Thread: Barber Hones Salvageable?

So what is the Damage? Are any usable?

I consider scratches on a hone simply to be negative honing surface. They do not harm the function of the hone.

The Koenig looks like it is degrading. The other two look fine. You can very very VERY lightly rub the two other hones together under running water in order to knock off whatever high spots might be at the edges of any of the scratches. This is not lapping.

I just lap mine

Some barber hones you don't lap,,,,,,,,,,
The Koenig,,,,,I would pick an edge & lightly chamfer it with a DMT ,,, if it turns to a muddy slurry & chamfers easily/fast,,, then its done, as Utopian said it is deteriorating.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Some barber hones you don't lap,,,,,,,,,,
The Koenig,,,,,I would pick an edge & lightly chamfer it with a DMT ,,, if it turns to a muddy slurry & chamfers easily/fast,,, then its done, as Utopian said it is deteriorating.

Why don't you lap them

A lot of barber hones are "coated" with an abrasive that does not go through the entire hone. lapping it , reduces its cutting ability.

Because there not stone.

Barbers hones are made of mystical resins, concrete, smashed pottery and space dust. Each company had a different recipe for making the hone and they guarded their secrets. Some are resins and cured, others are baked and more ceramic. Some companies only laced the faces of the hones with abrasives, others mixed it into the whole stone.

A ceramic stone might be fine after lapping, a resin one may just turn into a horrible mess and never go smooth again or worse it could be soft cured and stuff be very rubbery inside. There is no way to know and no way to guarantee the results with lapping them. You do the edge test because if you do get a stone that is going to fall to bits you still have a nice looking ornament. A stone that looks all mashed up has 0 resale, and is only good for the bin.

It doesn't mean barbers hones are bad, A lot work very well. You just can't treat them like a regular hone with a constant abrasive through the block.

Modine has a huge list of barbers hones on another forum. With reviews and appraisals.

http://www.razorandstone.com/forumdi...r-Hone-Reviews

He posts on here as well so it would be worth PMing him to see what he thinks.

That's some really important information. It also explains why my 102 razor hone doesn't work anymore.

By 102 do you mean a Carborundum? You can lap those, they are homogenous being made of silicon carbide. Very important to smooth them afterwards though, they are formed from fairly (relative to a lot of razor hones) coarse grit, so they need to be polished up a bit to make them work at a level suitable for a razor.

If you put that carborundum to a DMT say good bye to the DMT :<0) I have a few of those and they are real work horses. Got to know the numbers to know what they are good for though. They are not all the same.