Did barber hones ever work?!

Those who who have been reading my threads know that, until a couple days ago, I was honing exclusively with barber hones. I started with Tilly's 3-hone beginner set, then added a couple Swatys just because I've always been curious about them. I have a nice wide range of grits, from shockingly coarse (~1K) to fairly fine (~8K).

I recently bought a Chinese 12K and holy moly, what a difference it makes!

Of all the barber hones I have, only one (the Lithide hone) could be called a finishing hone. The rest of them are all too coarse to shave with by themselves. Even the two Swatys, reputed to be the finest hones money can buy, are shockingly coarse & aggressive. You can shave off them, and even do a good job, but it is not a comfortable shave.

It's my understanding that barbers used to keep a barber hone in their pockets to touch up their razors. But as far as I can tell, only the Lithide is capable of serving in that capacity, and even it is not all that great.

So how did the barbers of old get decent edges on their razors?! Or maybe they didn't. Is it possible that our forbears simply tolerated uncomfortable shaves & thought that was normal? Or did barbers have a few pasted strops in finer grits than their barber hones?

The cushioned strop hone, in particular, was meant to be glued to a leather pad, serving as a pocket-size hone + strop all-in-one. Which suggests that people were meant to shave right off the C.S. hone. However, the C.S. hone is so coarse & so aggressive, it's almost a bevel-setter, certainly not a finishing hone! (I've shaved off it before, while traveling, and it is not a pleasant experience).

Anyone have any insights?!

For the record, my hones, in order of coarse to fine:

3-Line Swaty (~1K)
cushioned strop hone
2-line Swaty
Gem
Lithide (~8K)

The C.S. hone and the 2-line Swaty are close enough to be interchangeable.

Hmmmmmm. My biggest question is:...what the heck happened to your 3 line Swaty??

Mine is easily 6000+ in my estimation. I would probably say even higher. It's smoooooth. I had a Lithide and no way was my Lithide finer than the 3 line. Interesting.

How many laps would you typically do to refresh an edge?

Thanks.

Chris L

Yeah, I have a Swaty and an Apart hone that are decent finishers.

There is a difference between a swaty with 3 lines of text and one that says "three-line", which is yours?

Barbers did frequently use Coticules and Thuringers, maybe they used some barber hones for rough work and finished on natural stones. I haven't spent enough time reading the old texts to know if that's possible or not, but it's probably the route I'd take if those were the only options available to me.

I bet you'd be floored by the way a good coticule works. :)

(Just try to fight off that HAD facilitation!)

I have a Swaty that says "3 Line" on it and use both a Norton 4000/8000 and a Thuringian. I use them all both wet and dry. I can positively say that my Swaty is finer than the Norton and somewhat less than the Thuringian. I rarely use the Norton, most commonly the Thuringian and occasionally the Swaty. 30 - 40 strokes on the strop after either "fine" stone is perfect. More work would be necessary after the Norton. I'd have to wonder if your Swaty needs some attention. Just my BFO. ;-p.

For at least three years, I have kept a separate rotation of 7 razors in my locker at a gym. I have maintained them exclusively with a Carborundum 102 and a Swaty. I pretty much alternate the two hones simply as my mood strikes me--I consider them to be interchangeable in function and could easily get by with either one alone. Despite having at home a battery of coticules, eschers, a spyderco UF, a Nakayama Asagi, and a Chinese 12K, I have never felt the need to bring any of those razors home for further touch-ups. I wanted to maintain the stuff at the gym in the same manner that an old time shaver would do. That is, with a single quality hone. I've gotten away with it for three years and I don't see the need to change from the way shaving, and honing, was done a hundred years ago.

Hmmm, a lot of questions about the Swatys. I bought both of them on Ebay. One says:
FRANZ SWATY
WAHRING BEI WIEN
(AUSTRIA)

The other says:
F. SWATY WAHRING
BEI WIEN (AUSTRIA)

I lapped both of them with wet/dry on a piece of plate glass when I first got them. The Swaty-3 is pretty close to 1000 grit sandpaper. The Swaty-2 is somewhat finer, but it's closer to the C.S. hone, which I would put around 4K. Not something I would voluntarily shave off of.

