arkansas stone (surgical)
hi guys,
so it's been about 8 mos since i started using a straight razor, and the shaves have never been better. i'm now comfortable enough to move on to honing stones, and thought i'd ask you all for your opinions.
i've already been burned once using a diamond hone that was too coarse. fortunately, lynn rehoned my razor and got me back in the game. i've read through the wiki and there's an amazing array of hones to choose from. i'm looking at a razor to maintain a sharp edge (definitely no major restorations, chip removals, etc). to that effect, i'm looking at either surgical grade arkansas stones or norton 4000/8000 stones. anyone have experience with these for the level of honing i'm interested in?
v/r,
doc awk.
For me: only hard Arkansas
Well, I'm using now a hard Arkansas as my last finisher after the Coti and Thuringian.
I know, most of the members are using now exotic Jnats and Shaptons, but how did I came to use an Arkansas stone?
A few month ago I bought two NOS swedish Eskilstuna's "Heljestrand" and "REX" rasors from this online shop:Barbershop Classics The Shaving Shop
It's an amazing shop...
When I started to shave with them straight from the box (leathered of course..) I noticed something that I never experienced before with my razors: they were very sharp with excellent 'bite', but in the same time extremely smooth. It was not the smoothness I experienced before with the Coti, nor the sharpness of the diamond paste... I could finish my shave very quickly with BBS sensation.
Curiously I made a call and got he owner of the shop and he explained that his father and great father as well himself were barbers and they only used an Arkansas stones as a finisher. The only thing that you have to do is honing the razor for some 5 minutes on the Arkansas stone and then on the leather strop.
I bought an hard Arkansas in his shop and could duplicate the results on all my other razors. Even razors that didn't shave all to well before became now excellent shavers!
This is a proof that they knew in ancient times how the hone and get excellent results with simple means.