Thread: What DON'T You Use (and why)

This is an older photo of just a few of my stones. I just added a Chosera 5k.
I prefere the synthetic progression, the natuals are more for 'fun' and collecting.
One of these days I will take a photo of ALL my stones.

I go from 1K (naniwa pro) to Naniwa 12K SS or a natural finish hone. No in between steps, but I DO use 2 layers of electrical tape (cheap offshore stuff, no fancy tape) after the 1K, which is done a on bare spine. It doesn't really matter what finishing hone I use... Coticule, 12K Naniwa SS, Belgian Blue, Jnat or Zulu Grey (the latter is my current favorite).

A few laps on my SRD English Bridle and I'm good to go.

Don't use DE razors any more, although I keep buying them if the price is right. Straights just give a smoother and closer shave all round with no irritation or razor burn, that's why...

Don't use film cameras any more. Beautiful machines, love them, but... you know.

Also don't use my Gillette Fatboy any more. Works fine, but the head's too thick and when I can't use a straight because I'm in a big hurry I reach for my Old Type.

I don't use any hones requiring water as a lubricant. I hope I'm not missing something good. Primarily sharpening knives and tools and just don't want to risk rust. As far as hones go, the hones I find most useless are soft Arkansas. I either use a Washita or synthetic instead. I worry some day I may score something really cool like an unlabeled Thuri or something and ruin it. There is always hope......

Originally Posted by duke762

I don't use any hones requiring water as a lubricant. I hope I'm not missing something good. Primarily sharpening knives and tools and just don't want to risk rust. As far as hones go, the hones I find most useless are soft Arkansas. I either use a Washita or synthetic instead. I worry some day I may score something really cool like an unlabeled Thuri or something and ruin it. There is always hope......

You could put a few teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate in a sprinkler with water and use that as the lubricant. SB will prevent rusting. Then you're ready to find out if you're missing something good

Originally Posted by duke762

I don't use any hones requiring water as a lubricant. I hope I'm not missing something good. Primarily sharpening knives and tools and just don't want to risk rust. As far as hones go, the hones I find most useless are soft Arkansas. I either use a Washita or synthetic instead. I worry some day I may score something really cool like an unlabeled Thuri or something and ruin it. There is always hope......

Well, you can use coticules with oil. The ones I've had that had oil on them still worked fine (actually, I think they weren't good enough for water only, thus used with oil instead - one of them was a new vintage stone with a label that said "use with water or oil"). I'll bet it would really screw up a thuri, though!

I have some junky japanese stones. At some point, I'm going to try oil on one, which should go one of two ways (either make it cut faster, or slower - or cause it to fall apart). I'm curious to see which way it goes. In the days of diamond hones, there is no such thing as a stone that stopped cutting that you can never wake up again. Safe to say if I put oil on a japanese natural stone, though, if it was worth little before doing that, it'll be worth nothing at all afterwards.

These remind me of some other "don't use". I never buy new "it" hones that cost any appreciable amount of money. I'd rather dig for old ones. Don't begrudge the new guys a chance to make money, but I got in on the zulu stone and some others and they were suitable, but in the end, I lost money when I moved on.

I don't use cowhide strops, either, though you can make or get good ones. I went the route of making my own a half dozen years ago or so, and really only need to buy strops to get the linens that come with them.

I do like cowhide for woodworking where the wire edge is more pronounced and something soft is a little easier to oil and clean it off. The conditioning you do with a razor strop (to get the surface burnished) doesn't last long in the shop, because you're always taking contaminants off of a strop that's used for woodworking (I do it with a card scraper).

Some good thoughts in this thread.

I don't use any synthetic hone at all anymore. I lost interest early on as they were just too easy and I got bored with them. I had Nortons and kings and sold them all. The natural stones I use I have discovered a consistent and repeatable method that, to tell you the truth, has become too easy. What keeps me with them is the magical aspect. The way they all have a personality of their own and are beautiful rocks out of the earth. No one has the stones I use and they take a lot of skill to use properly (in my opinion and experience). I take pride in that. Others like the ease of synthetics or need them due to honing for money. I do not.

I don't use MDC as there are way too many great soaps out there at a fraction of the cost. Cost isn't everything but for me the results didn't justify the cost.

I don't use my shavette any more as my straights are just as sharp and give me a closer more comfortable shave. I have no reason to use it anymore.

I also don't use cow leather. Once I tried a shell strop I never looked back.

Probably more too but this is a start.