Thread: Bare Bones Minimum

Barbers know what they are/were doing. It's really that simple to maintain a razor. The problem is that sharp razors don't arrive from the heavens with a lightning clap from God. They are honed like that. So you can sit and wait for a honing expert in horse drawn cart to pull along side your 1890s barber's shop, or, you can hone it yourself. Then sadly, you just maintain it yourself. I do know one very well known gentleman, on another forum that sold his 4k stone and then promptly dropped and chipped his razor. Kind of funny actually.

I genuinely think it's silly to put a large dollar sign "$" and the word "stone" in the same sentence without getting a little chuckle, but that's just me. I had a friend once that bought an $80k car and wouldn't drive it in the rain.

Another thing to consider with stones is that, no stone, no matter what the cost; is any smoother than the cheapest strop.

I keep the one razor I use up and running with a 3 line Swaty and a CrOx pasted balsa. I don't plan on buying anything else for maintenance as it's not needed by me.

You don't need expensive stones etc, you can send it out once a year to be honed and use pasted balsa in the meantime to maintain. even if you wanted to hone all you really need is a Norton 4k/8k stone (pretty cheap)

Don't believe me, just look at the Janorton challenge thread we honed razors with only a 4k/8k and they turned out pretty durn good

Thanks for all the input, I will probably end up with some "gear" down the road but right know I just want to get started and be effective, not fighting myself or equipment, technique, etc. After I get some experience, then I can make better decisions on the stuff I need (want). That Norton 4k/8k is looking pretty good though.
Jamie

yes I am also a newb and have been DE shaving for a couple years due to being irritated at the lack of choice and seemingly railroading by the major companies and decided to go retro. I am having to go slow and learn as I go. Hang in there, there is more to shaving than "scraping your face". Thanks for your input.

Yep! I'm getting less scraping and more shaving. I can still remember when I started shaving when I was a teenager all the nicks, cuts, burn ,same things I am conquering now. Except that was a cartridge razor that wouldn't cause an arterial spurt! LOL

Originally Posted by Cfarland

yes I am also a newb and have been DE shaving for a couple years due to being irritated at the lack of choice and seemingly railroading by the major companies and decided to go retro. I am having to go slow and learn as I go. Hang in there, there is more to shaving than "scraping your face". Thanks for your input.

Welcome to the land of obsessives! Enjoy the view!

I've been straight shaving for 1 year and 3 months. I guess I am a bit more than a noobie, but not much. I bought my first razor as a restored razor along with a strop -- cost $45.00. I used that quite a while and started collecting antique store razors to practice my honing on. Along the way, I have collected nearly a dozen such razors all in various states of 'old'. Some had rust some did not and all were dull enough they would not shave arm hair. None of them cost over $20.00 and most were less than $15.00. I also picked up an old 'boss barber hone' -- $10.00 and just 6 months ago a 3 line swaty - $2.00 from the same antique stores.

It takes time with these type of rocks/stones/hones but bringing a razor back from dull to shaving can be done. I notice many of them pull before they shave, but if you keep at it they can be brought to a very smooth shave with just the barbers hones. I have never sent one out yet. I may, some day, just to compare my work with a pro, but I can shave from each of them now and do so in rotation (use a different one every day).

I had one that had a nice chip in the middle of the blade and used a knife hone to trim it out then went to the barber's hone to clean and sharpen. It took time as I said and much more than most, but this one is one of my sharpest and smoothest so far.

Good luck and Happy shaving,
Sgt Scott

I have been straight shaving for years... For years I used nothing but an arkansas and Enders hone. I found this site and bought a razor that was pro honed and found out what i was missing all these years... That is why I now use better stone.. I didn't know, what i did't know about a good shave.

I basically get by with an old two sided barbers' hone. I have a bunch of other hones, but the old bugger gets the job done just fine. It's a funny thing, I was thinking, how much better a shave could I ever possibly want? I just can't imagine getting a better one off a $1000 hone - if such a thing even exists. When I learned to shave with the straight, the gentleman tht taught me, he shaved with one razor (it had belonged to his grandfather and he was my parent's age), had one barber's hone and had one leather strop. I don't think he's even heard of chrox or any of the other things routinely discussed here. Someties we forget what it is exactly we are trying to accomplish here, and how, if we aren't careful, we can over-think it.