Thread: How to find good razors to practice honing?

So I have been spending way too much time on eBay recently, looking for cheap razors to learn to hone on. It seems like all I am able find are smiling, frowning, chipped, damaged, or more than what I am thinking a practice razor should cost. So, a few questions:

1. What price range should I be looking in? I have been thinking under 20 bucks, but I am not seeing much in the way of vintage steel that way.
2. How much hone wear is too much hone wear? I know to avoid badly frowning or smiling blades, but am not sure where it goes from some hone wear to too much hone wear to be worth messing with.
3. Any search tips for cheapies?

If this is in the wrong sub-forum, please move it where it needs to go. Thanks for your input!

If you haven't already look in the wiki under FAQ and there is a section on buying on the bay. It gives you two really good search options that you can copy and paste in the eBay search bar to help narrow your search. You will still have to cull through the refuse but there are some good ones. A basic search for me today brought up 3000+ results and narrowing to <$15 brought it to 1700+. Now granted majority is still not worth it's some are not even razors, but it does bring up some good narrower options to sort through.

Hope this helps,

Neil

And I just found a won a 99 cent razor with 10 dollar shipping. Thank you for pointing me to the FAQ, I think I must have skimmed past those searches.

I do well going to antique shops. As what and what not for hone wear, here's an example.
The top two are very heavy hone wear, the bottom is light to moderate.
The bottom blade would serve you well, the others letter openers. Also great for cutting rust off blades if you start restoring them.
I find them priced $20 or less.

I had the same problem, but am much better at searching out good eBay blades now. One word of caution from experience: watch for warped blades. Unfortunality, you can't usually tell from the pictures, but you can tell when you lay the edge on a flat surface! The very first eBay razor I bought was warped, but my dumb self did not check until after some very frustrating honing practice time was wasted
Have fun and happy searching!

I would not bother with trying to learn on honed out old blades with geometry issues. Keep an eye on the classifieds. There are good razors that come up often that are around the $50 mark and won't drive you crazy trying to learn on them. You will find what they save you in frustration makes them well worth buying. There is no need to make it extra complicated before you even start learning. Unless of course you are wanting to make the learning curve as long and steep as you can...

I now know three important things:

1. You have to see pictures of the blade on a flat surface, on both sides. If they arent there, ask the seller to provide them

2. The spine and the edge must follow the same curve, or if the spine is straight, the edge must be straight.

3. Watch out for thick heels and razors like the 3 pictured above, where the heel is thick and the blade narrows towards the point.

These things are important, not only for the beginner, but for anyone who doesn't want to do heavy work on restoring the geometry to follow these 3 basic principles.

With that said, I've bougtht 7 razors from ebay and only one of them was in a perfect condition. Yet, 6 of them are, or will be made shave ready, but for 2 of them I will need to do some work on the heel. Another 2 will need to corrected by proper honing and with time, their geometry will be improved. Which leaves me with 2 that are OK, one perfect, one near perfect. The last one, not surprisingly the first razor I ever bought, will likely be used as a tool of some kind.. anything but for shaving a face. What I'm trying to say is, even if you score a less than perfect razor, with time and patience you will learn how to handle the imperfections.

Originally Posted by RezDog

I would not bother with trying to learn on honed out old blade with geometry issues... ...Unless of course you are wanting to make the learning urge as [frustrating,] long and steep as you can...

Zakly. Getting crapped out cheap razors on ebay will not teach you much anytime soon.

Originally Posted by RezDog

I would not bother with trying to learn on honed out old blade with geometry issues. Keep an eye on the classifieds. There are good razors that come up often that are around the $50 mark and won't drive you crazy trying to learn on them. You will find what they save you in frustration makes them well worth buying. There is no need to make it extra complicated before you even start learning. Unless of course you are wanting to make the learning urge as long and steep as you can...

This is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I know I am still a ways away from being able to hone from bevel set to finisher, but that's where I want to get. I would perfer to avoid mistakes along the way. I also seem to have a hard time waiting for things, so I am sending the last few razors I purchased off to someone for help, at least until I can learn enough to try myself.

Originally Posted by Drygulch

...I know I am still a ways away from being able to hone from bevel set to finisher, but that's where I want to get...

This is enviable.

FWIW, all the time I wasted with semi-spent-bent-ugly-and-maybe-salvageable razors distracted me (a typical everyday or so shaver) from developing the far more timely and essential skills of:

* shaving technique (which you will not develop with a not-sharp-enough razor);
* strop selections and stropping technique; and
* knowing how to maintain and refresh the professionally honed edge on the everyday razor(s).

I'm not saying you shouldn't get lapped, stoned and honed from here to Sunday but, from my limited experience, that's the last thing to get involved with, not the first. It's an expensive distraction the value of which you may well question a year from now. I'm not trying to pee on your cornflakes, just telling you about my point of view. Well, not just MY point of view - lotsa folks, other than boys over at Norton Abrasives, I think.