Thread: Finally got myself a real barber's hone

Originally Posted by ndw76

This might be a stupid question, but why would you not lap a barbers hone? Is it because lapping it would leave scratches or are they just too hard?

Partly because of the way some are made.

Most are ceramic not unlike clay brick or terracotta pottery.
It is difficult to classify, enhance and fire clay to be uniform
and homogeneous. It's less difficult to low fire or sun dry a central
run of the mill core and then coat that with slip or better clay and
press that into a final mold. There is no way to know anything about the
internal structure until you lap the outside away or a chip exposes
material for inspection.

I do have one barber hone that I wish had never been lapped flat.
The non label side has a soft gritty ill fired center that does not
hone a razor while the face does an OK job. The soft gritty
center is almost sandy and is not kind to a razor.

okay... tried it out last night (without lapping). I lathered it up and did 5 very light passes with my razor that was just starting to tug a little bit. Followed that with 20 laps on bare leather latigo strop. Shaved with it this morning and Wow! Now I am a convert. Normally for touch up I would have used norton 8k followed by CrOx honing compound on leather followed by newspaper. The barber hone gave me a better result. wow. no crox, no newspaper.

Originally Posted by dgstr8

okay... tried it out last night (without lapping). I lathered it up and did 5 very light passes with my razor that was just starting to tug a little bit. Followed that with 20 laps on bare leather latigo strop. Shaved with it this morning and Wow! Now I am a convert. Normally for touch up I would have used norton 8k followed by CrOx honing compound on leather followed by newspaper. The barber hone gave me a better result. wow. no crox, no newspaper.

Congratulations...
Sounds like you have a good hone and the right touch to match it.

hand holding is my favorite way to hone, I feel you get a lot more control and can vary the angle of the hone instead of your wrist. It is a lot easier to do quick X strokes that way. Also I would strop more than 20 times but thats just me! I usually do 60.