Thread: For a shaver, which single hone.

Ron, I must tell you I,ve talked with you, and met you several times and on the phone. I believe you to be a very intelligent man and really know your rocks. plus I like you and consider you a long distance friend. so don't get mad at me for my opinion. but I,m disagreeing with you on the waiting till your razor shows any degradation. I don't think its wrong, but how will it hurt to do "maintenance" honing? now I know zip when it comes to this honing thing, I still send my razors out for "real honing" but maintaining my razors I believe I,m really good at. upon advice from my hone guy, I started hitting my 12k nani every 10-12 shaves, 4-6 laps at first then shave, if it needed more then do it again then shave again.

this routine has kept my razors shaving in top shape all shaves, and not having it degrade on me. great shaves every time this way, or heres another way to look at it, would you drive your car till it breaks down then fix it , or do some preventive maintenance to keep it running top notch?, and along the way ive learned that once you can handle the 12k nani and max it out, that it really gives just as smooth and keen a shave as all the " end all , beat all, top of the mountain high dollar naturals" so that's my take Tc

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Ron, I must tell you I,ve talked with you, and met you several times and on the phone. I believe you to be a very intelligent man and really know your rocks. plus I like you and consider you a long distance friend. so don't get mad at me for my opinion. but I,m disagreeing with you on the waiting till your razor shows any degradation. I don't think its wrong, but how will it hurt to do "maintenance" honing? now I know zip when it comes to this honing thing, I still send my razors out for "real honing" but maintaining my razors I believe I,m really good at. upon advice from my hone guy, I started hitting my 12k nani every 10-12 shaves, 4-6 laps at first then shave, if it needed more then do it again then shave again.

this routine has kept my razors shaving in top shape all shaves, and not having it degrade on me. great shaves every time this way, or heres another way to look at it, would you drive your car till it breaks down then fix it , or do some preventive maintenance to keep it running top notch?, and along the way ive learned that once you can handle the 12k nani and max it out, that it really gives just as smooth and keen a shave as all the " end all , beat all, top of the mountain high dollar naturals" so that's my take Tc

As a mechanic, sometimes I really wish people would wait til something actually breaks. I'm tired of trying to find a nice way to express that someone has worked their power tailgate to the point they discovered the thermal failsafe limit and it just needed to cool off, their speakers aren't popping their "music" is awful, or driving vehicles that aren't acting abnormally for hours in some cases trying to experience a squeak/bump/rattle/thump/vibration that just isn't happening. If I were paid by the hour I wouldn't care, but a lot of this is essentially done out of the goodness of my heart and that takes it's toll after a while. But that's a whole other can of worms.

I think he means at the slightest degradation in shave quality, not waiting until it's tugging and uncomfortable to shave with. Which is likely somewhere between 10 and 20 shaves by my reckoning. I figure the longest I've gone without tweaking an edge was 2 months shaving with just that blade every second or third day. I've got too many razors in my rotation to know which has how many shaves on it since last honing. I can tell you my Wade & Butcher has 2 because it was touched up 5 days ago and I've used it twice since. That's about it. So I have to rely on the 'that could shave better' method. If I pared it down to 1 blade, 1 hone, I could probably just touch up on the first of every month and call it good for life.

Originally Posted by dinnermint

#1) I would say my naniwa 12k fits the bill, but I have been considering looking at higher grit finishers.

#2) I would say my 5k naniwa with 12k naniwa. I had success the only time I tried it, when I wasn't paying attention and skipped my 8k. I would pick it because I am sometimes tough on my edges and would want something that can overcome minor improper stropping chips. This of course assumes 2 and only 2 hones forever, of which I am and will be eternally inable.

This is where I am today... a 5K or 8K plus 12K naniwa perhaps using the Pyramid method
if I let a blade get too dull. Learning when to hone is harder than I thought.

I have been very happy with my 8K Snow White naniwa combined with the Naniwa 12K.
I like the mirror polish the 8K SWN gives.

I suspect any quality 10K-18K hone used with half as many hone strokes as many think are needed
will keep a well honed shaver shave ready.

I like the Norton 4K/8K(work horse) but the 12K finish is an improvement that I do like.

Shapton 10K and 16K seem sharp as heck but harsh and I need
a pasted strop to calm them down. I suspect I should use half
the hone strokes I use on a Naniwa. I think ShaptonGlass hones
are better than I am and less forgiving.

Originally Posted by Kristian

......
This forum is very great, but I do find that advice and opinions shifts a lot. A few years back coticules was the best, now al kind of exotic hones, takes that place. I think that's natural because most honemasters here, love to collect hones and love honing more then shaving,
.....

This is worth repeating...
It is true... we all love to collect and play with our toys.

My first hone was a coticules I think I got it in '71 with a Swedish razor that still shaves nice
as can be. I used that razor and that hone a lot and the two got old together. I never lapped
the coticule flat and then I found this place...

More fun and entertaining than movies some months and at times cheaper at current
movie prices. And you have to shave for a date...

Having fun...

