Thread: When to hone

My rule of thumb has been that if refreshing the razor with 25 strokes on a chro/ox pasted strop + 80-100 strokes on leather doesn't work. Then I hone.

Was it fresh honed when you started and how many shaves with it since honing. Have you used crox. How many laps stropping and have you tried doing more.

Same here, you can go for a long time like this

Originally Posted by quicksilver

My rule of thumb has been that if refreshing the razor with 25 strokes on a chro/ox pasted strop + 80-100 strokes on leather doesn't work. Then I hone.

Look at the edge with magnification, what do you see?

I never let my edges get too far. I like the edges I get right off the hone. So the moment it loses the slightest bit, I return to a finishing hone for just a few passes and I'm right where I was again. Once a razor is honed and finished it never sees an 8k again unless something goes wrong.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Look at the edge with magnification, what do you see?

As Marty says...1st step take a look at the edge. If there are no major problems the my recipe is 40-60 laps on a real linen strop ( I use one that is rubbed with a lead bar).. then 150 -300 laps on good leather. Works every time for me!

Originally Posted by Wolfpack34

As Marty says...1st step take a look at the edge. If there are no major problems the my recipe is 40-60 laps on a real linen strop ( I use one that is rubbed with a lead bar).. then 150 -300 laps on good leather. Works every time for me!

Maybe I should do more strops on leather then. I have a linen strop ( kanayama) which I brush with steel wire brush. I don't want to start using compounds.

Stropping works! Work that razor that was good to you a lot on both fabric and leather IF you're comfortable that your stropping technique is sound.

I strop as many as 100 fabric, 200 leather if I feel I'm not happy with an edge and 50/100 routinely pre-shave. Done well it does a lot for an edge. If that fails, try a quality paste on a decent piece of cloth stropping that you set aside for that purpose. It doesn't take many passes on it, then back to regular stropping before using the razor to shave.

I rarely hone, because I can preserve a good edge with no risk...honing I haven't mastered as well yet, so I shy away from messing up my finest favorite ones.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Look at the edge with magnification, what do you see?

Under 10x, Nice clean bevel no chips or dings. With maybe some convexing, i am unsure.

Need to verify with higher magnification.

Additional passes should not = cuts. It's hard for me to guess the reason you're not getting the shave you want. If you're not getting irritation, that in itself is a good sign that at least part of your shave is going well. My suggestion is to try another pass, but only in the areas that you feel safe to do so. If you then get close in those areas, you know that another pass is what it takes to get the job done. If the extra pass fails to shave close, you may have a dull razor.

In the beginning, for me, all razors felt dull. It was not until I got my blade angle right that I started to get good shaves.