Chris, IDK what's up with the Swatys. Randy has said that barber hones are highly inconsistent. He speculates that my Swaty-3 is from a bad batch. If Swatys are supposed to be sub-8K, I guess the Swaty-2 is from a bad batch as well. But I don't really know. Also, to answer your question, 5-10 laps on the Lithide will refresh an edge that's just starting to go south. I haven't yet tried refreshing on the Chinese stone. I don't know whether I need to do a few laps on a coarser hone first, or whether the Chinese can handle refresh duties all by itself.

Utopian, I sympathize with your point of view. Actually, since all I have are a bunch of barber hones & one natural stone, I'm shaving the way people did 100 years ago too :D A good edge could certainly be maintained indefinitely with just the one Lithide hone. But that's tangential to the original question. The question is, since most of the barber hones floating around in the world are too coarse to shave off of comfortably, how is it possible that barbers used them to touch up their razors? The only possibilities I can think of are (a) they compensated with pasted strops, or (b) most people in the 19th century got what we would consider uncomfortable shaves (unless you were lucky enough to have a barber who happened to find a good Swaty and not a bad Swaty).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Johnny J

The question is, since most of the barber hones floating around in the world are too coarse to shave off of comfortably, how is it possible that barbers used them to touch up their razors?

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I have shaved with a straight for 28 years and, for all of that time until I found SRP in April, all I had was a barber hone, a Swaty that I lost 5 years ago and a NoxAll that I bought off of eBay. Both my barber hones were/are very fine stones. I don't know what happened to yours but I have never heard of a barber hone that coarse. The premise to your question is false (most barber hones are too coarse) and makes no sense to me at all.

I believe there were 3.4 million Swatys made. I think the odds of you gettng two duds is unlikely. Given how hard Swatys are, it's impossible to imagine that there is sandpaper grit embedded in it, but I can only guess that somehow you trashed them during lapping. I just can't figure out how!

When you hold a Swaty up to a light at an angle, it should reflect the light just like a mirror. Do yours do that?

I also concur with Chimensch that most barber hones are not too coarse.

Until this week all Ive ever had was barber hones, Ive been straight shaving since '78, exclusively straight shaving for over 10yrs. 1 swaty w/3 lines of text and a Keen Kutter Kombo. As a matter of fact I used the Kombo on one of my Dovos Last night. If your not restoring a blade or trying to fix a chip, A barber hone will get you by. If restoration and repair are your gig, then youll need other hones.

Some barber hones give differing cuts according to the face you use. Also I found they improve with use, in that, after flattening with "wet&Dry" they cut coarser and need use to break them back in.
I'm of the opinion that barber hones can get an edge on a razor to a high standard. This does not mean that a finer edge can't be achieved with other hones because as well all know, there are finer hones out there now.
Makeup of steel in times gone by has a bearing on the matter also, though how much is a point for another thread possibly.
With a well chosen selection of barber hones, you can achieve a great edge to a razor.

PuFF

Damn!
Johnny, I wish I had thought of this sooner...
You have the perfect thing to re-surface your Swaty--your other Swaty! Go to the honing section and read JoshEarl's hone lapping sticky. Do it that way but replace the DMT or sandpaper with the other Swaty. Just rub the two together under running water. That should get you a pair of flat and smooth hones!

Wow. You guys are amazing. You're right again.

Since I've been using these hones for coarse bevel-setting (i.e. hogging off large amounts of metal), I went back to the sandpaper just to convince myself that the hones are still flat, & to make sure I'm past that gray swarf crap that seems to build up on bevel-setters. I did 220 grit, then 600. Then I rubbed the stones together under a drizzle of water until I could not feel any scraping sensation--it felt like I was rubbing two pieces of wet glass together.

This made a HUGE difference. I can see it with the jeweler's loupe. The scratch pattern is not as fine as the Chinese 12K, but you can actually shave off it now--they are legitimate finishing hones. (I'm not sure where the Swatys are relative to the Lithide hone, but they're close).

So apparently Puffah is right again: Swatys are hard enough that if you lap them with wet/dry, the scratch pattern left behind by the sandpaper makes the hones seem unnaturally coarse.

As for the Cushioned Strop hone & the Gem hone, I do not think these are defective. The C.S. hone is advertised as a coarse hone, & the Gem as a medium, which is why Tilly chose them for her 3-hone set. So apparently these hones are doing what they're supposed to do.

Probably, if I had to, I could get by with just 1K wet/dry, the C.S. hone, a Swaty, and the Chinese 12K. But I like the Lithide hone despite its smallness, so I'll keep it. It could be handy for travel. Besides, HAD is a one-way phenomenon :-)

Thanks again. You guys rock. I love this place.

