Thread: Looking for a touch-up hone

In the interest of adding info to an already overburdened theme, here is a link to a thread I started a while back exploring just this kind of thing. It might help. Or it might just confuse matters.

Originally Posted by JimR

In the interest of adding info to an already overburdened theme, here is a link to a thread I started a while back exploring just this kind of thing. It might help. Or it might just confuse matters.

Thanks for digging up that older thread Jim, I remember that one well. I sure got a laugh from certain members who only had one or two hones back then and now have an entire arsenal at their disposal.

Reading my responses back then I realized my routine hasn't changed, nor has my set-up. Yellow coticule and chrome does the trick for me.

I want to thank everyone for their information and advice. I've ended up buying two hones. A barber hone:
Vintage KING MIDAS Straight Razor Dbl. Sided HONE Stone on eBay.ca (item 360178092505 end time 14-Aug-09 19:40:38 EDT)

It's a lot better than it looks there. It needed a good wash. It was covered in what I think was lather. It's very smooth aside from the chips and they are even smaller than they look on the bay pictures. Not sure why the pictures came out SOO bad, but I'm happy! There's enough surface to avoid the chips, just limited until I can lap it on the front. The back has one chip but the rest of the surface is very smooth after I cleaned it.

I also picked up a Chinese water hone(refered to as a 12K by some).

Now that I have both, I'd recommend the barber hone for newbs. I think the Chinese hone will be great for finishing on, but I think you could get by without it if you had a barber hone.

Still need to learn how to use them properly, but I've had my first shave after a touch up on the barber hone and then to the chinese then to the strop. It was so much smoother, but I think my razor was less sharp than I had originally thought. It's more comfortable now, but not sharp enough. Will tune it up a little and see where we go from there.

Thanks again for everyone who added info to this!!!!

This is a pretty cool thread. As Bart said in JimR's link 'any advice given here will only ever be akin to a light beacon in the mist and no newcomer is ever excused from doing their own homework'. Maybe time for some good old trial and error.GL