I took the plunge and picked up some real straight gear

[obsessis]

in addition to my feather, god i need to quit spending money. i had some money to blow from stuff I sold on ebay so I bought a pair of jeans and had a little cash to spend on razors so i picked up a strop from tony miller, a norton 220/1000 and 4k/8k with a nagura stick to shape, a razor from bill, a razor from chris utz and some miscellaneous ebay razors to work on.

it can def. take a lot of money to start up with this. thank god I have a very good base to start from, now i can save money for razors.

if you have any straights that need a little work to fix up that would turn into really nice straight to keep as a 'first fix razor' let me know!

 

[djohannsen]

Joseph:

I'm watching you take the plunge on this and am keenly interested. I hope to follow you down this path in a month or so (I'm already finding myself browsing straights at eBay and wondering if I could ever learn to hone them), so please keep us in the loop on how this goes. I have started reading more and more, but I worry that learning to successfully hone requires some hands-on instruction (as opposed to just reading how it should be done). Watching you succeed will give me more confidence to take the plunge myself.


Dave

 

[ouch]

In theory, honing a razor should be much easier than honing a knife- the blade is laid flat against the stone, rather than having to be held at the bevel angle, which takes no small degree practice.
In reality, it's actually harder.

You know the old joke about theory vs. reality.........

 

[PoshRichM]

I'm interested, too: considering how eventful my daily DE-ing can be, I'm nuts to even consider straights, but they're so darned beautiful!

-Rich

 

[obsessis]

Yeah, I decided to take the plunge and buy everything. i had wanted to try out a straight for years but never really knew enough about it. I had extra paypal money so I went for it since I had the cash for the initial startup costs.

I received my hones and a couple ebay special razors to work on so I hope to spend some time honing as soon as I can clean up around my apartment a little...I'm going to turn my coffee table into a work bench.

i have a razor with a nick that is prob. 2 or 3 mm deep and a little more than that wide. it's more like a chunk. i am going to see what you have to do to take major amounts of metal off of a razor. i also have another one that I can practice putting an edge on without crazy amounts of work.

 

[SSLStudio]

Goodluck Bro,

Dont forget to make Pre- Post pictures that way people can see your quality of finished products... and get that Coticule its a must have tool !

 

[obsessis]

Last weekend I cleaned off my coffee table and converted it into a workbench of sorts.....I received a flexshaft for my dremel tool which included a support to hang the dremel from my table.

I set the dremel up hanging form the support on the back/side of the table and have the flex shaft coming around to where it would be comfortable to use.

i started out safely with a razor that just needed some cleaning with maas. it cleaned up a little bit but not as much as I'd like. there is some etching on the blade which makes me not want to use the dremel on it but i think I might if I want it to get totally clean.

I had a razor that I really liked...a little thicker, heavier blade but the back and top of the spine were covered in rust/discolored. This is the type of razor I hoped to come in contact with because I want to fix up razors from ebay, sounds like fun. I got Bill Ellis' CD and some restoration bits from his website the previous week and had reviewed the CD. I decided to throw a bit into the dremel and get to work.

After attaching the flexshaft I worked my way up through the attachments in coarseness. At first I was apprehensive and wasn't quite sure how it would work out but after I used the radial bristle discs for a little bit I became comfortable (knowing nothing was going to fly off and hit me!). I wore safety glasses and a long sleeve shirt to protect against flying debris, although there was none.

The bristle discs did a good job at removing the light rust/tarnish. Right now the blade looks used but there is no markings on it anymore. I now need to 'finish' the blade to remove some light markings from the disc. I will go over the CD again and then try to finish up the blade. After that is done I will try to put it in a new set of scales. I may try to make some out of plexiglass or talk to someone to get a pair made for me.

One thing I did was used cardboard underneath the blade....you'll find that when the razor is open it doesn't sit right on the table. if you put cardboard underneath the blade it becomes elevated so it sits about the same level as it would from the handle. this helped out a lot. you can also rotate it to about 30 to 45 degrees with the edge into the cardboard to prevent your dremel bit from catching on the edge of the blade and breaking.

I will try to give some updates after this weekend. I felt like I accomplished something last week and hope to keep up the winning streak.

 

[HlSheppard]

In theory, honing a razor should be much easier than honing a knife- the blade is laid flat against the stone, rather than having to be held at the bevel angle, which takes no small degree practice.
In reality, it's actually harder.

You know the old joke about theory vs. reality.........

AMEN, brother! I can easily (with some time) get a knife to pop hair off my arm. A straight is WAY harder to get to shave comfortably.

That same sharp knife doesn't have to be dragged accross your tender cheeks and neck!

Could I do it? Yup. Did I continue to do it, investing the time and money? Nope. I jumped ship and went to Feather.