Thread: Should I do it...

Hello Everybody;

So no long ago i got my first hone. A yellow lake natural stone that is rated at 12K.

Today I used the hone on my Boker Silver steel that was starting to pull and lets see tomorrow how it shaves.

Yesterday I bought a beautiful Wacker The Barbiers Bride and I feel it is a little rough so I am thinking to use the YL on it.

I am a little apprehensive since my honing experience is zero.

Do you think that it would be particularly challenging to refresh to a smooth shave ready the Wacker with the YL?

Any tips?

Thanks for the feed back

I think its possible to go this way, either with slurry and water finish in the end....or you might get a better finish if you use glycerine and water mixture or oil on the stone...

For sure only if the stone was already oilused or youre going to use oil in future....if not glycerine water is the better choice...

You can also try to do the last 20 laps under running water...

What kind of YL is it? Ones of the new sold on ebay? Or a vintage one ?

If your honing experience is zero, I would not try to hone or refresh the razor yourself, especially a brand new expensive one like that.

Send it out to get pro-honed, and buy a few cheaper vintage razors, that you will use, to practice honing on - the Classifieds here is a great place to pick up a few good quality vintage blades.

Your experience cycle starts now. I don't have any suggestions about hone or not hone, but I'd say that if you know your stone will finish a razor, very light pressure, like 10 strokes, strop, plain water. try the razor. If it's getting worse, then stop. If it's not, then you're honing.

You just never know with inexperience how the razor was honed before, if it has a very mild warp, so you probably want to play it safe at first.

Generally any good finisher will finish 98% of razors just fine.

Well not that anyone said anything I disagree with, here is my two cents. Always look before you leap. It is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Use a loupe and check the bevel and find the issue first. It could be it just need to be finished it could be that you need a bevel set. Honing with an experienced person is the very best way to learn

My suggestion would be give it a real good stropping first and see if that helps. Say 200 linen and 200 leather

Thank you for the replays.

This morning I shaved with the Boker Silver Steel that I honed yesterday and even if there was an improvement it was steel harsh. I think that this is due to the previous work that a company did on the razor, I feel that they messed the bevel.

With the magnifying glass it looks like there are two different angles on each side and the worst part is that I think they used a grinding wheel and not hones. You can see the aggressive marks that the wheel did on blade, almost touching the engraving..... It is saddening because in Barcelona there are only two companies that sharpen SR and this is one of them. I made sure to ask them if they use hones and their answer was affirmative.....Really upsetting how thing work in this country, always looking for the faster way even if it cost them the reputation. No way I am trusting them with my Wacker.

I have a friend that is very knowledgeable in SR and Honing so I ll go tomorrow to get a crash test on honing and see if I can save the Boker.

There is nothing like one on one for optimal learning. Sorry about the shave test but the hands on news is great.