Figured it could be fun to jot down my experience with straights, especially since I finally made some progress this morning.
For reference, until a couple of years back my only experience shaving was with Gillette blades, and I never really enjoyed using them. On a whim I decided it might be fun trying a straight, and ordered myself a Dovo prima klang and a strop and tried to get to work.
Had a couple of months of somewhat painful experiences, but figured it was mostly bad technique on my part. Towards the end of this time I tried adding some cheap diamond paste to a strop to see if it could help - on it's own it didn't do much for me (note that this was before I really fell down the kitchen knife rabbit hole, and hence also before I started getting myself proper sharpening equipment). From there I brought the straight out less and less frequently.
A few weeks ago the itch to get using the straight again returned. By now I had begun a kitchen knife collection, had a set of sharpening stones between ca 400-8000grit as well as a couple of fun natural stones (of course I had to dip my toe in that as well...) Having gotten used to sharpening knives for my kitchen and realizing how sharp they can get I began pondering whether my discomfort with my razor had to do with dullness of the blade, and not just bad shaving technique. Reading a lot more about dovo razor quality control as well as edge tests/what to expect from a properly honed razor confirmed my suspicions.
Now, being the reasonable and economical person I am, naturally I ordered what I read was a well-considered natural finisher (a Nakayama + Asano naguras from JNS), as well as an Iwasaki for good measure.
...In my defense, I had already accepted I would fall down this rabbit hole and figured I might as well get myself set immediately.
The Iwasaki arrived sharper than anything I ever put an edge on - and most definitely sharper than my Dovo - but I was determined not to actually start using it until I new to properly hone my other straight. After reading some basics about setting the bevel, checking scratch patterns and such, I began. I was very slow and careful, and also very unsuccessful for a few tries. I tried a couple of times starting at 3000grit, and then after that failed I went down to 1000grit but kept failing somehow. Maybe worth to note that the bevel of my razor was slightly uneven, but aside from that I considered the geometry to look quite decent - at least spine was flat and the edge seemed properly parallell to it.
With sharpening my kitchen knives I had seen much quicker progress, but I had also dared to be much more reckless with my first few. After watching some video on bevel setting where the guy talking mentioned one of the mistakes people generally make with honing is not putting enought pressure, being scared to ruin their razor (although he also said you may have to ruin a couple to learn to do it well). With this encouragement and my experiences with kitchen knives, this morning I decided: to hell with it. I put my thus far unsatisfactorily dull Dovo to the Atoma 400 and aggressively ground away some steel and set a bevel I could be sure was my own, the razor screeching in agony at the diamonds. Evened out the bevel quite a bit in the process.
From there I went through everything I had up to 8000 grit (SG500, SP1000, SG3000, SP6000, Kitayama 8000), now only letting up on pressure properly towards the end strokes of each stone. Low and behold, for the first time, the edge felt properly sharp! Not quite doing consistent hanging hair tests, and some trouble treetopping, but at least popping hairs on my arm. I put it to the Nakayama through a progression of Asano naguras, and finally just running water, and I finally had at least a decent edge, and for the first time got to feel out a somewhat straight shave. It can definitely still get better, and I also need to experiment with stropping a bit (went straight of the stones today to make sure I didn't accidentally ruin anything stropping), but as a start, I'm very happy. Will be away from home for a few days now, but am really looking forward to getting home and start perfecting my razor edge. Also have a rather hard Aiiwatani+nagura that I might experiment a bit with.
Lessons learned from this journey? The main one is probably: read up enough before starting not to order a factory Dovo expecting it to be shave ready (reading up now, I would probably have gotten a Ralf Aust razor, wouldn't have cost me much more - might just get one to try anyways). That and don't be afraid to just go for it when you start working out how to hone.
