Thread: To hone myself or send out?

As said a Naniwia 12k will do everything you need right now and keep you shaving until you ding the razor, even then if can remove a chip, with a little experience.

Learning to maintain a razor will let you know if you want or need to buy a full set of stones. You would only need a 1k, King, a 4k Norton or Naniwia and your 12k and you could do any restoration or maintenance.

As said, hands on learning is invaluable, will speed your journey and keep you from buying stones you don’t need. Guys I have taught have almost to a man have said, It’s the little things, that you just don’t get from a video, that make all the difference…

For me there was no question I was going to maintain my own razors from the very get go. I would recommend to learn to hone immediately; even if while learning to shave with a straight (yep, don't let anyone tell you its too much to handle, it is not). It is fun and rewarding. As has been said, a mentor or two is invaluable and having a pro honed razor or two to have as a benchmark and to shave with while learning is important. I went the hardest route in my opinion with naturals but would not change a thing (well, I waited too long to reach out for help but that's my nature).
I'm still learning after almost 4 years and enjoy the journey immensely.
Hone on.

Are you in this for just the sr shave, or the whole sr hobby? I jumped in from the beginning. But for nearly six weeks before buying anything I watch all the videos I could. When it came time to buy I knew what razors, stones, brushes, strops I wanted. My story is written out elsewhere. In short, if you’re serious about the hobby start honing at some level straight away.

To me it makes sense for virtually everyone to be able to maintain their razors sharp. It's not hard and I believe most people would have no trouble doing it. If the razor gets damaged or deteriorates to a point where it needs more work/skill then it's easier and cheaper to have someone else with the skills and equipment do that.

Any number of finishing stones would work for maintenance. Even a pasted strop or lapping film can maintain a razor sharp for a year or few. I was able to use and keep sharp a single razor with only stropping for almost a year before I had to take it to a hone. It wasn't any special razor either - a good quality vintage 5/8 full hollow from Solingen.

I was honing knives n such, by the time I was 8 yrs. old.
Always had a fascination for all things sharp. For the most part, I'm self taught. The guys here, taught me about the proper hones to use, to make my edges the best they could be. Smooth n Comfortable. I own a full set of Naniwas, dont even use them anymore, I love the Naturals more.

Take up maintaining, and honing your own. It is, very rewarding, though it takes time and patience.

Hook up with a mentor that can give you some hands on experience. It'll lessen the learning curve greatly

As you can see there are lots of opinions on what is best. What is best is up to the person. Maybe your a hands on kinda guy that does everything for yourself. Or your someone who manages to get by when it comes to manual things, or maybe you can do anytype of stuff and would rather pay to have it done. Deside on what your goal is in this hobby. Just shaving or go to the extreme and learn to restore and collect. Lots of other choices in this hobby inbetween those two option. I think that is the first step.

I was fortunate to be gifted a combo coticule and a Japanese shell strop by my dad even before I had a straight of my own so I was motivated to learn how to hone and strop when I got my first razor. Not everyone starts out in that situation.

It took me a lot of trial and error and hours of watching honing videos by Glen and Lynn and others before I actually felt I had a razor that was shave ready. I studied all the threads on SRP and the coticule forums that dealt with honing and stropping and tried to digest what made sense to me.

When my razors (I had 2 by then) felt like they needed more than I had been able to do up to that point, I bought a Norton 4000/8000 since that seemed to be what the information I was reading said I would need to tone up the edge before going to the coticule. And, it was what I could afford at the time.

Later, when I won a couple of auctions on eBay and had to reset bevels on several razors, I bought a DMT 1000 and more recently a SHAPTON KUROMAKU PROFESSIONAL CERAMIC WHETSTONE. I still use the DMT 1000 and a coarser DMT to lap my stones and to work on chipped edges and wonky bevels, but the Shapton can reset a bevel very quickly without overly scratching up the metal.

I now have about 30 razors in my rotation and a Oozuku stone with Nagura and a Vermio for finishing. That’s not much compared to many of the more serious collector-shaver members of SRP, but it’s where I am comfortable.

Each one of us has travelled a different path to get where we are in this hobby and had different influences along the way. I’m pretty sure that if I had stopped lurking on SRP earlier and joined the conversation and gone to a meet up, some of my choices would have been different, but like I mentioned earlier, I feel good about where I am and I certainly enjoy all aspects of straight razor shaving and maintenance.

All I can suggest is do your homework, ask a lot of questions, think twice before you pull the trigger on a major purchase and have fun.

if I had to do it all over again I would buy a decent koppa (jnat) some nagura(botan, tenyjou, Meijro) and a matching tomo. 10 mins on the stone and im done I would go straight to stropping. I made the mistake of buying a shapton glass set and now i rarely use them.

I can’t imagine not honing my own at this point. The main reason is that I touch up early. The moment I detect any degradation I give it a couple passes on a stone and were right where we were.

When I started out I purchased razors from guys that sold them as shave ready. This gave me an idea of what shave ready was. If I was you as your a beginner get some to hone your razor there are plenty of members that would like to hone your razor to give you a helping hand. Then learn to maintain that edge and I would strongly recommend you do that with the 12 k speciality .