Thread: puma special 89

i was also in that same position.

you should look for my old thread, you'll see. as a fellow knife nut, i was looking for hones that'll work for everything. granted, i was into sharpening/honing before i got into razors, and based on your gear right now you are too.
I ended up getting a DMT setup the 8" continuous plates from C to EEF, which has been used on razors with sucess. I've used it some before having to send the lot to DMT for customer care (it's been 5 weeks and nothing. i do hope i get them back). But in the mean time i bought myself a BBW, which i've had for 1-2 weeks, and has yeilded excellent results. the thing about these belgian hones is due to the way the garnet content of the stone cuts, it yeilds a very smooth edge that tends to cut hair and not skin. If you get into razor honing there's a good chance you'll end up with a coticule.

I'm just trying to save you a buck or two. mainly because i've gotten to the point where i know that i really won't be bothering to hone any of my knives to the quality of edges that are necessary for a shave-ready edge. for example, hair-whittling on knives isn't near shave-ready, yet already too sharp to be useful on a knife.

So you're probably going to need one finishing stone that'll cost $60-80 that'll only be used on your razor. may as well be one that does the job well, rather than one that'll suite two purposes but not the best. A hand-sized coticule costs about $70, and once learned (it is a learning curve) can get a razor from dull to shave-ready on one stone. In comparison, a decent progression will be around $75 a stone, with 3-5 stones.



As far as strops go, i was in exactly the same boat. (look for the thread i started in the strop-section). I had bought a smallish hanging strop, but wasn't happy with it's quality. in the past i had made myself a bunch of bench strops for knives, loaded with AlOx and CrOx. I figured the same concept could carry to my razor, and having bought an entire flank of leather, i made a 16" bench strop.
The lesson learned from that was, while pretty much any leather is suitable for knives, only the finest top-hide works for straight razors. At which point it may be cheaper to buy an entry level hanging strop from ruprazor.com or the poor man's strop kit from whippeddog.com (a very good deal would say).

If you'd rather take the chance with a 6k stone and then pastes, you're going to need something more than the CrOx. I'd go with the DMT or other diamond sprays. Instead of paddle strops, you can use balsa. you can get a 3" wide 3' long strip from your local hobby store for around $3. But if you think about it, that all could add up, diamond sprays are $25 IIRC, and don't last forever (though, a long time if used sparingly).

Keep in mind that stropping from a lower grit to a finished edge gives a different type/more convex edge. I would say that even if you do go sprays or pastes 6k might not be high enough. A forward stroke on a hard abrasive surface removes metal in a different manor than a trailing-edge motion on a soft and accommodating surface. This is why many people avoid pasted strops all together and take their edges up to 30k shapton glass hones. Granted, there are plenty others who simply buy a norton 4k/8k combo and a pasted strop and call it a day. That's another option you should look into, and one of the more popular recommendations here.

good luck