Thread: barber hone?

I cleaned mine with go joe and it works well. I have two of them and after cleaning them I let them dry and lapped them together. The barber hone is a real fine grit. It is used to refresh a razor between honing. i am sure that you could sharpen a razor with them but it will take a long time. They are definitely not quick cutters, but I will use one after i hone on a Norton to polish the edge.
Phil

so it's more of a tool to use in between honing when the razor starts to pull a little bit, if I'm understanding correctly. Just to touch the blade up a bit.

yes, thats correct. Unlike the other posters I would not try to use a barber hone to hone a razor from scratch and actually don't believe you could, but I do love barber hones. Then again, with a few months . . .

I actually did hone up my first straight with a fine cutting barber hone to shaving sharpness. Needless to say, it was a learning experience...I learned to use coarse, medium, and fine hones!

how long did it take you? I can imagine that was a learning experience.

I think it took me somewhere around the neighborhood of about 40 minutes or so, and around 200 or so round trips on the hone. I stropped and checked the edge after each 20 passes once it started feeling a little bit "sticky" on my thumb. After that day, I bought a Col. Conk razor stone, and I use that in conjunction with two barber hones and a Chinese waterstone to great effect.

Thats very fast . . . congrats! The nice thing about slow hones is you learn a good stroke and don't make dramatic mistakes with one stroke.