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 sharptonn

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

Okay so going back farther,,, another lesser know fact is that the first wheel was invented to grind razors. Again man made but of natural substance. The story goes that they had to make about 30 before they finally got a hole in 1 so 2 guys could hold a stick through the middle of it while one guy spun it for the grinder. They realized it was to much effort to sharpen sea shell so they set it down and forgot about it. Mr. Barrow later came by and found it with the stick still in it and well .. the rest is history.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Okay so going back farther,,, another lesser know fact is that the first wheel was invented to grind razors. Again man made but of natural substance. The story goes that they had to make about 30 before they finally got a hole in 1 so 2 guys could hold a stick through the middle of it while one guy spun it for the grinder. They realized it was to much effort to sharpen sea shell so they set it down and forgot about it. Mr. Barrow later came by and found it with the stick still in it and well .. the rest is history.

That's about the time in history when the fellows started having 'singeing parties'.
they would sit about the fire taking flaming sticks out and burning off hairs of one another, extinguishing the flames with water heaved and soothing with animal fat. Much grog was consumed! Ahhh! The good old days!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

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

Pierre Valon received a patent in 1827 for barber hone / artificial stone designed for razors, http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...after-all.html

Jean Jacques Perret devotes a full chapter in his book "La Pogonotomie", about the uses of different materials to use as a pasted strop in 1769.

Surely the old timers were chasing new methods to get a perfect edge beyond the natural stones.

Yes, a concept, but did it work? Frictionite did, but 20th century??

I have to say that the thought that there were not obsessive personalities back then doesn't wash with me.

They may not have had the technology we have today or the openness between countries (eg Jnats would have been around, just not overly accessible or very well, if at all, known outside Japan), but the spirit of enquiry and ingenuity was there in spades, perhaps in even greater quantities than we have now.

I have no doubt there were men who took their edges to the bleeding edge of what was possible back then just as we do now. And in 200 years there'll be a forum wondering if we today were ever able to get our edges as good as they are getting on their Dark Matter hones with pico-technology sub-atomic particle pasted plasma strops.

James.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Yes, a concept, but did it work? Frictionite did, but 20th century??

Dont see why not, they did things back then that we have a hard time to duplicate today.........