For a shaver, which single hone.

For a shaver, which single man made hone makes sense to maintain an edge?

I have this pile of hones that I collected to rescue razors and get them
shaveable. I almost have enough razors now and can see how many rocks
I do not need or use when shaving is my goal.

I always recommend that a new razor be honed by a hone master.
I know that the bevel will get set, I know that it will give a darn fine
shave for a long time but eventually it will need a touch up. The hone
master shared the number of layers of tape if he/she used any. So...

Q#1: Is there a single hone that can be used on the first Saturday of the month
to refresh a razor. Five, ten, twenty nice smooth hone strokes. Rinse, dry, strop
and shave for the next month.

Q#2: Might there be a pair of hones that works better than a single hone.

Yes I have a couple hones that I use for my shavers. I do not use a full
progression of hones. I am skipping natural stones because getting a good
one is sort of a lottery.

The razor shaved yesterday... when to touch it up. how to simply touch it up.

You need some type of finishing hone to maintain your razor. There are many types of hones that can be used for finishing, but which one works best for you depends on your razors, your honing method, and your razor edge preferences.

For example, many people love Coticule edges. I can shave off a Coticule edge, but it is not as keen as I would like. If I get a new razor that has been finished on a Coticule, I will shave with it once or twice and then rehone the razor.

Some folks say you can shave off a Norton 8K edge. For me, that is not sharp enough; I want a 12K edge at a minimum. A Naniwa 12K or good Chinese 12K will get you to that level. The Chinese hones vary in quality; not all of them are true finishers.

I prefer finishing around 15K. A good Escher, Thuringen, JNAT, Welsh slates, Vermio, Zulu grey, surgical black Arkansas, or even some Imperia La Roccia stones can finish around that level. Of course, it is impossible to assign a true grit rating to any natural stone. Individual specimens vary.

There are some synthetic hones like the Shapton 15K, the Suehiro Gokumyo 20K and the Shapton 30K, that are good finishers.

Thus, you really have to find out what works best for you. That is why many who hone their own razors have a collection of stones, but they eventually lean towards a couple of favorites.

What RayClem said. Whatever your favorite finisher is would probably be good enough, provided you touch up as soon as the shave feels off. Easier to keep a blade sharp than to put it off until it need a full re-hone. I would say it's probably good to keep a full 1K to finish progression on hand, just in case a blade gets dropped. But if I were to pare it down to one hone I could live with any one of the following:

Norton 4/8
Swaty Barber hone
Pike Barber hone
Raven Barber hone
Celtes barber hone
Glass barber hone
Shapton Kuromaku 12K

Ordered roughly from least-fine to most fine out of the synthetic hones in my possession. I'd probably also be perfectly content with a Naniwa 8/10/12K stone. But it all depends on how refined an edge you need, if your beard is thick like Rays and 8K doesn't work for you finer is clearly better. I suppose I'm lucky that an 8K edge will suffice for my needs, but for the topic at hand any of the stones I named save for maybe the glass one would likely only take 5 to 10 swipes across a stone to bring an edge back to par if caught early enough. I'm not about to retire my beloved naturals anytime soon, but speaking hypothetically I could live without them. Probably.

Not all naturals are a crap shoot, though some have said this about Coticules. This has not been my limited experience and I have three Coticules. As a single finisher, I would recommend the Arkansas True Hard, Hard Black, or Translucent from Dan's Whetstones. The stones are consistent and finish a razor fabulously, and the company reliable.

Well you could go to all places with this. However what is your favourite edge. If you did it yourself or someone else honed the blade, what is your most oh wow edge. Pick that hone.

Simplest, easy-peasy finishing on a synthetic: Naniwa 12k, hands-down. In fact, my neighbor currently has mine learning how to refresh a tugging edge on his newish PRC. I also gave him one of my recent rescales with a Norton 8k edge to see if he could improve it.

Personally, I get a great, smooth shave off a Norton 8k. A Norton 4/8 combo is not nearly as sexy as many other options, but it will do 95% of what any shaver needs to accomplish barring repairs on ebay beaters. Naturals are a whole 'nother rabbit hole, as you guys know.

#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.

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Originally Posted by niftyshaving

Q#1: Is there a single hone that can be used on the first Saturday of the month
to refresh a razor. Five, ten, twenty nice smooth hone strokes. Rinse, dry, strop
and shave for the next month.

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Any decent finisher that you already have can accomplish that task. However, even though some people do it, I don't see the point in honing on a schedule. To me, it makes more sense to hone only when you notice that the razor no longer is shaving the way that you expected, regardless of the length of that interval.

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Originally Posted by niftyshaving

Q#2: Might there be a pair of hones that works better than a single hone.

