Thread: First Hone!

I need to clarify something right now.

If your razors have been honed with tape, touching them up on a "stone" requires tape.

If your razors have been honed with tape, touching them up on a "pasted strop hanging strop" does not require tape.

You have to reset the bevel to go from tape to no tape, this is typically done on a 1K stone and then run through the honer's progression of stones to finisher. THEN, you don't have to use tape for a touchup.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

I need to clarify something right now.

If your razors have been honed with tape, touching them up on a "stone" requires tape.

If your razors have been honed with tape, touching them up on a "pasted strop hanging strop" does not require tape.

You have to reset the bevel to go from tape to no tape, this is typically done on a 1K stone and then run through the honer's progression of stones to finisher. THEN, you don't have to use tape for a touchup.

Maybe Glenn can clarify this for us as this is not always true with a BH, as I believe he told me and is my experience. I definitely understand what you are saying but have not found this to be true with a BH and it's aggressiveness.

Really don't need Glen for this one, but you can get him involved with it if you wish. A barber hone is not more aggressive than a 1K stone. It takes more than 10 strokes to change/set a bevel on a 1K stone on a normal German razor. Seldom does anyone recommend using a barber hone for more than 10 strokes.

I will give you a PERFECT recent example. My SRP razor from Robert Williams lost it's comfort shaving, so I contacted him to see if it had been honed with tape and the answer was yes one layer of tape was used. I still tried to touch it up with my Shapton GS 16K. I tried touching it up three times back to back and put it in my "bevel set" cup that I keep in the bathroom.

A barber hone is not any more aggressive than a Shapton GS 16K (surely no more than a Shapton GS 8K) and I tried three times, the last time I went to the 8K and then back to the 16K. I looked at it under magnification...still needs a ways to get to the actual cutting edge & that requires bevel setting.

Something was lost in the interpretation. Maybe it was that you can touch up a non taped razor with a barber hone & if the edge is really bad you can add a layer of tape to create a double bevel.

Well, so far I have to agree with anthogia. I have touched up my taped razors on a BH untapped and brought it back to a keen edge. But then I may never know if there is a difference since I'm not planning on delving into full honing, just refreshing. I just might have to get a finishing stone and find out for myself before I can make an educated decision.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Really don't need Glen for this one, but you can get him involved with it if you wish. A barber hone is not more aggressive than a 1K stone. It takes more than 10 strokes to change/set a bevel on a 1K stone on a normal German razor. Seldom does anyone recommend using a barber hone for more than 10 strokes.

I will give you a PERFECT recent example. My SRP razor from Robert Williams lost it's comfort shaving, so I contacted him to see if it had been honed with tape and the answer was yes one layer of tape was used. I still tried to touch it up with my Shapton GS 16K. I tried touching it up three times back to back and put it in my "bevel set" cup that I keep in the bathroom.

A barber hone is not any more aggressive than a Shapton GS 16K (surely no more than a Shapton GS 8K) and I tried three times, the last time I went to the 8K and then back to the 16K. I looked at it under magnification...still needs a ways to get to the actual cutting edge & that requires bevel setting.

Something was lost in the interpretation. Maybe it was that you can touch up a non taped razor with a barber hone & if the edge is really bad you can add a layer of tape to create a double bevel.

Something def could've been lost in translation but im just going by what I've been told and what myself and others have experienced. Like I said im no expert but im willing to bet that others have experienced the same thing as razorfeld and I have experienced...shrug.

Who can argue with a good shave? I'm not going to, if you are truly getting better shaves...GREAT!

One thing you should answer for yourself is "why" is it working for you. Is it that you are stropping the crap out of the razor after the touch up? Is it that you are stropping with a pasted strop? Is it the barber hone? Is it that you want it to work so bad that you "think" it's shaving better (compared to your reference razor), when it may not be? Is it that the barber hone is actually improving the cutting edge?

Can't argue with physics