Thread: Honing equipment recommendations...

I'm posting in the beginners section because the honing section is intimidating.

Anyways, for the last few years I've been using a Thiers double sided paddle strop with diamond paste (1.0 & 0.5 micron) in addition to my daily linen/leather strop with my Dovo Bismarck.

Well now I'm starting to collect razors and although so far I've only purchased 1 vintage NOS razor from the 50's, I figure I need some other honing tools in my arsenal.

What would be a good companion to my diamond pasted paddle strop? Maybe another TI paddle strop with a coarser (6 micron) diamond paste and a finer (1/4 micron)? Or should I be looking at Norton 4000/8000 stone or a weird shaped Belgian coticule? With so many sharpening options I'm really quite unsure.

Thanks in advance!!!

I would recommend a Norton 4/8 combo for beginning honing. There is a lot of info in the SRP Wiki honing section on this stone and on how to use it. There are a lot of good alternatives but it is what I began honing with and I still use it quite a bit now. The coticule would be good, IMHO, after you've developed your skills a bit with the fore mentioned Norton. This thread might be better off in honing rather than beginner's. More experienced members may see it and offer their recommendations in that forum. I'll leave it here for now if that is where you want it.

I am sure the stropping thing is doable. On other forums one can read about a lot of people using that way more than what is usually recommended here.

However, If I may give my recommendation, it will be more stone based, so to speak

There are several viable options out there.
I would go for well known and well documented stones.

The Norton 4K-8K combo is one of those.
Naniwa Superstones are another one. 3-8 or 5-8 would be fine.

This way you can build upon your set, and get a plethora of info from a lot of experienced users who uses these two systems on a daily basis.

E.g. you could buy a 1K for Bevel setting, and maybe a 12K for finishing your razor to another level(Naniwa)

Another thing you want with these systems is a flattening stone for lapping.
A DMT 325 is often recommended for this purpose.

I'm sure you will get plenty more recommendations.

Good luck with your honing

Ps.
The wiki and the Honing subforum is loaded with good info and tutorials.
Check out the video subsection as well.
I've enjoyed and learned a lot from watching the pro's do their magic!


Edit:
JimmyHAD is as fast as he is knowledgeable

Jimmy... thanks for the response. Sure you can move it over to the honing section.

+1 to the above. Another option would be the King stones. They are slightly slower than the Nortons but also cost less than the Nortons.