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I received a box of my grandfather's possessions, one of which was a sharpening stone marked "Barber's Friend" It is VERY smooth and brick red in color. Is this a straight razor hone or finishing hone? I'm just getting started in the straight razor thing, and I'm wondering if this hone/stone will work for me. Any infor is very helpful.
Thanks!
Selmerfan
Picture will help
I'll try to get one out this weekend, it's at home and I'm away at seminary right now. It looks a lot like the Boss Barber pictured here. http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u.../Photo0309.jpg but without the box.
My personal guess is it'll be similar to the top side of dubl ducks, swaty, apart, etc...
They all seem to have that extremely smooth ruddy quality, so I imagine there are made similarly.
Technically ALL barber hones are "finishing hones". A popular saying around here is that if you hone properly you can shave off 8k... In all honestly a well honed razor can shave off 1k. It will pull on ATG, but I HAVE shaved WTG off my 1.2k DMT. If the bevel's set, it is good enough to shave.
People finish everywhere from 4k->30k around here. Barbers hones fall in the 8-12k range... right where imho dimishing returns sets in pretty heavily... and there's always .5micron pastes (30k hones have .5micron grit size). From what I've seen with sparq and other's 100x pictures, .5micron paste covers up everything but the lowest grit finisher.
I presently use a Swaty barber hone as a finisher and the edge is almost perfect at 100x. Really all I can say for sure that the 0.5 chrox does for me over the swaty is reduce time spent honing, reduce risk of overhoning, and reduce the scratch pattern on the bevel... that says a lot for these old barber hones (at least the good ones).
The other barber hone I use is ~= to my bear 4k (but cuts faster). Shavable, but 10 swipes on the swaty does improve it somewhat.
So this is apparently most likely a piece that will work to hone my razors, right? Now, where does one learn the technique for honing a straight razor vs. honing my regular knives, which I always keep sharp enough to shave smooth WTG on my forearm hair.