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In general, I don't think that is necessary. You might need a lower grit hone if you damaged your edge. You also might want to use a pair if you are using a really slow stone, like some Arks, if you are impatient to get the edge back more quickly.

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Originally Posted by niftyshaving

The razor shaved yesterday... when to touch it up. how to simply touch it up.

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As I've said many times, including just above, touch up the edge when you notice any diminishment in the quality of the shave. How that is done depends on the state of the edge and the particular hone you choose to use. It might be 5 strokes on a Swaty or 200+ on a surgical black Arkansas.

I go back to my first razor which I had professionally honed. I bought a Naniwa 8k superstone, to maintain that edge. I could always shave on my razor that had those 20 touch up strokes and if there were no such things as Suehiro 20k's and the like I'm sure I'd still be happily shaving on the 8k superstone edge.

Well I've have like 25 coticules, collected and tamed thou the years.

All of them can be used as a single stone hone. That means you can finish a razor on them.

Two of these coticules did require a lot more technique then the rest. Both where extremely fast.

But in general all are great stones.

I do have all kind of hones. The Naniwa series is also great, but you'll need more then one hone. I find the coticules are by far the best stones. If you hone all progression on a Coticule you'll get a super smooth shave.

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, at least that's how I feel myself [emoji4].

A Coticule can finish around 16K, if the skills of the honer is sufficient. It takes years to learn, but nothing good comes easy and it's much easier to learn with only one hone and a slurry stone.

There's many layers of coticules and must people agreed, that the La Veinette is the best. I find that all layers can reach the same results if mastered properly.

Buy a big one, that holds the entire blade. That way it's easier to hone must razors.

The price is worth it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

Quote:

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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,
.....

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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

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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.

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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!

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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

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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.

Quote:

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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

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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.

I assume you ran ICPES? Did the same analysis work (plus others) for years at major oil company trouble shooting lab. Very interesting and informative work.

The navy used a Spectroil machine at the time I was doing it. 2002 through 2004. I'm not not positive about but I think it was made for the military if more specifically the navy.

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Originally Posted by Jlander

I assume you ran ICPES? Did the same analysis work (plus others) for years at major oil company trouble shooting lab. Very interesting and informative work.

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Originally Posted by mdeamicis

The navy used a Spectroil machine at the time I was doing it. 2002 through 2004. I'm not not positive about but I think it was made for the military if more specifically the navy.

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Ok, the Spectroil M. That's a bit different. It is an OES (optical emission spectrometer). Very robust and accurate elemental analyzer. You gain a lot of insight to bearing and oil wipe surface deterioration rates with that data.

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Originally Posted by Jlander

You gain a lot of insight to bearing and oil wipe surface deterioration rates with that data.

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Yes. Our primary purpose is was to predict systems failure. It's so accurate that in 2003 we predicted eminent catastrophic failure of a J52 engine but protocol had been overlooked by the squadron and the sample was ran While the EA6B was already in flight. We lost that prowler when the engine exploded do to failure of the #1 fan turbine bearing. There were was a bunch of bad engine in the fleet and affected aircraft were supposed to too run sample every 10 hour and and not be flow till cleared. NAVAIRSYSCOM thought all of the bad engines had been removed and relaxed the requirements. We almost lost 2 aviators that day. We did lose a very expensive and invaluable electronic warfare asset. This was during a time of extensive operations all over Iraq and surrounding countries. We only had 3 of those planes to begin with.

Just one of many examples of having the best tools and not using them with heavy consequences.

Lots of stuff to take in there fellas. Most of the time my maintenance honing is because I'm having fun. I like honing, love to hone. As I recently invested into the jnat world I've found it heaps of fun, going back to a 5k edge of a perfectly working razor and just convert it over to my jnat edge. Was it necessary? No. Was it fun? Yep. But on an occasion where I feel a little bit of tug, I've got a barber hone from Mike Brandonisio at the Restored Razor. He got me a barber hone sized fresh water river stone, it's terrific with a hint of lather, and is ever bit as good as my Naniwa 10k in the quick touch up department. Just reminding everyone, this stuff is fun. Shaving used to be a chore, now I wish my beard would grow faster so I can use this razor or that one. Sometimes I just re-hone a razor simply for fun under the guise of maybe edge chasing. I have 35 or so razors and none of them, I would say with confidence would not shave nice.

I agree. To me honing is more therapy than necessity. It is very soothing to me, the sound of steel on stone. I am frequently taking one of my blades and making a few passes while watching a baseball game, or if I feel stressed at the end of the day. What could be more relaxing than spending some quality time with favorite blade. I know it sounds crazy, maybe it is, but it works for my sad excuse for a psyche.