Thread: Honing now vs long ago

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Lesser known is the use of lead like a paste. I guess it all depends on how far back your talking about. Some of the older hones I have can do it all. 1 experiment I tried was using a #20 Frictionite to set bevel and finish. It worked fine and with only a linen and leather stropping I had a nice shaving edge. Royalcake ( a very nice guy by the way) gifted me a 00 Frictionite which I have had no time to play with really. I did refresh a Satinedge with it and having done so I can can tell you that I believe back in the day they were more practical when it came to honing a blade. If 1 stone could do it why would they need more ?

Indeed, but man-made hones such as Frictionite are far newer than the olden days I was referring to!

Here is a once common scene in cities, along with flower ladies and newsboys.
Many of them did hone razors also. Usually a barber did the trick in off hours to make extra cash from his location.
Cheers
Hones can do a good job but a honer can be worth their price in good shaves.
~Richard

Originally Posted by Euclid440

No question that back in the day, things were delivered to the user in ready to use condition, compare Vintage TI’s to today’s offerings.

I have a Pre-war Belgium Browning High Power that the slide feels like it’s on ball bearings and will shoot circles around my 70’s Gold Cup and old 5 screw S&W revolvers with actions smooth as glass, from the factory.

When I started in the 70’s a Washita was used to bevel set for repairs, chip removal and maintained on a 4 or 6 in hard Translucent Ark, linen and leather.

The difference is time, we do all the over the top stuff, because no-one wants to put in the time. Before, TV, Cellphones, and computers, we had time.

Probably the edges were about the same, there is nothing wrong with what we do, like using a synthetic lube on the Browning.

The other day I was talking with a guy who was fixing a steel gate and could not adjust the hinge because the adjustment bolt was lightly tacked to the nut. He said he would get it next week when he could get an angle grinder. I told him how about a file? He looked at me like I was crazy.

Although I agree with the gist of your post, as a machinist I wouldn't have taken a file to the weld either! For me, files are a precision cutting tool, lol. Welds may often have slag inclusions or carbon migration (especially welding on what could be a grade 5 or 8 bolt, which will result in a glass hard weld without prior slow cooling or annealing since it's essentially heat treated by the rapid heating and cooling of the weld) - that will destroy a file (roll the teeth) in a few strokes. I'd vote to use the grinder as well.

Yea, the gate still is not fixed… cause the grinder is quicker and he did not have a file… He’s a repair guy?

Used to wonder why they stopped making barber hones, then realized, they didn’t. A Norton 4/8k is really all you need, and a 12K super stone is a multi-tool, as are Arks, Coticules, Thüringen’s, Jnats and local stones that will do it all and have for centuries.

Paste was also really popular at the turn of the century, there were all manner of concoctions, Lead, Chrome, Cerium and Ferrous Oxides have been around for a long, long time.

I shaved with one razor for over 10 years and did not start collecting until the early 80’s, when I walked into an antique store with my new bride looking for furniture and you could buy NOS razors for 2 bucks.

I suspect most folks used one or two razors for life, rich dudes had 7 day sets, one just did not need to be setting bevels all the time.

Originally Posted by RezDog

It is not that far past in history that people lived in one of two groups, the very wealthy and the very poor. For most of the very poor there was likely one razor per house. The very wealthy unlikely would have done their own sharpening. Sharpening was a profession and that is likely who would set a bevel or refined an edge. Except barbers I cannot see anyone else having their own hone. Middle class is a very new concept, and so is disposable income, except for the very elite.

+1. If you grew up with depression era parents they were always talking about the value of a dollar and 'save your money.' They knew about rainy days. Thirty years ago I was in my late 30s, had a good friend in his mid 60s.

He had just rented an apartment in Newark, NJ and I was doing a walk through with him. Apartments in those old buildings in North Jersey had cubby holes for closets compared with the walk in closets we see in later construction. He asked me if I knew why that was, and I said I didn't. Because, he said, in the days when these were built average folk had one suit for special occasions, maybe another for work, if they required a suit to go to work. They didn't have a lot of clothes so they didn't need large closet space.

Extravagance was a sin at worst, and foolishness at best. An old fellow I worked for in my teens, hanging canvas awnings, told me his grandmother impressed upon him,"He who buys what he does not need, will someday need what he cannot buy." Sobering thoughts in this day and age. Nothing has changed but the mindset.

@ eKretz,

Your post reminded me of my grandfather (also a machinist), who would treat his files with the same reverence that a cabinet maker would treat his chisels.

Each file was individually separated in an oil soaked roll, when needed he would select the right file, take it to the work piece and use it with a pronounced deliberateness. When finished he would immediately clean it with a file card and return it to the roll.

The file would never touch anything other than the work piece, file card or the roll. I once (and only once) made the mistake of letting two files touch each other on the bench, he was not amused.

He hardly ever used a grinder, opinioning that the right file in the right hands was just as quick, as the file cut and finished at the same time, and far less messy.

Indeed, sounds like he and I would get on wonderfully. I bet any money he wouldn't take one of his files to a weld either, lol. Mine are treated much the same as his;I shudder every time I see someone using a file without a card handy, and even more so when the file is being scrubbed back and forth on the workpiece like a brush! Files cut on the forward stroke only, they should be lifted for the return stroke. Thanks for the anecdote!

Back in the 1920s and before period most shavers had one hone which could be bought for pennies and was probably around 6K-8K and that is how they maintained their razors with that one hone and of course they owned 1 strop. For people with a little more money they would either have one of the itinerant sharpeners or a barber or a barber supply store do the work. They were one of the services Bresnick offered. He had people just honing razors all day. Think they were competent? Har har.

No doubt some poor folk were not so hot with a hone and they suffered. My dad used to tell me when his father was shaving the family would hear yelling and cursing coming from the bathroom. The experience was such when he started shaving (in the 1920s) he wouldn't touch a straight.

Oh this is all just a bunch of speculation...The real story is that Christopher Columbus was really trying to corner the world market for Jnats by procuring them straight from the quarry.

Originally Posted by Splashone

Oh this is all just a bunch of speculation...The real story is that Christopher Columbus was really trying to corner the world market for Jnats by procuring them straight from the quarry.

Poor Bastard! He returned with a pile of India stones!