Thread: Bare Bones Minimum

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

You have to remember many of the folks on this site are in to this stuff as a hobby or have an obsession over differing aspects of it.

People were shaving and maintaining straights when it was the only way to shave and they did it with one simple hone. Really, if you have a Norton 220/1K and a Norton 4K/8k you can do everything from full restorations to touchups and never need anything else.

Once you become taken in by this stuff you become a slave to it and wind up on and endless road to find the ultimate.

Happily I never fell for all of that. Har har.

I also come in on the minimalist side of things. Three years ago when I converted from safety razors and shavettes to straight razors , I picked up a vintage horse hide strop and a simple coarse/fine wetstone from a local hardware store. The stone was intended to just "get me started" and would soon be replaced by the Norton 4K/8K rig in due time. As time passed however, it became apparent that the simple hardware store wetstone was all I would need. It has rescued at least two dozen Flea Market razors to date and I seem to log pretty consistently effective and enjoyable shaves. If a razor begins to pull, I just give it a few laps on the fine side of the stone and I'm back in business. No, not top shelf gear by any stretch of the imagination but hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it?