you a good edge again.
C) The fourth side is a hard leather just like the first side, but is not impregnated with any rouge. I just give the blade 2-3 strokes on a side with this as a final finishing touch, which centers any remaining wire edge so the razor works well from both sides.
So far as I can tell, a good razor will last a lifetime.
Tb54
Pilgrim
Ok I’ll chime in too. Been useing a Dovo straight razor ever since the electric razor grandpa gave me when I was 17 died, so that would be about 30+ years. I strop it with an old, wide leather belt, and hone it with the same Arkansas stone I keep my knife sharp with. When the time came to buy a razor, I couldn’t see buying one with disposable blades, or disposable razors which only guaranteed a regular expense, and that there would eventually be a time when I would need a shave and not have a razor. An old barber told me how to hone it, and since then it’s worked well. I use rubbing alcohol for after shave because it’s so much cheaper and smells better than after shave.
Tb54
Pilgrim
Andplusalso,
Makes for a great platform for a practical joke. One day when we were first married, I went in to shave with a handful of ketchup, and came out a couple min later clutching my throat. The wife freaked... twice. Once after I started laughing.
Makes for a great platform for a practical joke. One day when we were first married, I went in to shave with a handful of ketchup, and came out a couple min later clutching my throat. The wife freaked... twice. Once after I started laughing.
Dave Orchard
Pilgrim
- Joined
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You might look for a hard Arkasas stone to use as a stone or get a Japanese waterstones and look at the tutorials on YouTube by Murray Carter(apprenticed 8 yrs as a blade smith in Apan)
You Ay your razor flat on the hone.
Oil tends to clog the pores of the stone...plenty of water is better....
You'll use a strop loaded with fine buffing compound much more often than your hone.
Strop the same side a dozen times ea. side.
Trying to use a strop quickly alternating sides is guaranteed to lead to a cut strop.
After your dozen each way do 1/2 doz. w/ light pressure only.
As important as learning how to use your hone & strop is using as hot water as you can stand & good shaving sop on your whiskers.
You can find tutorials on straight razor shaving on the web or razor sites as well.
If using a Japanese water stone seems to not be period correct, you might have got it from a Dutch trader? ;-))( they had traded out of Nagasaki from early 1600s, I think?)
Question: Were all colonial era razor hinged, or were there some fixed-blade razors? (I made my own from a San mai(wrought iron/very hard carbon steel/wrought iron) paring knife.)(Obtained from that same Dutchman I got my waterstones from ;-))
Dave
You Ay your razor flat on the hone.
Oil tends to clog the pores of the stone...plenty of water is better....
You'll use a strop loaded with fine buffing compound much more often than your hone.
Strop the same side a dozen times ea. side.
Trying to use a strop quickly alternating sides is guaranteed to lead to a cut strop.
After your dozen each way do 1/2 doz. w/ light pressure only.
As important as learning how to use your hone & strop is using as hot water as you can stand & good shaving sop on your whiskers.
You can find tutorials on straight razor shaving on the web or razor sites as well.
If using a Japanese water stone seems to not be period correct, you might have got it from a Dutch trader? ;-))( they had traded out of Nagasaki from early 1600s, I think?)
Question: Were all colonial era razor hinged, or were there some fixed-blade razors? (I made my own from a San mai(wrought iron/very hard carbon steel/wrought iron) paring knife.)(Obtained from that same Dutchman I got my waterstones from ;-))
Dave
Dave Orchard
Pilgrim
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Toot,
Buffing compounds are pretty easy to find from knife makers supply places, Brownells, etc.
Japanese hand tool companies carry water-stones and sometimes the green stropping compound in a big stick.
I rub it onto my flesh-side-up strop.
Murray Carter showed me how to use waterstones and a strop glued to a small board.
He was very fussy about the way the grain ran on the strop.
If you can find a barber that still used straight razors, he could show you how to hone or even do it for you.
You'll probably only need the hone every couple months, but you'll use the strop before & after, every time.
Lightly oil between shaves(camellia oil from Jap tool supply is great....Daughter uses it on her wooden comb so it won't pull hair
If you make your own strop, you want to find a piece of skirting leather that is tight-grained & not "flanky".
A saddle shop should be happy to give you some scraps.
That Jap blade-maker's compound is near $50 a block.
If you can't get a smaller piece or find a reasonable substitute, I might be able to help you out.
Dave. PS Look-up Murray Carter...the man is a perfectionist, but with a practical streak....one of his vids shows using a piece of 2x4 out of his garden, with the embedded fine silt as compound ;-)
Buffing compounds are pretty easy to find from knife makers supply places, Brownells, etc.
