Thread: New blade coming

Originally Posted by rcardon

Hey All!!

I have a new str8 coming in the mail, a Double Arrow, 7/8, full hollow, should be here in a few days.

I want to be able to take good care of my new razor, while saving money as well, which means I don't want to have to pay anyone to hone it for me.

My problem is that I can't afford a really nice hone and was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions for keeping a blade nice for cheap, and by "cheap" I mean as close to free as you can possibly get, if not completely free.

If I can manage this, there is a str8 at my local antique shop for $15 that I'll go pick up too.

Thanks in advance.

If you want to keep things as cheap as possible. pay to get your razors honed......

Plus the hours of frustration, crying, and blood....oh there will be blood.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

If you want to keep things as cheap as possible. pay to get your razors honed......

Yes, getting it honed by someone else is the cheapest route to start with. That will cost about $15 or $20 plus shipping -- check the member services area in the classifieds. Utopian was offering one free honing but I'm not sure if he's still doing it. Worth a PM to find out.

For cheap maintenance, you can look for a barber's hone in the classifieds or a strop with some abrasive paste (diamond or chromium oxide). That will help keep the razor sharp when your regular stropping just isn't cutting it anymore.

By golly,I bet there are piles of good old hones just sitting in a dark corner of someones house that would love to live in your house and help you learn the art of honing. I know if I had one that I wasn't using I would send it to you for grats. But alas I am hone poor and only have but one set. Perhaps some generous soul will step up and help this gentleman who is struggling at the moment but who will when he is on his feet return the favor to another in need. This could be the start of THE PEOPLES STIMULOUS PAKAGE. Give more stuff away to those who are in need. What say yee?

Art of Shaving has no objections to teaching anyone the art of the striaght razor shave. Call your nearest Art of Shaving, and make an appointment for a lessor. For $0 they will do a short fiteen minute session with their barber assuming that he/she is not foing a shave and/or a hair cut at that time.

So you want someone to hone your razor for free eh?

I know there are a few guys who say they do that from time to time so you need to check the posts to locate some of them.

You might also find someone who takes pity on you and will do it.

In the end though I would just save my money and then pay to have someone do.

I think that the original poster is saying that he would like to learn to hone his own razors. (Problem is in these times and possibly raising younguns not everyone has the ready cash to invest in stones). I for one have found the greatest pleasure in the honing process. I have purchased about a dozen antique shop razors and have learned to make them SR. I have not learned this by myself but with the help of many here. I find it a great sense of accomplishment to make your own razor capable of shaving them whiskers. I do not doubt for a minute that the honemeisters can do a better, faster job of it, but they can never give the owner of the blade the satisfaction of doing it him or her self. I wonder why so many are telling him to send it out when all he really wants to do is do it for himself. An admirable quality IMHO.

Thanks, mkevenson. That is exactly what I want to do, and that is, exactly my problem.

i just don't think there is a single inexpensive hone that can fix your razor.
the DA seem to need more than just honing.

once the shoulder is fixed i think some people have used lapping film to hone those.

if you don't have a spectrum of hones capable of taking a razor from chipped to shave-ready, or not able to get somebody else do it for you your $15 razor may be just a waste of $15.

Take the $15.00 you're going to spend at the local antique place for an unknown condition razor, add a few more bucks to the fifteen and have a professional hone up your razor for you. You've never shaved with a straight before, let alone a shave ready one. How will you know what it's supposed to feel like if you start off with one not shave ready?

Or, as suggested above, look around (maybe the newbie section or basic honing section) for generous offers of free honing. Then you could take that same $15, add a little more and get a barbers hone to help maintain your razor.

I too, would love to learn how to hone and sharpen my own razors. And I will. Just not yet. I've got a fistful in a box patiently waiting. Well, not so patient anymore. I can hear them starting to whisper and conspire.

But I figured first things first. Get one that's shave ready and learn to shave with it and learn how to maintain it and keep it shave ready. That's where I'm at now. But thats just me. Am I getting anxious to buy some rocks and start scraping? Sure I am. Am I ready? Pretty soon.

Cash outlay for hones is pretty steep also. Especially if funds are extremely limited. I interpreted your OP to mean money is kinda tight. Me too. Another reason I haven't bought hones yet.

So anyway, just a suggestion from one newb to another. Get your new one shave ready. Learn to shave with it and maintain it. The fun honing stuff can come later.

Good shaving,

Kev

Yea the DA won't be shave ready and will likely take quite alot to make shave ready and if you buy a vintage for the prices your talking about it will likely need alot of work too.

I would be suprised if someone would send a good hone to someone who is short in the experience dept any more than someone would send a good razor to someone first learning to shave with a straight. If you did want to learn to hone the best bet is buy a new razor, have it made shaveready and then you can do easy touchups which would be a primer in razor maint. But of course if you don't have the money for that so forget that. Probably you would need more than 1 hone for the vintage razor and maybe even the DA

So your left with having someone else do the honing for you one way or another. I don't see any alternatives.