Thread: Don't want to hone (at least, not right now)

I get my razor VERY sharp and don't have to worry about taking off to much metal with my trusty barber hone. My tony Miller strop hangs from a carabiner on a towel rack, but any door knob will do. I also spent $2 on a 2" wide piece of balsa from the hobbie shop, sanded it flat and pasted it up with the chrome oxide I got from Chris L. That's my "paddle"

Assuming everything you do is perfect, you can expect at least 6 months from a strop and paste.

In the real world, you'll likely have to send it out a couple times due to accidents and poor stropping. Not to be rude, but **** happens, y'know? When I first started, I got my razor back from honing and managed to nick it on the sink within a week (even though I was trying to be super careful).

The good news is, you can totally get by with a strop and barber's hone once you're an accomplished user. Barber's hones are easy to use, and accidents don't happen too often because your routine is tried and true. YMMV of course.

If you're looking to ease into it though, why not check out a Shavette? You've already figured out what you like in DE blades, so it'd be an easy switch. Just a thought

once you set the bevel with the hone, a pasted strop will keep the razor sharp indefinately. in my experience, it will never need to be honed ever again. even with a non-pasted strop, the edge would still last quite a long time between hones.

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

If you're looking to ease into it though, why not check out a Shavette? You've already figured out what you like in DE blades, so it'd be an easy switch. Just a thought

Shavettes tend to cut up your face because the edges are not smooth, even though they are sharp. I will never again touch a shavette with a 10-foot pole.

Originally Posted by cotdt

once you set the bevel with the hone, a pasted strop will keep the razor sharp indefinately. in my experience, it will never need to be honed ever again.

This is simply not true! I don't know how much experience you have, but when you make a statement like this you should back it up with real-world data.
I consider your post absolutely misleading.

Originally Posted by cotdt

once you set the bevel with the hone, a pasted strop will keep the razor sharp indefinately. in my experience, it will never need to be honed ever again. even with a non-pasted strop, the edge would still last quite a long time between hones.

if that were true there would not be such things as barber hones

I will try a hanging strop at some point, but right now I live in a rented house and even my bathroom's doorknob is a bit flimsy.

Say my budget is large enough but I don't want to be wasteful, how much should I expect to pay for one of these hones, either new or used?

Ah, also, I considered a Shavette, but since the point of going the straight razor route is to get rid of anything disposable, I put that possibility aside.

Oh and I hope I'm not sounding lazy, its just that I don't want to buy stuff I don't actually need (did I mention that the house also lacks storage space).

Thanks again!

I don't dispute the barber hone recommendation but ..... any barber hone I have ever gotten wasn't flat. That said I would bet that if you went into a barber shop and checked their Swatys or whatever they wouldn't be flat either and they seem to do alright refreshing their razors. I would still recommend a Norton 4/8 combo hone and the Norton flattening stone.

That is the most cost effective to sharpening and maintaining your razors IMHO. If you have the $$ and want to spend a few more bucks forget the Norton flattening stone and go for the DMT D8E 1200 continuous diamond plate. You can set bevels with it and flatten your Norton.

You can pick up a barber hone on ebay for around 20$

I would say that a pasted strop will keep a razor sharp for a very long time but in practice, not forever. It really needs to start on a hone to get the bevel and edge right and go back to a hone every so often to refine any sloppyness caused by a paddle over time. proper use of a paddle will buy you 6 months easily, maybe a good deal more.

While I agree hones, barber or high tech new stones are needed thay are not an instant path to a perfect edge. There is a learning curve and many dulled edges in between. Some guys get the knack instantly but for most it seems it takes a good deal of practice.

Not everyone wants sharpening to be their hobby, just shaving. While you need to know how to sharpen to shave, for many it becomes as much fune as the shaving! When a new guys comes here I think he needs two things. One to know the whole picture...razors, strops, hones, etc.... so he can see where he is headed and he needs to know what will get him started with the best chance of getting good results. When I first learned I didn;t have this resource and was sold the typical factory dulled razor. Luckily a week later the dealer explained the paddle strop idea to me and I had instant results with keeping a razor going. Later I added a hone and went through a long learning curve.

Whether I sold sahving supplies or not I would say start with a shave ready razor, and a daily use hanging strop unless space required something smaller, then buy or make a pasted strop, then look into hones. I would still suggest a Norton over a barber hone as they are consistant and one could get the experience of 100 other guys here starting with one. A barber hone is great but each varies and the best we can teach then is the technique of what ought to work but not knowing the grit of that barbers hone results can vary widely.

Back when I was first learning about photography I had a teacher that decided instead of teaching us B&W developing first as is typical we used B&W Polapan instant film and learned composition instead. We got the satisfaction of nice images and later learned the harder stuff. A newbie here will have his hands full learning to get a good shave, lets give him the easiest path first, then the hard stuff later like honing, etc.....

Tony