When should you hone?

Hey everyone, I'm just curious how you know when it's time to hone you're razor?

So far I've just been guessing based on the amount of time since the last hone. Is there some other way to tell? I'm sure veteran straight razor people can probably just feel the difference, but that's not me at this point. The only real thing I've noticed is that after a while there starts to be slight tug when I hit thicker parts of my beard. Is that a sign that it needs to be honed?

I currently don't strop, just because I lost my strop in move and haven't been motivated enough to buy a new one. Also, I don't hone my razors myself at this point, I just send them out to someone who knows what they're doing.

Thanks

Without stropping the razor you are compounding the beard damage to the edge.. :(

Normally as you shave you pound the hell outta the edge and the strop corrects that (MICROSCOPICALLY)
but you are just tearing up the edge..

So yes as it begins to tug it is telling you "I Need Help"

Strop if that doesn't do it then Hone and Strop

Thanks for the advice.
Yeah, I've only been going without a strop for a couple months now and should be getting a new strop within the next week or two. I also only shave a couple times a week, since my beard is slow growing and I don't need to be clean shaven every day.

So once the razor starts to tug, if I'm already stropping with every shave, I should look to get it honed?

Shaving without a strop is like driving your car with only 25% of the rated air pressure in the tires.
You can do it, but things are going to go from bad to worse in very short order...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HCarleton

So once the razor starts to tug, if I'm already stropping with every shave, I should look to get it honed?

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Yes that is correct

You can use a leather belt or fold a news paper and pull it through a towel rack. Works better than no stropping at all.

Agree with all the above. Get motivated get a strop. How many shaves are you getting from a honing without stropping? With proper stropping and an occasional touch up you can put off honing for long long periods of time.

As feltspanky says, if you don't have a proper strop - improvise. Newspaper, old jeans, the palm of your hand or even a wallet have variously been used by members of this site. (Almost) anything would be better than your current nothing.