Thread: Questions

I saw a video on stroping and honing last night on you tube and learned a bit on the art of honing but came away with a few questions:

1) Why do you wet a hone?
2) What is strop paste used for?
3) Do you spread strop paste around the strop with your hands?
4) Can a straight razor hone do double duty and sharpen some kitchen knives as well or would this ruin it?
5) If it can, would the sharpening techniques be the same?
6) I have no idea what size my dovo inox is (a 7/8" a 5/8") how do I measure it.

I'm impressed with the straight razor, I have shaved with everything including: foil electrics, rotary electrics, cartridge razors, double edge and disposables. My dovo inox is the only one that can keep my sideburns straight and squeeze under the nose.

Let's take it from the top.

1. Wetting the hone makes it harder for swarf to build up in the pores of the hone. Too much swarf build up makes the hone useless until you clean it up. No porous hones don't necessarily have to be wet, though using them dry feels awkward to me personally.

2. It depends on what you're referring to. There is a paste that is used to condition the strop, to keep it soft and in good working order. Then there are abrasive pastes that are used to polish the bevel after it's been hones. They can also be used to touch up an edge that is already shaving sharp but just needs a little bit more.

3. I suppose you can, though I recall someone saying that CrOx isn't good for you, so you may want to wear gloves just to be safe. Some, like the diamonds, come in a spray, obviously you don't need to use your hands there.

4. Absolutely. Though the higher grit hones you use to polish may be a bit overkill on a kitchen knife. I've never gone higher then my 1.2K on my kitchen knives.

5. No. A razor lays flat on the hone because the width of the spine creates the proper angle for you. A knife doesnt have a spine like that so you have to lift it to create the angle manually.

6. The size of a blade is measured from the shaving edge to the spine.

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I saw a video on stroping and honing last night on you tube and learned a bit on the art of honing but came away with a few questions:

1) Why do you wet a hone?
2) What is strop paste used for?
3) Do you spread strop paste around the strop with your hands?
4) Can a straight razor hone do double duty and sharpen some kitchen knives as well or would this ruin it?
5) If it can, would the sharpening techniques be the same?
6) I have no idea what size my dovo inox is (a 7/8" a 5/8") how do I measure it.

I'm impressed with the straight razor, I have shaved with everything including: foil electrics, rotary electrics, cartridge razors, double edge and disposables. My dovo inox is the only one that can keep my sideburns straight and squeeze under the nose.

Hi there, I'll try to answer some of your questions.

1) You wet a hone to provide a lubricant to the surface and to also rinse away metal particles. Some stones are porous, and having some sort of a lubricant used on these stones is especially important as it helps prevent the stone from accumulating metal particles in the surface. Other stones, such as some natural stones, i.e. the coticule, are non-porous and they're surfaces don't clog. Some people actually do use some of these non-porous stones dry, but most seem to prefer to use them with at least water as the feel of using them dry can be less then pleasent (think nails on a chalkboard )

2) Strop paste is used to basically touch-up or sharpen the razor without the use of a hone. It's basically an abrasive surface that you put on a strop, either hanging strop or paddle strop, and you strop as you would on a regular un-pasted strop. Depending on the paste used strop paste can be used to re-fine an already sharp edge, i.e. using chromium oxide or a fine diamond paste compound, or to sharp it slightly, i.e. using a more course diamond paste compound or something comparable. You also have to have a strop dedicated specifically for this purpose if you do wish to paste a strop. It is not meant to be used for everyday use, an un-pasted leather strop serves that purpose.

3) You can spread strop paste around with your hands. The pastes that I've used, chromium oxide and diamond paste, I've applied with my hands. Chromium oxide often comes in powdered form. I simply mixed mine with some mineral oil and rubbed it in with my fingers. The diamond paste already comes in paste form, but I just used my fingers to rub it in. I can't comment on other forms of paste.

4) Depending on what kind of hones you have for your razor, I don't see why you couldn't use it for your knives as well. I honed up my pocket knife on my norton stones. Just make sure that the stones are lapped and rinsed off properly afterwards. Perhaps some stones are not suited well for knives. The naniwa super stone line is reportedly fairly soft, so perhaps they would be prone to gouging from honing other knives and such. Perhaps others with more experience can comment on that.

5) Honing a knife is very different than honing a razor. So no, the same technique would not work quite the same. You could check out the wiki for techniques to honing a razor: Beginner's Guide to Honing - Straight Razor Place Wiki. For sharpening a knife I don't know where you could find information...sorry, hopefully someone else could help field that question.

6) The size of the razor is measured from the back of the spine to the egde of the blade, basically perpendicular to the length of the razor. So a 7/8" razor would be quite a bit "wider" than a 5/8".

I hope I helped answer some of your questions! Feel free to ask any more. More members will hopefully be along to help you too.

Edit: I was beaten to the punch by a few minutes!

Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

The naniwa super stone line is reportedly fairly soft, so perhaps they would be prone to gouging from honing other knives and such. Perhaps others with more experience can comment on that.

they are soft as 'feedback', not as 'easy to gouge'. my understanding is that the binder is some sort of resin so it's a lot more elastic than a ceramic. but they are still very tough.

First, welcome to the forum. Second, to measure the blade I take a ruler, lay the spine on the ruler, and then without touching the cutting portion of the blade to the ruler I bring the ruler and razor parellel and then eyeball the width.

Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

3) You can spread strop paste around with your hands. The pastes that I've used, chromium oxide and diamond paste, I've applied with my hands. Chromium oxide often comes in powdered form. I simply mixed mine with some mineral oil and rubbed it in with my fingers. The diamond paste already comes in paste form, but I just used my fingers to rub it in. I can't comment on other forms of paste.

Please don't use your bare hands to apply chromium oxide. There's just no point putting yourself at risk that way.

You can check an MSDS for chromium oxide here.

There is a nice Pasting a strop - a photo tutorial - Straight Razor Place Wiki in the Wiki. Without gloves, though. Maybe we should add a warning. Easily make a pasted balsa strop - Straight Razor Place Wiki has gloves

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

There is a nice Pasting a strop - a photo tutorial - Straight Razor Place Wiki in the Wiki. Without gloves, though. Maybe we should add a warning. Easily make a pasted balsa strop - Straight Razor Place Wiki has gloves

I think that would be a good idea. Better safe than sorry.