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I was thinking. Even though we search for old hones. Im thinking the shaver of long ago didn't do what we are doing. For them it was just a shave. I'm sure they wanted it comfortable. For us now its more for the enjoyment of the shave. Pampering ourselves. Exploring all the different aspects of the shave.
Does anyone have evidence that they were as crazy as we are today.
this from the arkansas website.
however i personally believe that the use of pasted strops was more common than today.thinking logically about it(and being a bit of a tramper)it would be nearly impossible to carry along an array of hones back in the old days(think horseback) etc a bevel setter and a pasted strop would be more nearly likely. Just my opinion from my own personal traveling about in the woods/trails.cheers.[emoji4]
Based on my flea market finds, I'd agree that pasted paddle/loom strops were more common than high grit stones. To date, I have only picked 3 sets with stones but I have a drawer full of old paddle strops.
I have heard that some of the old loggers "discovered" that they could strop their razors on wooden posts that were painted green and it would sharpen them up good. No doubt the green paint was a chromium oxide based pigment.
The difference between Then and Now was really in the razor edge as it came from the factory..
They really only had to maintain the edge, razor came with actual bragging rights about the edges, many were Hair Tested (Sound Familiar) they also had an entire workforce out there called Cutlers that sharpened and repaired tools & knives which back then included SR's unlike today.
But yes many here have taken the edge to an entirely different level then just "Shaving", many here are in it for the Sport of chasing the best edges, it has nothing to do with just everyday shaving for some of us...
I am also of the opinion that pasted strops were the norm back in the days. The evidence is certainly in old wedges with lots of irregular 'hone wear'. JMO
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 ?
Not much to add, but wow! I wish someone would gift me a Frictionite 00!
I think probably back in the day there were much better knife sharpeners around (like the mentioned cutlers) whereas today our breed gets a funny look if we bring up sharpening knives in public, heh.
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.
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.
Indeed, but man-made hones such as Frictionite are far newer than the olden days I was referring to!Quote:
Originally Posted by 10Pups
Here is a once common scene in cities, along with flower ladies and newsboys. Attachment 185372
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Euclid440
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.
+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.Quote:
Originally Posted by RezDog
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.
Poor Bastard! He returned with a pile of India stones! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Splashone
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by sharptonn
the first reference i find regarding arkansas stones used by european americans is in 1819 by a man traveling through the south who stayed with some plantation owners who used the aforsaid stones.likely they where used several years prior to his writing.you can find his name/writings by calling the arkansas public library call center and getting literature.i cant be bothered to do it again.best regards -CAM-[emoji4]
That's about the time in history when the fellows started having 'singeing parties'.Quote:
Originally Posted by 10Pups
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! :roflmao
funny just the other day i wondered how " comfortable" a shave from the past was !!Quote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
i never once even thought about the above , as it makes sense to me .. !! i admit i have honed and the edge not been up to where i wanted it to be and continued to finish the shave .. it was at that moment when my little brain started wondering how sharp was sharp and what was the standard ? ..
Pierre Valon received a patent in 1827 for barber hone / artificial stone designed for razors, http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...after-all.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by sharptonn
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.
Dont see why not, they did things back then that we have a hard time to duplicate today.........Quote:
Originally Posted by sharptonn
What a strange subject for a "little brain" to think about...just sayin'!Quote:
Originally Posted by gooser
Knowing gooser, his 'big brain' was too busy with more important stuff! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Splashone
I have been using that closet example for several decades now. Hit the nail square on the head and sunk it home in one swing.
When I turn off the TV for just a night, I become so much more productive. Change the pace and pay attention to details because of lack of external distractions and I amaze myself with what gets accomplished and the quality there in. No where to go, just time by oneself a hone and wanting to look good on payday, seems like plenty of motivation for a young man back in the day
