Thread: Getting started with honing

Originally Posted by technoid

I kinda thought that was the point of honing, to take a razor that has issues (will not shave properly), and make it a usable razor.

Yes, but it's the same as saying the point of car repair is to take a car that has issues (will not run) and make it drive.
That may range from putting in some gas to rebuilding the whole car engine, body, transmission...

Well, honing is nothing as complicated it's just rubbing a razor on some abrasive, but there is still pretty significant difference between maintaining your already shaving razor to keep shaving and taking a piece of poorly ground steel or well rusted one and getting it to shave. I mean at certain point it's simpler to start from scratch and just grind a razor from a steel bar.

Originally Posted by technoid

Apart from a razor that is improperly ground, nearly any razor should be able to be honed. Even junk steel razors should be able to be honed, although the finished product may not hold an edge.

Junk razors can not be honed. You need a steel that is hard at least in the mid 50s Rockwell and has fine enough grain or you will have a knife type object that may 'cut' through some stuff, but will never be suitable for shaving.
That 'holding an edge' lingo seems to have come from people with little experience with honing and can offer only speculations of how bad 'razors' behave. In real life the steel simply can not support sharp enough edge - it's not a matter of creating an edge which then fails during the first stroke, the problem is that it crumbles before it gets in the range of necessary geometry.


So, you need to answer the real question - what kind of honing are you planning to do.
If you want to only maintain your razors after they are honed once then get that naniwa 12k that you want to get and you're done.

If you want to restore razors that come off ebay or antique shops then you need 1k level hone and then something in the 4k level and something in the 8k level (you can sometimes mix and match manufacturers, but if you don't your life will be easier).
3k->10k is a big jump that you should not attempt at this point and the one you want is 5k->8k, but if you have to alter one of them do 3k->8k because you already said you're getting the 12k.

Originally Posted by gugi

So, you need to answer the real question - what kind of honing are you planning to do.
If you want to only maintain your razors after they are honed once then get that naniwa 12k that you want to get and you're done.

If you want to restore razors that come off ebay or antique shops then you need 1k level hone and then something in the 4k level and something in the 8k level (you can sometimes mix and match manufacturers, but if you don't your life will be easier).
3k->10k is a big jump that you should not attempt at this point and the one you want is 5k->8k, but if you have to alter one of them do 3k->8k because you already said you're getting the 12k.

I would go along with that and I did. I use all Naniwa Super Stones in a progression of 1K, 3k, 8K and 12K followed by a Crox pasted balsa strop to try and bring old razors to shave ready.

If you are going to do a lot of old razors I would consider getting the thick,2cm/20mm, versions of the hones as opposed to the thin,1cm/10mm ones. At a minimum the thick version of the 1K as it will be your work horse in setting bevels on those old razors.

Whatever way you decide to go have fun at honing. It is an aspect of shaving with a straight razor that I am surprised that I enjoy now. It was plenty frustrating in the beginning though but I had no real experience in sharpening anything.

Bob

Thanks to all who posted. The answer to the question posted above is Both. I want to be able to maintain my own razors, and also to refurbish any new ones I may find in the future. Possibly even making one from scratch in the distant future as well. As stated I already make knives and may just want to try something new with those skills. I know that what I have learned already with the SR, using and studying it I have learned to put a much keener edge on my knives as well, and that is just altering my technique a little from what I have learned here.

I actually have in my online shopping cart the 1k, 5k, 8k, 12k stones, a lapping stone, and holder. I was looking for the recommendations here as to the progression, although a recommended set from an external site, is 1k, 3k, 5k, 12k.

BTW. Those are all actually 3/4 inch thick stones (~20mm)

The recommendations elsewhere are to skip the 8k, and those on here are to skip the 5k

I agree, on the enjoyment part too, I find working with knives to be relaxing.

Either will work with some skill but our recommendation will work better and easier. The gap between the 5k and 12 is rather large. I am not going to get into too many details of the relationship between grit rating and abrading ability of these hones, but just consider that these numbers are not entirely random and not knowing anything else other that you need a progression to be effective the most sensible labeling is evenly spaced numbers rather than irregularly spaced ones.

You can certainly hone any razor including ones with chips using only the 12k hone (after all it's just removal of steel at a particular rate), but you will be spending so much time that you will do it at most once.


I have these hones and know how they work thus I would bet good money that I have honed at least an order of magnitude more razors than the person who is recommending you the 1-3-5-12 progression.

To prove it here are some numbers for these particular hones: 1k to 5k or 5k to 8k does'n take more than 10-100 strokes on 99.99% of the razors. 8k->12k is 5-20 strokes.
You can decrease the number of strokes by inserting intermediate grit hones, but at certain point switching hones takes longer than just doing more strokes with a fewer hones and larger gaps in the progression.

I'm sure you can guess or figure out what happens with the number of strokes if you instead skip a grit level, hence my previous inclination to betting.

Thanks Gugi, for the numbers on the progression. It looks like my initial thoughts were correct and I plan to go forward with the 1k, 5k, 8k, 12k order.

The 1,3,5,12 recommendation is actually a set as sold on the site, where I located the stones. Looks as though they want to attempt to sway you into purchasing the set to "save money" knowing that you will need to purchase an additional stone to complete the set. Therefore spending more that if you had just bought the correct sequence of stones to begin with, and skipped a few of the lesser needed stones.

Conspiracy theory!!!!!

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for their advice on the topic.

Any 1K, and a Norton 4/8 combo stone is all you need to get started or grit equivalent. Double sided combo stones are a great value.

Buy a quality stone, Norton, Chosera, Naniwa Super Stone or King to shorten the learning curve, knowing the stones will not be an issue.

Aluminum Oxide Film is also a good alternative 3 and 1um, 1um is about 16K, using a 1k diamond plate as a bevel setter. Inexpensive and a quick great edge.

Learning to hone can be done while learning to shave, it just can be frustrating as learning to shave requires a keen and comfortable edge. The comfort part is where most knife folks get into problems.

The 1,5,8,12K or 1,3 will work very well.