Agree with you Tcrideshd, I am a fan of maintenance honing. I have a box that sits on my coffee table and it has my razors in the rotation in it. I'm steady at 15. I don't keep a record of how many shaves I've had with any given razor, but every now and again, I'll pick out three razors and just give them 10 laps on The Gok 20. Of those 15 razors I have now converted six of the edges to my jnats, so I'm testing with them. But from a maintenance point of view, I don't wait for discomfort. I'm sure some out there have had a razor 'die' half way through a shave, I eliminate that by just mucking around with my stones. I like honing, it's a great pastime. Just like I love mybKanayama strops. It's fun

Originally Posted by Marshal

As a mechanic, sometimes I really wish people would wait til something actually breaks. I'm tired of trying to find a nice way to express that someone has worked their power tailgate to the point they discovered the thermal failsafe limit and it just needed to cool off, their speakers aren't popping their "music" is awful, or driving vehicles that aren't acting abnormally for hours in some cases trying to experience a squeak/bump/rattle/thump/vibration that just isn't happening. If I were paid by the hour I wouldn't care, but a lot of this is essentially done out of the goodness of my heart and that takes it's toll after a while. But that's a whole other can of worms.

I think he means at the slightest degradation in shave quality, not waiting until it's tugging and uncomfortable to shave with. Which is likely somewhere between 10 and 20 shaves by my reckoning. I figure the longest I've gone without tweaking an edge was 2 months shaving with just that blade every second or third day. I've got too many razors in my rotation to know which has how many shaves on it since last honing. I can tell you my Wade & Butcher has 2 because it was touched up 5 days ago and I've used it twice since. That's about it. So I have to rely on the 'that could shave better' method. If I pared it down to 1 blade, 1 hone, I could probably just touch up on the first of every month and call it good for life.

Not seeing the comparison of nit picky people hearing strange noises to doing preventative maintenance there Marshal. You can't mean that you would rather a customer bring you their car after 200,000 miles and never changing the oil? Or never changing the tires? My point is maintenance. And waiting till your engine to blow before changing the oil would be the comparison. Back our regularly scheduled programming. Tc

You could do this with any stone. But I would pick a trans or black ark and a cheap diamond card to raise slurry on one side (and I'd never touch the other side with anything other than a cloth to clean it from time to time).

Actually, the only person I know who has shaved for decades does just about what you said. He strops his razor on horse leather, and in his terms, "once in a great while" he runs his razor over a black arkansas stone that he uses for woodworking, but that he's been careful to not lap so as not to lose its fineness. Same razor and same stone since the 70s.

He has a level of economy and a lack of curiosity in this are that I could never match!

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Not seeing the comparison of nit picky people hearing strange noises to doing preventative maintenance there Marshal. You can't mean that you would rather a customer bring you their car after 200,000 miles and never changing the oil? Or never changing the tires? My point is maintenance. And waiting till your engine to blow before changing the oil would be the comparison. Back our regularly scheduled programming. Tc

It seems nit picky until you work at a dealership and see just how common that is. Mostly the diatribe about broken cars on my end was blowing off steam. At any rate, I addressed the topic of maintenance honing and really I think the three of us are more or less on the same page. No point in waiting until the razor doesn't shave, it's far easier, faster, and just more efficient to keep them sharp.

Edit: And as DaveW said above, that really just requires your favorite finishing stone. Even a slow stone like a Black Arkansas can do it quick if you stay on top of the blade.

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Ron, I must tell you I,ve talked with you, and met you several times and on the phone. I believe you to be a very intelligent man and really know your rocks. plus I like you and consider you a long distance friend. so don't get mad at me for my opinion. but I,m disagreeing with you on the waiting till your razor shows any degradation. I don't think its wrong, but how will it hurt to do "maintenance" honing? now I know zip when it comes to this honing thing, I still send my razors out for "real honing" but maintaining my razors I believe I,m really good at. upon advice from my hone guy, I started hitting my 12k nani every 10-12 shaves, 4-6 laps at first then shave, if it needed more then do it again then shave again.

this routine has kept my razors shaving in top shape all shaves, and not having it degrade on me. great shaves every time this way, or heres another way to look at it, would you drive your car till it breaks down then fix it , or do some preventive maintenance to keep it running top notch?, and along the way ive learned that once you can handle the 12k nani and max it out, that it really gives just as smooth and keen a shave as all the " end all , beat all, top of the mountain high dollar naturals" so that's my take Tc

I have no problem with disagreement.

Here is my take on this. I want to know how the razors, hones, and strops perform. I want to know how long an edge lasts. If I routinely on a schedule hone an edge before it has degraded, then I learn nothing. Of course the shaves will remain more optimal your way and the loss of steel probably will be trivial, but that approach also causes a loss of opportunity for learning.

Again, I prefer to touch up a razor only after I notice a diminishment in the quality of the shave. I don't let it go any farther than that, but this allows me better feedback on how my toys are doing.

I'm going to chime in with an outside perspective in regards to scheduled preventive maintenance. I once ran the oil analysis laboratory onboard the USS Nimitz for a couple years in my 20s. The purpose of that lab was to test used oil samples taken from oil weted mechanical systems. Mostly jet engines but also every sort of machine that has metal on metal moving interfaces lubricated with oil. You light it on fire and read the light output. It tells you exactly how much microscopic wear metal is in that oil and thus the health of the said oil whetted system. We also ran viscosity tests and combust ability tests.

The military never changes the oil until the oil untill it needs to be changed. It's sampled on hour cycles and that's the scheduled maintenance.

A razor is a lubricated metal surface that wears just like the gears and bearings in an engine. The way people here talk about the shaving experience relates to what I've said in this way. The daily shave is your scheduled test of razor performance. As soon as the daily shave experience drops to the edge of acceptability it is time for a tune up. Changing good oil is wasteful, that's what the military and many industries run oil samples, that also identify failing systems be replaced catastrophic failure. Now I'm not saying your razor is half a million dollar helicopter engine or that people are going to live or die over it. But I guess I'm trying to say the car maintenance comparison was very accurate. In my completely lacking experience that is. Just some perspective is all.