Thread: Hone Wear

A friend told me that when he buys vintage razors he looks for ones that have a lot of hone wear. His rationale, hone wear means use, which usually means good shaver. Well guess which of my razors is the best shaver? The one with the most hone wear! Anyone else experience this?

I don't let hone wear scare me off of buying razors, but I'd certainly never look at it as a promise of a good shaver either.

The best shavers have a well set bevel with a good final polish. Hone wear is not the deciding factor.

I think that practice is folly.

The razor might just have been badly abused or used by someone who didn't know jack about caring for them. Like the man said, hone wear is not the deciding factor.

I agree with the other guys. To me hone wear usually means it's not been looked after previously.

None of my blades have more than minimal hone wear (as I hate the look of it and so avoid it like the plague!) and all shave great.

Yep, hone wear is definitely not the deciding factor IMO.

I don't think it's a deciding factor either, only because I don't believe the statement can be universally applied and that hone wear is a consistent indication of a good razor. Just like saying a well-kept razor is automatically a good razor because it's in good condition.

If the razor is so darn sharp and shaves so well, why is it spending all that time on the hones?

Lots of hone wear on a wedge means it'll take you much much longer to get a shaving edge back to it.

If the hone wear is even I don't let it bother me. Sometimes uneven hone wear is interesting; it shows you that the razor probably had a single owner and that he had some peculiar honing motions.

I'd rather have a vintage razor whose enlightened owner maximized good cleaning and stropping and minimized honing, however.

Good Hone wear, is on the Hone

I look for even hone wear on the spine if it is on there at all..
Uneven hone wear can tell me a few things, either a bad stroke from the previous honer , perhaps a warped blade, or a warped spine, or even softer spine steel than blade steel...

Also something you have to figure in this equation is that with hone wear normally comes edge wear and that means that perhaps the edge is in a slightly thicker portion of the blade which can sometimes help newer shavers with added stiffness...

Unfortunately there are so many variables in this hobby that make blanket statements like these almost impossible to quantify...

The best news though is you have a razor that shaves well for you

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Unfortunately there are so many variables in this hobby that make blanket statements like these almost impossible to quantify...

That is a universal statement.