Thread: Honing Equipment Question

4 sided pasted paddle strop vs. a wet stone (Norton 4/8, etc.)

Maybe I just don't understand what they are for, but would you use one over the other, or the paddle for the fine polishing and the wet stone to restore the edge?

I understand honing a blade as I use a honing steel against my chef's knife (what I would guess just regular leather stropping is equivalent to) and machine grind the blade when it gets too dull, but I am confused about these two.


Thanks in advance!

A pasted paddle is generally used to maintain an edge
that is already sharp, and an apply a very fine finish
depending on the grit level of the paste. You may be
able to do some sharpening on a 4-sided paddle if you
get up to the 3-6 micron level.

A hone can be used to restore razors to shaving sharp-
ness that are in general a little more dull (but still prop-
erly ground). Hones generally take more practice to be
able to use properly.

It all depends on your budget, commitment level, range
of razors you want to hone, and personal preference. I
would say for a new shaver who will be mainly using pre-
sharpened or brand new razors, a 4-sided pasted paddle
is pretty tough to beat.

- Scott

First welcome,

Second,

I'm afraid you're more than a little bit confused. I would really, really recommend getting Lynn's DVD on straight razors.

First - FORGET all you know about knife sharpening. Very little will help you and trying to transfer the methods to razors will probably ruin the razors.

The Norton 4k/8k are used to take a relatively dull blade, such as the "shave ready" razors on eBay and from many vendors (none here though), and sharpen it to where it will give an adequate to good shave. Occasionally, you'll get a real stinker but then that is almost a restoration job.

What many here do is improve that edge by polishing using either a pasted strop, a coticule, or now the Spyderco ultra-fine hone.

The four sided pasted strop will have three sides with different grades of abrasive and the fourth side for just plain stropping. Stropping would be done prior to each shave, the pasted edges would only be used occassionaly.

If you restrict your razor purchases to those that are truly shave ready you probably won't need the Norton. Every once in while you might wish to send it to one the honemeisters here for a tune up.

Once again I'll add the recommendation to get Lynn's DVD as well as looking at the various threads here to learn how to use these tools. It is not intuitively obvious.