Thread: Old Books on Razors and Honing

Fascinating read, especially the 2nd title by M. LeBlanc. Lots of good info on honing. Very interesting that the coticule is consistently referred to as being used with oil. And that the natural coticules with a "crackled lines face" are considered to be the highest grade. I was also amazed to read that Japanese water stones were known of in America as high-grade razor hones as far back as 1895.

I was also very intrigued by reading his suggestion to test the fineness of a hones surface by using the tip of your tongue. And this bit of advice: "When you feel dull and not in a honing mood, wash your face in plenty of cold water to refresh yourself. This will make you feel like honing."

But I will have to pass on M. LeBlanc's tips to condition my strops by rubbing them with a lead pipe, or soaking them in urine.

FatboySlim;

As questionable as we find the suggestion for using urine on one's strop, it would be a reasonable (and readily available) material to employ if the leather of the strop were found to be insufficiently tanned for use. And although I really doubt if any of us need trouble ourselves with this suggestion today, it is true that urine was one of a number of ingredients classically used for the preparation of leather. For reference I offer this link (read the section entitled "Ancient Methods"): Tanning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rubbing the strop and/or linen with a lead pipe makes perfect sense. The very thin layer of lead which would have rubbed off of the pipe would oxidize , leaving us with a bit of lead oxide on the leather or linen. This would have served as a gentle polishing compound, which would assist the user in preparing the edge of the razor. By the way, I can also point to the use of lead (oxide) in the production finishing of straight razors. ( Follow this link: Open Razors) Look at the bottom of the page where the following sentence will be found, "Common blades were glazed only. the best would be finished on a lead lap giving an unsurpassed `black´ flat, fine finish."

From what we know today, the use of lead is to be discouraged from a health and safety standpoint, but back around the turn of the century, lead and lead compounds were in much more common use and in any event it really wouldn't have been so terribly dangerous in the minute quantities present on the strop. We are assuming (hopefully) that the person using this lead-charged strop wouldn't have been in the habit either of licking the strop leather or of cutting himself deeply with his tainted razor day-in and day-out.

- Ignatz

Oh my god thank you so much, I my self am wrighting an essay on the comparison between shaving with a straight and modern shaving, and this material as a refrence is invaluable to me.

I cannot that you enough, i`ve only had a quick look through as i need to get to a lesson, but already it has given me several key points i need,


you sir are a life saver!!!!

Those are really the best I have ever read!

lets see...lead, cottonseed oil, quartz bottle, shark skin...got it!

Thanks a bunch!

In pdf:

The art of honing a razor:
The Art of Honing a Razor - The Art of Shaving.pdf
The other article:
Essay on barbers' razors, razor hones, razor strops and razor honing.pdf

lol...I like the first chapter. For self-shavers, get a wedge, not those hollow-ground razors.

Thank you, Ignatz. What strikes me is that if those men were alive today, they would be valued members of SRP and I'm sure they'd enjoy being here as much as we would enjoy having them.

Chris L

Well, I have found some more books for those of you who wish to expand their straight razor knowledge. The three books I found are devoted to the barber's profession and I felt I should list them in a different thread.

If you are interested, the link to those books is here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...tml#post589464

Happy Reading!

- Ignatz

That does it, I need a shark skin strop.