Thread: Buying a Hone

Just a thought... I wanted to get into this as inexpensively as I could and started with a vintage razor (with strop) and found a really good deal on a BOSS barber hone. (I am a newbie, been shaving str8 about 3 months)

Along the way, I decided to look for more great deals and found about 7 more vintage razors all in various states of rust and non-use. I started playing around with restoration and in doing so (handsanding) I ruined the edge on a couple of them.

However, remember I also have the barber hone. I told myself I would buy the cheap vintage razors so I could learn how to hone and started practicing on my barber hone. It does take time, but to date I have brought 3 blades back to life using this hone. I can't say these 3 are as sharp as my main razor, but I can shave off all 3 (after sanding them down to get rid of rust and devil spit then reset the bevel). They easily shave my arm and after many many laps on a leather strop I can say they now shave my face.

I am looking for a better hone, but right now I'm not sure what that means. Currently I am more focused on my shaving and only restore the blades to have something to practice with. However, with each blade as I restore and start honing I find I really like this. Now the question seems to be 'how complicated do I want to make shaving?' Another question I'm playing with is how sharp can I make these things and how sharp do I need/want them?

I could probably go for a long time with just my main razor, the barber hone and a leather strop, (total cost still less than $50). I have more than this invested in my collection of scrap vintage razors now, and the cheapest 'better' hone I can find will double my investment. But is one 'good' hone enough or do I need to get 4 - 10 of them. I'll probably wait until I know more before I start down that path....

To get in on the cheap, a Norton 4K/8K and a Chinese 12k. All for roughly $100 total.

You don't even need a chinese. I would buy only the norton, and learn to use it. When I was beginning, my biggest drawback was that I was doing a lot of laps on the chinese, but never realised that it is a must to have a perfect edge at 8k to move up to a higher grit. You can get a fantastic edge off a good 8k, and you will learn it faster if you don't buy anything higher in grit. Learn to set the bevel, and the pyramid. When you can get consistently good edges, only then buy a high grit finisher, if you need it. If I wouldn't have a vintage coti, than maybe I would finish on crox, and didn't bother with stones. Pastes are very easy, and fast, with consistently good results.

To the OP: I would go with pastes. I have seen very few beginners who had good results with touch ups on a hone for the first time. While it seems that pasted strops are very noob friendly.

Originally Posted by jeness

To the OP: I would go with pastes. I have seen very few beginners who had good results with touch ups on a hone for the first time. While it seems that pasted strops are very noob friendly.

I just messed up the bevel trying to touch up a razor this morning... grrrr