I think too often guys go lap crazy with stones. I originally had a small collection of barber's hones and the only one I have left is the swatty 3 line. I found all of them to be pretty fine finishers. I had a Lil Devil which was the coarsest and it worked for lapping the others. My original point is I usually don't lap stones be they new or NOS as long as when I eyeball them they look straight and they hone good. Once they start to not perform then I worry about lapping.

Hi !

My father was born in 1903 and shaved all his life with a straight razor, he died at 78.
He had only had one stone, a Swaty marked :

FRANZ SWATY
WAHRING BEI WIEN
(AUSTRIA)

I saw him use it once in all my life (I was around 6 or 7) he then told me that he used it once or twice a year and only gave 5 to 6 laps using shaving cream as a lubricant.

He had 3 razors. A King Cutter - a Red Point 917 (marked Anton Wingen Jr) and a Carl Rader 87.

I never saw him use anything but the Carl Rader and he shaved every day. He also had only one hanging strop and he only rubbed it with his hands to maintain it (he may have put shaving lather on it from time to time, I'm not shure anymore).

In his 70's he felt his strop was too slick, so he simply turned it over (it was the same leather throughout).

Just to show that shaving with a straight razor doesn't need to be complicated. We (I at least) just complicate things for fun).

I'm now 55, I still use only the Swaty (which is still in mint condition) and still does a great job and to my knowledge has never been lapped. I also have a C-MON barber hone I bought 1976 (I wrote the date March 15, 1976 in the cover of the box). I used it only a couple of times, I don't like it very much.

And BTW, I prefer the Red Point.

Nice day to you all !

McKie

I love this post! Welcome McKie! It proves that sometimes we go out of our way to make it harder than it is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McKie

Hi !

My father was born in 1903 and shaved all his life with a straight razor, he died at 78.
He had only had one stone, a Swaty marked :

FRANZ SWATY
WAHRING BEI WIEN
(AUSTRIA)

I saw him use it once in all my life (I was around 6 or 7) he then told me that he used it once or twice a year and only gave 5 to 6 laps using shaving cream as a lubricant.

He had 3 razors. A King Cutter - a Red Point 917 (marked Anton Wingen Jr) and a Carl Rader 87.

I never saw him use anything but the Carl Rader and he shaved every day. He also had only one hanging strop and he only rubbed it with his hands to maintain it (he may have put shaving lather on it from time to time, I'm not shure anymore).

In his 70's he felt his strop was too slick, so he simply turned it over (it was the same leather throughout).

Just to show that shaving with a straight razor doesn't need to be complicated. We (I at least) just complicate things for fun).

I'm now 55, I still use only the Swaty (which is still in mint condition) and still does a great job and to my knowledge has never been lapped. I also have a C-MON barber hone I bought 1976 (I wrote the date March 15, 1976 in the cover of the box). I used it only a couple of times, I don't like it very much.

And BTW, I prefer the Red Point.

Nice day to you all !

McKie

---

Awesome! Perhaps this should be made into a Keep It Simple Stupid, Sticky?

I'm a minimalist by nature myself. I only have 4 different barber hones and the Chinese 12K. However, there are a few external factors that do complicate the issue.

-- If your father never taught you how to shave properly, you end up doing a lot of hunt-and-peck because there's nobody to just tell you what to do.

-- If you're a noob & you keep ruining your edge by using too much pressure during shaving & stropping, you need to have enough hones to recreate that edge from scratch until you stop screwing up.

-- If you're a maniac about getting the perfect shave, you need to do a lot more fiddling.

-- Some of us were born with beards that will not allow an edge to last for a year (or even close).

If you already know how to shave & you won't ruin your edge & you have someone else hone for you & you're satisfied with an 8K-10K edge, then you can go forever with just one hone, one strop, and one razor. (If I had to choose a hone, I'm partial to the Lithide).

I would not classify RAD and HAD as complication--these are things we do for the love :D Also, since barber hones are no longer made today, there's a temptation to collect them, especially when you see a nice one, because "Who knows if I'll ever see one of these again?" The same is true of vintage razors with unique characteristics, like W&B. Our grandfathers did not have this temptation because these items were commonplace & probably sold in the drugstore.

