So I bought a new straight razor....

[Sylvrfalcn]

Sarge & Ferg,
Been around...had hip replaced,Dr. thinks I'm nuts,didn't take any pain pills & was walking two days after surgery.Retiring next yr.been teaching (yeah,still have students that "think I know something)
Blade,privately.Sarge,you must NOT be using the Razor,pic of yours has a girley goatie.Makes you look like an "Offi-ther"instead of a A**Kicking Sarge!Bwaaaaaaaa.Doc did say "DUCK,NO JUMPING OUT OF PLANES !Guy doesn't want me to have"ANY"fun!! Just finished shaving with a Puma Razor.Give my best to Yangdu.Will try to drop by.....if you can still handle my ragging on ya.HEE
the DUCK!

Hip replacement? Hip replacement? Didn't I tell you to quit getting into limbo contests with all them tipsy tourists down by the cruise ship docks? Dadburn Duck, anything to impress the ladies hunh? Just teasin', glad everything went okay. Ain't surprised the doc thinks you're crazy, like Yvsa said, all he had to do was ask us.
No jumping? I hear tell that fast roping from a helo can be fun if you do it right. Can't forget one day out here on the training range that our Army brethren had a kid do it wrong. Rappel Master inadvertently laid a hand on the boy, who took that as his signal to go, and go he went, seventy feet straight down, hands flailing for the rope he wasn't attached to. Kid lived, but he was boogered up. I've got respect for the Army aviators, but I've been wary of them and all their foolishness ever since they turned one of our humvees into a dirt dart on a botched slingload op. Humvees mounted with hi-tech radios, etc., make dadburn expensive "practice bombs". :grumpy:

Sarge

 

[Dave Rishar]

Thread resurrection jokes aside, this little bit of electronic necromancy is relevant. Mini-review follows:

I placed an order for a Young's razor last week and it arrived a few days ago. No complaints with the ordering process.

It doesn't look bad for a $20 razor. I take that back -- the steel doesn't look bad. The plastic scales are another matter and the pins look terrible. I personally don't care for etching and goldleaf on a blade but if T-I and DOVO can get away with it, I can hardly fault anyone else for it. Pretty is as pretty does, though.

It barely shaved and was rather rough, and that's after some time on the strops. ("Shave ready" is Swahili for "Strop the hell out of it first.") I don't consider this to be a big deal. Everyone advertises their razor as being ready for shaving right out of the box whether it is or not; generally, "shaving" in this case seems to mean that if it's scraped across my neck enough times, some hair (and skin) will go missing sooner or later. By that definition, my splitting maul is also shave ready after a sharpening and would probably do a better job of it than a few of the "shave ready" razors that I've tried.

The really unforgivable sin became apparent when I started honing it today -- the blade is badly warped. Again, I can let a bit of this slide; my T-I was a little off and it cost four times as much. The thing is, the degree of warpage is pretty severe here. With the blade on a pane of glass I can rock it in two different directions to a very noticable degree. Such a thing would be difficult to hone properly on my Norton.

This weekend I'll lap it in with some sandpaper and see if I can't get things going again. I'm not looking forward to it as I'm expecting a lot of metal to be gone after I'm done. If it doesn't look possible (or I give up) I can probably still get it at least kind of sharp using my Spyderco stones and a lot of stropping. We'll see.

I'm not going to be able to comment on the quality of the steel until it's straight enough to be sharpened properly. I'm still not sure where it was made. The tang is etched with "Chicago, IL" but nowhere on the blade, handle, or packaging does it state that it was actually made in the US. I should probably send them an email and ask.

All told? It's a $20 razor and that's pretty much what I got. If I can fix it up I'll be satisfied. Used (but nicely) off-brand antiques on Ebay are probably a better option in terms of bang for the buck.

My Zartina still seems to be the razor to beat in my collection. I think that it's the canary-yellow handle scales. With a handle that ugly, it had to shave or it never would've survived to present times. It's that ugly.

Anyone else tried a Young's? I'm wondering if I just got a bad one or if this is representative of the product.

 

[2ndshifthafter]

got my first straight razor back in 64. showed to the barber who gave me strop and taught me how to use it. his advice was to strop it a few times before and after shaving. asked him about a stone, he told me a Ruby was what I needed, but it would take a lot of shaves or some real heavy beards before it would need honing. found a Ruby stone about 20 years later at an antique store, brand new in the box with documentation for six bucks. haven't needed it much. use a heinkels twin stainless now, never been on the rock. nothing like it to take off a week's growth. use those twin blade disposables for a fast shave.

 

[erc]

I started shaving with some straight razors i inherited a while ago this is the website i learned from its got a lot of information in english which i learned from and more in german which unfortunately I cannot read http://www.en.nassrasur.com/razorcentral/intro.html. i was lucky enough to inherit 4 straight razors although one was verry heavly used and the blade is verry narrow now and a little rusted(though I soon fixed the rust) and one has a small crack in the handlethey are in good condition and came in a travelling kit they were my great great great grandfathers who was a barber it included stones strop and brush as well.

Eric