DON'T!

I have had the experience now of shaving with 6 different SRs over the last year+. All were honed by folks that many consider experts here. My first 4 were honed by Lynn, one more than once since it was from SRD and suffered through my first months of stropping and shaving badly. Others were honed by Sharptonn and gssixgun.

I can tell my fellow newbies with certainty that they do a better job than you will do, AND that some of Lynn's early honings were wasted on me, because my stropping, lathering and shaving techniques were still developing, so i didn't get the most out of them. However, with my more recent shaves (last few months) all has fallen into place, most of the time, and with my most recent fresh professionally honed razors and the two from Lynn that I hadn't managed to muck up, I can really tell the difference. I can feel and experience a great edge when it's used on my face, and see the differences through a loupe. Thank you to those 3 great guys and all the others that I haven't used yet.

So my advice to fellow newbies is, "Don't rush out and buy a full set of hones and start fooling with professional edges." Give yourself some time to learn the other elements of SR shaving, and take advantage of the services of real professionals and fellow members who are artisan level at their craft.

Sorry for the soapbox! I'll be quiet now, maybe.