Interesting stuff!:)

Recently I lapped 2 Swaty's. They were both one color when I started. After I lapped them I then started to rub them together dry. They have gotten much smoother but now they are 2 colors!, kind of a pebbly effect, and not as fine as before lapping! I will continue lapping them against each other and see if they get smoother and if they become one color again.

P.S. I will not be lapping barber hones again unless it is needed.

I vote for a Sticky on this thread.:tu

I discovered when lapping my two barber hones that the Pike Swaty was noticably softer than the three line of text Franz Swaty. The Pike left much more residue with the same pressure and number of passes over the sand paper than the Franz. I deduced the three line is a harder hone and more suited to finishing. That said I have used the Pike to take my first ebay straight to shave ready (it was all I had at the time).
I'm going to try rubbing them together under lightly running water to see if the glaze from the lapping will be reduced or eliminated. The Pike belonged to my Grandfather so I would like it to be as nice as I can make it. I'm afraid that hone sat in a box on a closet shelf with some other of his items for 20 years without my knowing what it was used for.

Great post by McKie ! So I don't need 28 hones? :shrug: I have an old Swaty that I lapped with a D8C 325. It was a bear to lap. I used it as a finisher after my Norton 8K before I got other finishing stones. It worked well but not as well as what I have now.

In the early 1970's I bought four barber hones:

1. Swaty
2. Moravian
3. Super Punjab
4.00 Frictionite

Bought the hones from American Hone Company - Success Barber Supply - Moravia, Iowa.

After much expiermentation, I now use the Swaty and Moravian.

If I had only one hone it would be the Moravian. This is a two sided hone, one side slightly finer than the other. I have maintained a Dubl Duck Wonderedge all these years with just those two stones.

My grandfather shaved for over 50 years with a Case Razor, Horsehide strop and a small black stone which he called his razor rock.

I would enjoy having many of the stones, but I do not really need them to maintain a razor.

I love this jolt of reality and perspective. Thanks, newer experienced shaving guys for adding your info here. I still want to go out and buy some more hones though.:w

Chris L

Quote:

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Originally Posted by randydance062449

P.S. I will not be lapping barber hones again unless it is needed.

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Prior to the Swatys, my only experience with barber hones was Tilly's beginner set, which was comprised of three NOS hones which had never been used. None of the three was perfectly flat, and two of them (the C.S. and the Lithide) seemed to have some kind of slick surface glazing, & would not cut very well until I removed it. In this day & age, you're unlikely to find a barber hone that's never been used, but if you do, you probably will have to lap it, at least until you knock the glaze off.

for some reason the C.S. hones were particularly non-flat. They're pretty thin & I did not want to remove enough material to get the whole thing flat, so I lapped them enough to create a large flat area in the center & stopped. The fact that the flat area does not quite reach the edges doesn't bother me (especially with a rolling X stroke).

The Lithide and Gem hones were pretty flat & didn't need much lapping.

The Swatys had bizarre wear patterns on them when I got them. One was mostly glazed like the NOS hones, but had a rough, matte spot in the middle. The other was similarly shiny, but had two discolored spots close to each other in the middle. I have no idea how they got that way. At least now the texture on both is nice & uniform now.

I have had no need to lap any of my three beginner-set hones since the initial lapping three years ago. They may never need to be lapped again.

Addendum:

just in case this thread gets stickied & turns into the de facto barber hone bible, I suppose I should mention that barber hones are particularly prone to raising a burr, and you should end your honing with 2-4 toe-leading back strokes, then a few more forward strokes. That will remove the burr. This was brought to my attention by Puffah, and independently confirmed by another member who claims that a very old barber told him this as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McKie

Hi !

My father was born in 1903 and shaved all his life with a straight razor, he died at 78.
He had only had one stone, a Swaty marked :

FRANZ SWATY
WAHRING BEI WIEN
(AUSTRIA)

I saw him use it once in all my life (I was around 6 or 7) he then told me that he used it once or twice a year and only gave 5 to 6 laps using shaving cream as a lubricant.

He had 3 razors. A King Cutter - a Red Point 917 (marked Anton Wingen Jr) and a Carl Rader 87.

I never saw him use anything but the Carl Rader and he shaved every day. He also had only one hanging strop and he only rubbed it with his hands to maintain it (he may have put shaving lather on it from time to time, I'm not shure anymore).

In his 70's he felt his strop was too slick, so he simply turned it over (it was the same leather throughout).

