Thread: Modern Hones and Modern Straight Shaving

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how modern hones have influenced changes in shaving practice and razor maintanance. For example, if anyone has read the Book on Standard Barbering even though that book is only a few decades old many things have changed. Synthetic stones were available but limited to carborundum and such. Coticules are mentioned as well as a German stone that sounds like an Escher but I am not really sure. If you read into the book, you might get the same impression I did about barbers of the time maintaining there razors but not doing any major work to set bevels beyond what an average barber hone could do. Then it goes on to say that if the barber hone could not do the job send the razor to a professional honemeister(they did not use the term honemeister). Apparently barbers were not even "honesters" and never reached the higher "Honemeister" level.
So what exactly were their bevels like compared to ones today that get refined to the level of a 16000 Shapton or the 30,000? Bevels are set on diamond stones that are generally as flat as you can get. There are so many choices and communication today it would be difficult to stay in the darkness of ignorance in a sharpening system that was not superior. Well, I could go on, but you get the idea. How have the newer hones changed the shave and the working end of the razor?
Mike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history

For a guy who has a couple razors and just shaves amd maintains his razors I don't think things have changed one bit. yes there are new materials in hones but once you adapt its still the same process. Most guys like that have one maybe two hones and thats it.

Now if your talking most of the shaving fiends here well, we're more into this like a hobby so we're always buying the latest gadget trying to get the max out our razors. truthfully most are on a continuum between the two ends.

As far as the old days you could take a razor to a barber who would hone it for you and they maintained their own razors however back then any knife shop could skillfully hone and redo bevels on razors and there were guys who went from shop to shop doing this kind of work also so if the barber didn't want to do it or had a blade with a damaged edge he had this option. Also remember if a barber wanted to he could buy a new razor for about a buck for a basic model.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

For a guy who has a couple razors and just shaves amd maintains his razors I don't think things have changed one bit. yes there are new materials in hones but once you adapt its still the same process. Most guys like that have one maybe two hones and thats it.

Now if your talking most of the shaving fiends here well, we're more into this like a hobby so we're always buying the latest gadget trying to get the max out our razors. truthfully most are on a continuum between the two ends.

As far as the old days you could take a razor to a barber who would hone it for you and they maintained their own razors however back then any knife shop could skillfully hone and redo bevels on razors and there were guys who went from shop to shop doing this kind of work also so if the barber didn't want to do it or had a blade with a damaged edge he had this option. Also remember if a barber wanted to he could buy a new razor for about a buck for a basic model.

I guess Joe Average has a couple of razors, a strop and barber hone or pasted something of another to maintain. I agree not much different than the old advertizements that dealt with hones and strops. Start with a good bevel and hold on to it as long as possible with just the basics.
The barber himself, well how many barbershops even offer shaves and if they do how many are using feather razors or other disposable facimiles of the dear old straight that us fiends love.
That leaves "the shaving fiends here" at STP or other forums. Are we doing things that much different than the barbers, cutlers, etc.? I personally think we are shaving with a tool that has been refined at it's working end to the point that we need a new set of rules. Example, how many "fiends" get BBS without ingrown hairs and irritations? given a recent thread on this very subject it appears that a good percentage of SRPF do multiple passes and get away with it. I doubt our technique is better than those before us but I could be wrong. Anyway, thanks for your response.
Mike

Has anyone noticed the lack of skilled sharpeners nowadays? Yes, we have them concentrated on the SRP, but every neighborhood used to have a guy who would go around sharpening (and he didn't have a white van)
My guess is barbers would use them once in a while to refresh a razor.

Hi Tom,
Click on the link and you can see that my sharpening skills, like yours branch out in other areas. The violin world is no where near as friendly as SRP. Yet there are similarities in that it is a field where inovation is not welcome and often used to keep down aspiring luthiers that want to find a nitch in a very limited market. So tools and methods remain for the most part unchanged among the classical makers. Tool steels are better, extending sharpening intervals, but all those gouges with different sweeps and planes of all sorts resemble what they used 300 years ago. I am a sharpening madman.
Mike


naplesnews.com/.../michael-carufe-savors-sweet-science-making-violins


http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/...aking-violins/

I think the average experienced barber, with fewer options, was able to produce a superior shave to what most of us do on a daily basis, mostly because of experience and a deeper understanding of what needs to happen.

I think a lot of guys today try to figure out why something is happening above the real discipline it takes to learn what needs to happen.

I do not believe that any modern convienence has changed the way shaving or barbering is best done . . . although I think many of us here think that it has.

I've had great success focusing on the way its supposed to be done, to the lament of many others.

To me, the basic process of stone, strop, and shave hasn't changed much . . .

Originally Posted by Kingfish

I am a sharpening madman.

I resemble that remark. Kidding aside, I know that some barbers were quite adept at honing at least back in the 1980s in North NJ around the Newark area. The ones I knew used Belgian coticules with lather from their lather king machines as a vehicle.

With the decline of true old school barber shops and the daily barber shop shave that went with it so there has been a decline in honing skill with today's barbers. In those days with no A.I.D.S. epidemic the replaceable blade shaver wasn't widely used by the old timers.

Now if you can get a shave in a shop chances are it will be with one of those and probably required by health dept regulations. Back in the lamented old days honing was a necessary skill for those guys.

Hi Mike. I was just trying to be smart.

My point though is that things have not actually changed, they are just different.

Look at all the stuff that came out at the end of the 19 beginning of 20th c.
I see most of that as stuff to sell, like slap chops, ginsu, and Fusion.



....looks like AFD has covered it

"I've had great success focusing on the way its supposed to be done, to the lament of many others. " heehee what?

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I think the average experienced barber, with fewer options, was able to produce a superior shave to what most of us do on a daily basis, mostly because of experience and a deeper understanding of what needs to happen.

To me, the basic process of stone, strop, and shave hasn't changed much . . .

Jimmy, I found out quickly you were a sharpening madman. Your type can't hide. (you know, the edgy type)
You are right Kevin AFD effortlessly said what I struggled to get at. I am much better with my hands than with words. But even he admits that there were fewer options. Do any of our options make our bevels any better? (and please entertain the possibilty that some of us are able to hone as well as they did)
Let me give you a case in point. Prepare a bevel as you normaly do, leave the edge at the coticule ar barber hone level. Strop is OK, no pastes allowed. How good is the shave. If you know what you are doing, and again please at least entertain that we do, you can get a superlative shave fit for royalty.
Lets prepare another blade, same manufacturer etc. You know keep the variables down. And please don't make the mistake that having these extreme hones makes the average bloke able to use them to their potential. Those types of madmen are few and far bettween, and I am not claiming to be one or not to be one. This level of honing is where sharing stops and voodoo begins. We can use a microscope for this one as we take it all the way, down below scratches that we can see under magnification as we are using a 30000 Shapton or some .3 micron lapping film. Or bevel edge has no visible jagged edge, it look like it was cut with a lazer.Now the shave.. Get the idea, maybe, my communication power is limited. For me, i am getting closer more comfortable shaves with the more refined edge and able to close shave almost every day. I don't think close shaving was well tolerated then as much as now, but I don't know that for fact.
Mike