Thread: Barber Hone - cool tool to have?

I have a small collection of them and I find them useful to refresh an edge. I have played around with them by honing a razor to shave ready on a 4/8 Norton or the equivalent and on the second shave used a Swaty or a Frictionite, an itsapeech or a carobundum to improve the edge.

Back in the old days barbers ... and others used them with good results but now that we know about chrom ox and diamond paste or spray there are cheaper alternatives. A vintage barber hone may cost $20 to $50 or more. That is a lifetime supply of balsa wood and chrom ox.

A barber hone at the shaving sink's no bad thing, and they're good for travel too I suppose (I use a DE on the road).

So if you're looking for permission from us to buy more of what you don't need, consider it granted!

But I'm with Jimmy, there's nothing in a barber hone that chrome-ox-on-whatever can't do better.

Holli4pirating's post resonates with me; I think I may have transitioned from HAD to MD, minimalization disorder. Anything I can justify getting rid of I do it. I have one brush and one strop (with chrome ox on the linen) and as regards hones I'm basically down to my DMT 1200, a big Belgian combo, and an escher, and if I had Bart's coticule chops I'd sell the first and last in that list.