Just to show that shaving with a straight razor doesn't need to be complicated. We (I at least) just complicate things for fun).

I'm now 55, I still use only the Swaty (which is still in mint condition) and still does a great job and to my knowledge has never been lapped. I also have a C-MON barber hone I bought 1976 (I wrote the date March 15, 1976 in the cover of the box). I used it only a couple of times, I don't like it very much.

And BTW, I prefer the Red Point.

Nice day to you all !

McKie

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This is the kind of the post with which we can excuse our "condition".

"Yes, I bought a 100 dollar razor, but I'm actually saving money. It will last for a lifetime! Just look at the mach 3 cartrige price. It will pay off in 4 months!"
"But you bought another razor 2 weeks ago and said the same thing"
":w"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by napoleon

This is the kind of the post with which we can excuse our "condition".

"Yes, I bought a 100 dollar razor, but I'm actually saving money. It will last for a lifetime! Just look at the mach 3 cartrige price. It will pay off in 4 months!"
"But you bought another razor 2 weeks ago and said the same thing"
":w"

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HAHAHA! Yes, I've probably spent enough to buy DE blades for 100 years. But my "condition" has transformed shaving from a chore that I hated, to a luxury that I look forward to every morning. Considering the money I spend on stuff that buys me nothing (e.g. taxes), my "condition" is a bargain indeed. How's that for rationalization? :D

I just joined SRP a few days ago and have learned more about honing than in the previous 55 years of my life! I learned to shave with a straight Red Imp in high school. My great uncle taught me and I still use his horsehide strop that he left me when he died.

I have used the "Three Line" Swaty as my only hone but now have a couple of others. I bought a Norton 4/8K a couple of years ago but if I had known I was supposed to flatten my Swaty, I might never have done so! I also bought a Thuringian and love it. Man, how ignorant a guy can become if he doesn't ask questions. :tu

Thanks to all for this thread. I agree with Randy. This ought to be a Sticky.

I tried many barbers hones before I purchased my first Coticule.

The Austrian Swaty removed metal well but a hone I purchased from Tilly called "Itsapeech was a finer finisher. All the others I tried did not match these two as finishing hones.

The coticule I found to be more flexible a tool and In my opinion everybody who uses a straight should own a coticule if they intend to hone there own razors. The Yellow Green Escher definately gives a smoother and sharper edge then the coticule and is now my go to finishing hone but to be honest if you finalise with chromium oxide on a leather strop, I really don't think it matters if you finish with a swaty or coticule or escher, the chromium oxide will smooth out any roughness these three hones might have left.

There are many routes to shave ready razors and barbers hones and stropping pastes certainly work well in experienced hands.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McKie

Hi !

My father was born in 1903 and shaved all his life with a straight razor, he died at 78.
He had only had one stone, a Swaty marked :

FRANZ SWATY
WAHRING BEI WIEN
(AUSTRIA)

I saw him use it once in all my life (I was around 6 or 7) he then told me that he used it once or twice a year and only gave 5 to 6 laps using shaving cream as a lubricant.

He had 3 razors. A King Cutter - a Red Point 917 (marked Anton Wingen Jr) and a Carl Rader 87.

I never saw him use anything but the Carl Rader and he shaved every day. He also had only one hanging strop and he only rubbed it with his hands to maintain it (he may have put shaving lather on it from time to time, I'm not shure anymore).

In his 70's he felt his strop was too slick, so he simply turned it over (it was the same leather throughout).

Just to show that shaving with a straight razor doesn't need to be complicated. We (I at least) just complicate things for fun).

I'm now 55, I still use only the Swaty (which is still in mint condition) and still does a great job and to my knowledge has never been lapped. I also have a C-MON barber hone I bought 1976 (I wrote the date March 15, 1976 in the cover of the box). I used it only a couple of times, I don't like it very much.

And BTW, I prefer the Red Point.

Nice day to you all !

McKie

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Gents,
I only use a boss barber hone, that I lapped on an industrial ceramic tile, and two stones, both natural, the fine grey soft stone whicn belonged to my late father who sharpened his mulesing and other lamb marking knives on it ! the other in a natural stone pretty much identical to the one used by an old time barber here in Perth who will still give a straight shave. Not to mention my antique Keen Edge strop.
Thanks, Mckie,a man after my own heart !!!

Cheers


Gordon