Thread: New to straight saving, unsure of technique, straight razor won't cut.

I am just a greenhorn, just learning the trade, perhaps a step further in the process than you , my advice should be tested by the other forum members.
Living in the Netherlands at this moment. So I cannot recommend about buying stones in Hong Kong. Forgive me.

The experts at this website do have a list of stones that can be used:
Hones - comparison table - Straight Razor Place Library

The stones I bought are not reviewed online so far as I can tell. Maybe I was lucky and got a set of 4K and 8K stone that was good enough for straight razors. Or these Zanmai 4K and 8K are an unknown brand (re-brand?) that are good for Razors as well, I cannot tell. If anyone is willing to test them out also and give a more definitive answer, until then it might be a risky chance to buy the Zanmai. I will send an e-mail to the seller about the Zanmai honing stones, if they know more about the quality of these stones. Will report back.
There are just many good brand, and tested stones that are well suited for your straight razor.
Look at the list and try to buy them in Hong kong.

I bought my zaimai from this Dutch shop:
http://www.japansemessen.nl/c-162739...n-slijpstaven/


Water or oil not needed?
Hmm, the stones I see straight razor users use are 99.9% water stones?? The reason is that they remove metal from your razor much quicker than the oil based stones. Water is really required with wet-stones like Naniwa. I tried making my Zanmai stones more flat with a 220 grit Naniwa stone and under the
220 grit stone was build-up of scraped off wet-stone particles. They kept sticking to my 220 grit stone. But when I used water everything was flat. On top of that, as others masters of honing have mentioned, water makes you see how good the honing process is going. You will see and even spread of metal particles with water over your naniwa stone, this means all is ok. Or you see a line without metal particles, that means your razor blade has some imperfections. You can read from the dirty water how the honing process is going.

But Farbgast? I think straight razors will be very good for you. You will need to learn to slow down and do it carefully. I guess you will enjoy these moments of peace. As if Hong kong is going forward with high speed and in your moment of shaving, time just became slow and peaceful. God bless you.

Edit: Remember something.
I bought a leather thing that can be tightened (forgot the name), on it you put a abrasive paste. These pastes have very small grit sizes. But I when I looked at it's leather, the surface was not straight and even!
The paste (red and black) are not cheap either. I conclude that honing stones are cheaper and are more consistent and will last you a life time. A canvas/leather strop is required (I guess), but for bevel setting and honing use
wet-stones. (I wasted about 40 euro on honing material)

Any Dovo straight razor is of highest quality. Here you can see some cheaper versions made by Dovo and the more expensive ones: www.messenwinkel.eu/DOVO-klassieke-scheermessen/

Originally Posted by Farbgast

Hello, thank you for replying. Where did you buy the whetstone? In HK or you have it ordered overseas? And what would the price for it be? I heard from some people saying that they don't need any water solution or mineral oil. They could just hone the blade on the whetstone and it would cut perfectly fine. I chuckled a bit at your last sentence because HK people are always very busy haha. But if it takes time to understand the art of straight shaving, I guess it is worth the wait.