Thread: Cheapest way to keep your razor sharp

Cool! Have you bought any other hones since then? Was your razor shave ready when you first go it?

I bought a shave ready razor for a member here but it has not seen the hone yet. I am practicing my stroke on some ebay razors that I bought for less than 10$ and the results are very encouraging. The slurry stone add versatility to the 12K. I bought a coticule from Rob this monday. With these two stones, I think I am set for a while...

in my case it was a slippery slope i'll tell ya. i bought a kit from tony miller about 6 months ago and was getting pretty good shaves but my razor was starting to dull a bit and i think my not so great stropping technique was taking its toll. so i bought a puma (new but damaged) that came with CrOx strop and that thing made a big difference for smoothness. then i sent the puma out to be honed and started buying some used razors here and there. this brought me to buying the norton 4/8k and then a 12k chinese from Chris L and then the 220/1000 norton. now i have an obsession and a great set up to work with in my opinion.

sorry back your needs ha! just kidding. the bottom line is if i were you and i knew what i know now, i would get the 12k, save up for a bit to get the 4/8k norton and in the meantime see about another cheap strop for CrOx or something like it(i believe CrOx is around .25 paste or finer though i could be wrong).

PS where are you in Canada? i am in Chatham so if you are going to be in the area i wouldn't mind letting you come over and use my set up to touch up your razor. i know that might sound weird but hey, if it helps you out then whatever.

thanks for the offer! Unfortunately I'm in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I'm still waiting on my first three razors.

Originally Posted by Dups

Interesting suggestion! The slipstones you mentioned...are they flat? it seems from the pictures that they have quite a slop to them? Would those be good out of the box or would you need to lap them?

thanks

They are wedge shaped with flat faces, when stacked one upon the other they make a level stone.

Would you have to lap them? If so what would you use?

Traditional Water Slip Stones - Lee Valley Tools

Would these be the same thing?

yes, those appear to be the same product.

They do have to be lapped, I lap them with 1000 grit wet/dry paper on a flat surface, (glass bed, granit slab even the kitchen counter if needed).

cool!

That could be a very cheap option. Are they harder to hone on than lets say a Norton 4k/8k?

Originally Posted by Dups

cool!

That could be a very cheap option. Are they harder to hone on than lets say a Norton 4k/8k?

Yes and no. The no is they are a decent waterstone and do a nice job. The yes comes from two factors: first I'd say they are roughly half as aggressive as the Norton this means they require twice the laps to do the same work. Second, they have roughly half the surface area of a Norton this also doubles the laps needed by making the x pattern much shorter. So they are used like the Norton but with four times the laps needed for the same amount of metal removal.

If you intend on doing a lot of razors this can be a big factor. But for me when I'd hone up about one razor a month It wasn't that much of an issue. I started by using Randydances Pyramid honing guide and quadrupling the number of laps needed at any one grit. This got my first few razors pretty close to perfect.

Good to know!

Have you ever tried using plain newspaper afterwards? I've heard that it creates a pretty nice finish after the 8k.