Thread: Good Razor Below 20$

If you looked more carefully, theres plenty of places to find all this information on this website.

Making a (very) home-made strop - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Theres a link to a DIY strop.

Cheers Mark~

Thanks, I searched on wikihow just after posting my past answer lol. I have access to recuts of leather so it's not gonna be too difficult making one of these!

Originally Posted by olidlavoie

For the strop, ... does it have to be treated with some chemicals or something? ...

No. Just leather. But, it has to be smooth leather, and can't be treated in such a way to be slick and rubbery or plastic to the feel. (Since I know nothing technically about leather, I don't know the terms to use. But, some leather has "something" on it that makes it very slick. No good!)

You are trying to go cheap, and so you are taking your chances. I am sure you recognize the chance exists that you will strop on leather that appear fine, but dulls your edge. That being said, many here in their early days have used belts and various other sources of leather.

Buy youself a Sunday Newspaper and you can Tape 4 pages toghther and then tape it to a flat surface ( counter top ) and strop on the newspaper.Better if you use the colored sections than black and white.

Lol, that's awesome!

Thanks a lot everyone but I think I've found my razor for now. I'll update this thread when I know the brand.

Originally Posted by olidlavoie

Thanks, I searched on wikihow just after posting my past answer lol. I have access to recuts of leather so it's not gonna be too difficult making one of these!

As long as you know how & where the leather has been stored & stay away from old belts.
This is a razor that was stropped on a really smooth belt, or so the customer told me

For inexpensive razors that are still good shavers, check out the following

Classifieds (sort by lowest price)
Whipped dog
holly4pirating

You aren't going to get a decent shaving razor that has been properly honed for less than 30 bucks. Anything less, and the razor quality is going to be pretty poor.

Don't buy off ebay. Just don't. Straight razors need to be made of quality materials, be in good condition, and have a professionally honed edge. If you are looking for an ebay "score" it is going to be missing one of those 3 key factors. At best it would just need a honing, which is about $20 + shipping. So just do yourself a big favor, stop ebaying and click the links up above.

Gem Star Customs #117 would be perfect and in your price range for a shave ready razor

I ordered from Whipped Dog a few days ago, but I decided to splurge and go for the restoration, too, so that kind of killed the cheapness of it, but it's still going to cost me less than most new straights would.

I also picked up a J.R. Torrey from a local antiques place for $18 that I'm going to do some basic clean up on then send off for a honing. They had some other razors a bit cheaper, but I'm lazy and spent the extra $6 to have less rust and the like to remove.