Chaddy!, I agree with the others when it's been suggested you need to at least send your razor to someone that is capable of putting a shave ready edge on it, to test it for you, if you aren't going to try and test it for yourself, to see if it is in fact shave ready or not
A straight razor that is not sharp wont cut facial hair very well. I myself prefer to use the hanging hair test to judge a razor's suitability for shaving. If you try using that testing procedure and you can't get an HHT4 result, it's probably not shave ready
When I asked you if you lived in England, I thought perhaps you didn't want to incur the postage cost to send the razor to the USA, if you lived in England. Since you live in the USA, there are plenty of honers you could send it to, with postage only costing about $3 each way sent first class mail. In fact, another member here offered to hone it for you at no charge for the honing (Trinity Shaving). If I were you, I would take this gentleman up on his generous offer
If you want to pay someone to hone it for you, may I suggest using Alfredo, AKA Doc225
http://doc226.com/Doc226/Home.html Al's sharpened plenty of razors for me and his edges are 2nd to none. FWIW, Al uses J-Nats for sharpening and they're beautiful edges. I would offer to hone for you at no charge but I'm busier than the one legged man at the ass kicking contest, and don't even bother (any more) to hone my own razors, but that said, I have an idea I have enough sharpened blades to last me nearly a lifetime of shaves, due to the fact I only shave about once a week, and I know how to handle, strop and store a razor, so they keep their edges for incredibly long periods of time*
Some people I know that hone (Scott in Lake City Fla. comes to mind) charge the Priority Mail rate ($5 or $6?) to send a razor back, as they prefer to have the post office come to their door for pick up. I know I've sent plenty of razors using paypal.com/shipnow and as long as the total package weight is under 13 ounces, the first class fee is approx.. $3 Then I print that label (you have to have a printer), affix to the package, and theoretically, I could place the package in my rural mailbox for the post office to pick up. I myself am a bit leery of just anyone looking inside my mailbox with a red flag on it so I drop off all of my packages at the post office, and hence, why some that offer return shipping service, use Priority mail
Anyways, we can't help you if you don't let us=:-)
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
*some years ago I read on occasion where someone made the claim they got 100 shaves from their straight razor, before it needed to be honed again. I thought that either A) they were falsely boasting about their honing skill, or B) they were high on meth. Over time though, I learnt how to treat a straight razor so as not to damage the shaving edge, thereby increasing it's shave readiness, and found, that with certain razors (good quality metal) and a quality edge applied by good sound honing methods, 100 shaves from a straight razor is entirely possible. Of course other factors come into play, such as, how many passes you use each shave, how coarse your beard hairs are, on and on, but it's not foolish chatter to expect a long life from a properly executed hone on a quality razor. Speaking strictly for myself, it's taken me years to learn how properly handle a straight razor
