One of my shavettes is a Dovo. In my research, I’ve seen that Dovo is a go-to straight razor.
Do you do your own sharpening/honing? Besides stropping, I mean?
Or do you not need it at all?
Ditto on the Dovos as VR-21 mentioned. Have two that I use, alternating them daily. Have a strop and a two sided honing stick which I use maybe once a month. There’s a ultra-fine polishing honing paste. Can’t remember exactly but maybe 1400 grit plus. All that keeps them up to snuff. Real trick is to keep from getting nicks in the blade. Do not let anyone else use your razor.
Badger brush just for the luxury of it. Found that shaving creams and soaps vary broadly. Caswell-Massey almond shaving cream does it for me.
At first I had some problem with wrist and hand positions which change as you move to different parts of neck and face. The reflected image, swapped left for right, makes the cut throat very different from dragging a stick. Nervous at first? You betcha. But you quickly get into the quiet ritual of shaving.
Oh, after shower of course for best soak. One last tip. If you’re not alone either leave bathroom door wide open or lock it. Prevent some really big surprise that way.
I own a translucent Arkansas stone, so I guess I have the wherewithal to hone it if I needed to, but I never have. A good quality strop will combine a heavy fabric strap with a leather strap, and the heavy fabric one is used somewhat as the coarse ‘sharpening’ surface (though it doesn’t actually remove any metal) and the leather one does the usual stropping job of restoring the keen edge. Use a good dressing on the strop, and dry your razor after you use it and you should be fine. While shaving, mine seems to give a better shave when I rinse it in cold water for some reason, and I usually shave before I shower as the hot water softens my beard...and the razor shaves closer when the whiskers are ‘standing-up.’ Good Luck. Oh, there’s a bit of a learning curve, and you’ll experience a few nicks and cuts when you begin. I believe that being ‘tentative’ when you begin is perfectly understandable but I think it causes the cuts. An even firm stroke PERPENDICULAR TO THE BLADE is preferred. Methods vary from man to man because beards ‘lie’ differently. I took it up for the same reason you seem interested...I wanted to keep an old way alive.