Japanese hand tool companies carry water-stones and sometimes the green stropping compound in a big stick.
I rub it onto my flesh-side-up strop.
Murray Carter showed me how to use waterstones and a strop glued to a small board.
He was very fussy about the way the grain ran on the strop.
If you can find a barber that still used straight razors, he could show you how to hone or even do it for you.
You'll probably only need the hone every couple months, but you'll use the strop before & after, every time.
Lightly oil between shaves(camellia oil from Jap tool supply is great....Daughter uses it on her wooden comb so it won't pull hair
If you make your own strop, you want to find a piece of skirting leather that is tight-grained & not "flanky".
A saddle shop should be happy to give you some scraps.
That Jap blade-maker's compound is near $50 a block.
If you can't get a smaller piece or find a reasonable substitute, I might be able to help you out.
Dave. PS Look-up Murray Carter...the man is a perfectionist, but with a practical streak....one of his vids shows using a piece of 2x4 out of his garden, with the embedded fine silt as compound ;-)
Dave Orchard
Pilgrim
- Joined
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Testing your edge:
Paper has "grain" & will cut more cleanly with the grain than across it.
A really sharp blade will "fall-thru" the length of a vertically held sheet of paper from it's own weight.
You'll also find any microscopic nicks or dull places since the blade will stop or tear the paper.
You can get Jap waterstones up into the 12,000 grit range, but there is no practical use us gaijins have for anything past 2,500 or so ;-)
My most-useful waterstones is a combi-stone of 400 grit / 1,000 grit.
Strop is WAY the most used, and waterstones need to be leveled when they start to get sway-backed.
The only test that really counts is how good a shave you get!
Dave
Paper has "grain" & will cut more cleanly with the grain than across it.
A really sharp blade will "fall-thru" the length of a vertically held sheet of paper from it's own weight.
You'll also find any microscopic nicks or dull places since the blade will stop or tear the paper.
You can get Jap waterstones up into the 12,000 grit range, but there is no practical use us gaijins have for anything past 2,500 or so ;-)
My most-useful waterstones is a combi-stone of 400 grit / 1,000 grit.
Strop is WAY the most used, and waterstones need to be leveled when they start to get sway-backed.
The only test that really counts is how good a shave you get!
Dave
flintlockmdj
45 Cal.
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I attended Barber School and learned to sharpen, strop with both kinds of strop, and shave with a straight razor. The stones that we used were a very smooth stone, almost like glass with a couple of drops of a good thin machine oil spreed over it. You pulled the razor towards you slowly when you got to the end of the sharpening stroke you rolled the razor over on the back (never on the edge of the blade) and continued back away from you with the next stroke. About 5 or 6 strokes on each side was enough. Then we grabbed the strop with the canvas side up and stropped it about 5 or 6 strokes pulling the back of the razor towards you and again rolled it over on the back of the razor and reversed directions to clean the minute particles of metal and stone from the blade. The seasoning or breaking in of the leather strop was very important it needed to be soft but rigid You stropped on the leather strop the same way that you did on the canvas strop. We have all seen barbers in shops or on TV that really made the strop jump that is not necessary or recommended to begin with. I used to shave with a straight razor in the shower and never nicked myself. I also carried my shaving equipment with me on an 18 wheeler and shaved whenever I had a shower.
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
Love my Straights...been at it for 10 years this past August. Had up to 40 straights ...all shapes and sizes..just had to find what I liked. Got them from 1840 -1930’s. I have the Naniwa super Stones....scuttle...Boar and badger brushes...LOVE IT !!!...the soap I’ve been using is Oleo Irving Park and DR Harris Windsor and MDC and Castle Forbes lavender....all top notch ,for glide and cushion.
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
Dave Orchard
Pilgrim
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What great pix, Nessmuk!
I like the rounded tip, too.
Some blades are more square & the corner can cut you more easily than the rounded one.
If it isn't already rounded & is not a collectible, you can round the tip of a square one, or if you are making your own, copy the rounded tip.
Dave
I like the rounded tip, too.
Some blades are more square & the corner can cut you more easily than the rounded one.
If it isn't already rounded & is not a collectible, you can round the tip of a square one, or if you are making your own, copy the rounded tip.
Dave
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
I like the square point....a little more precise....but can bite you..lol
May be one of the only young ones who knows the art of straight razor shaving... While I couldn't grow a beard if my life depended on it, indeed it is a relaxing endeavor to sit around the morning fire and shave what little stubble has grown!
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
Nessmuck56
40 Cal.
