Thread: My First Honing Experience - Naniwa 12K

I thought I would share my first experience with the group of honing. Before I took the plunge, I did quite a bit of research on the topic to prepare myself, with most of it coming from this forum.

I bought my first (and only to-date) Dovo Ebony 5/8 straight edge razor in March last year. I have maintained the blade using a regular strop and a selection of diamond pastes (3 micron, 1 micron and 0.25 micron). This has, by and large, kept the razor shave-ready for a year, but over the last month I started to find that the razor was pulling and making my eyes water. I realised that it was probably time to either send it away for a professional hone, or take the plunge and invest in my own honing stones.

I did waver for a moment and was going to send my razor away as I thought I would need to buy a full set of stones, which is quite expensive. However, I realised that my razor didn't really need the full treatment from bevel setting onwards, but that it just needed refreshing.

I found that the article by Lynn Abrams on honing was very useful in identifying what I needed to do

I took the plunge and invested in a Naniwa 12000 Superstone, which I purchased from Steve at the Invisible Edge. I also decided to buy some Green Chromium Oxide paste which gives a 0.5 micron abrasive effect for stropping. I got this as I found that the diamond pastes (especially the 0.25 micron) don't always give a comfortable shave as they can result in the blade being a bit too severe.

I read up on lapping after receiving the Naniwa stone and realised that I probably needed a lapping stone as well. However, on further reading, I realised that rather than draining the bank balance further and buying an expensive lapping stone, I could use wet and dry 400 grit silicon carbide sandpaper to lap the stone.

I waited until my wife was out and set this up in our new kitchen on the very shiny and large marble worktop, which was very level. With some water under the sandpaper to glue it to the work surface, coupled with lots of water on top of it, I took my Naniwa stone, cross-hatched the surface with pencil lines and commenced to lap the stone by using a circular motion, with just the weight of the stone. This probably took 5 mins as I did it twice to be sure.

I then took my razor and started to hone it, following the guidance by Lynn Abrams (thanks Lynn!) as seen on his