Thread: Anyone know what the grit is on a cushioned strop hone?

Does anybody know roughly what is the corresponding Norton grit size of the cushioned strop hone that comes with Tilly-s 3-hone beginner set? I e-mailed Tilly & she says she has no idea. It's a pretty coarse hone so I'm guessing around 4000?

Good to see you here. Its good to see that your starting to ask the right questions. This time your answers will come a little slower, but be patient. You've still got that 4K number in your head though, do you own a Norton 4K?

It's good to be here! No, I've never owned a Norton hone. I've read that the Lithide hone is around 12K, so based on that I'm guesstimating that the Gem hone is around 8K and the cushioned strop hone around 4K, but that's really just a wild-ass guess & could easily be wrong.

I had one of those for a while, and I'd put it maybe in the 4K to 6K range. The fact that it was designed to have a small strop glued on the other side of it to me says that some people would have shaved straight off that hone, maybe using lather to get a finer edge. The conventional wisdom is that most barber hones are about 6K, and I've found that I can get an OK shave from them. If I had an average beard, I think I'd use barber hones a lot, but my face hates me if I use anything less than chromium oxide to finish.... Sigh.

Josh

Hey Josh,

Right now I seem to be having the opposite problem (as I describe in my other thread). My beard is so coarse that I get a wonderful shave with just the cushioned strop hone, and if I go any finer, my beard eats the edge right off. That's why I was curious what the grit rating is.

Some of the old barber hones were marked "for heavy beards," and I think your experience illustrates why.

I'm cursed with very sensitive skin, in addition to a tough beard, so lower-grit edges shave well but leave razor burn and/or these weird, bug-bite like welts. Yelch.

I mainly use a chromium oxide edge and just live with relatively frequent refreshes. Every so often I go off on a kick and try to make my hone edges work, but I always end up back with the pasted strop.

Josh

Lets say I vote for 6K. So given your shaves are great now, maybe we're done? I wonder though how many strokes you were doing on the next hone in your ladder and the Lithide?

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Does anybody know roughly what is the corresponding Norton grit size of the cushioned strop hone that comes with Tilly-s 3-hone beginner set? I e-mailed Tilly & she says she has no idea. It's a pretty coarse hone so I'm guessing around 4000?

I have one of those and use it routinely when traveling. I think it is a good bit finer than 4K. Probably between 6k and 8k somewhere just from the feel of mine.
If you buy one, something that might still be possible if he will do it, I had mine sent to me via Tony Miller who glued a strop to the back side of the hone for me; it is an EXCELLENT travel set up and in fact I *have* shaved straight off of this with no problems.
John P.

Here's where I am in my experimentation: if I finish on the cushioned strop hone, I get 3 or 4 good shaves, then it starts pulling & burning like hell, and a chrome oxide pasted strop does not reverse the damage. The bevel is still there, the edge feels the same on my thumb, and the shave is still close & smooth, but the shave is painful. A couple swipes on the hone seems to fix it.

Then I tried finishing one razor on the cushioned strop hone & the other on all 3 hones, 10 strokes/side on each. I shaved half of my head with the coarse razor and the other half with the fine razor, as an A B comparison. They both do a baby-butt-smooth job. The fine razor definitely shaves more comfortably, but it sustains so much damage, I can feel it with my thumb.

I think that's why I keep having to go back to square 1: my beard does more than 0.5 microns worth of damage, and the Lithide hone is about 12K = 0.5 micron, so it's not aggressive enough to fix it.

I have two more experiments to try:

(1) Finish on the Gem hone (the middle hone) and see if I can split the difference between the coarsest and finest hones. I don't hold out much hope tho b/c it's not all that much finer than the cushioned
strop hone.

(2) Try a more aggressive paste, like automotive polishing compound (but I have a feeling that will just work the edge down until it's thin enough to get eaten).

If all else fails, I'll just have to give it 2 or 3 swipes on the cushioned strop hone every 3rd shave. It's a lot of wear on the razor,
but what are you gonna do?

I ordered another cushioned strop hone from Tilly just to have it. They're cheap, they're irreplaceable, & they're selling out fast.

Great thread!

I would like add a personal observation:

I own a Lithide and I would not rate it at a 12,000 grit. Properly lapped, by tactile feel I would rate it at a maximum of 8,000 grit which I think would be a stretch. By actual performance, I have not yet had the inclination to do a side by side test with another stone. I sold my Norton 4000/8000 some time back. I do have a yellow coticule and there's no way the Lithide would be as fine a grit comparison as the coticule. I admit that simply feeling a stone's smoothness may not always be an accurate judge of the fineness of the hone, but I still think it's a fairly accurate indicator. The Lithide is also not nearly as smooth as my Chinese 12K.

Just my 2 cents.

Chris L