My husband is currently deployed and serving in the 5th Fleet with the US Navy. He has very little quality internet access and can't get this site to load. I have been quested with finding him a hone, purchasing and then dispatching it to his ship.

I know there is a TON of information out there talking about the types of hones (barber v. doing something more extensive), synthetic v. real stone, strops and pastes v. stones... it's endless! Not to mention all the numbers and abbreviations! I am drowning in information.

My husband has been straight razor shaving for about a year and he was recently gifted with a custom Tony Miller horse hide/ linen strop combo (Happy Father's Day!). I know you don't use pastes on linen so we are looking for a barber stone (assuming since what I have read is these were meant for travel and are fairly easy to use off the bat and he won't be spending half the night trying to get his razor back to shave ready) that will stand up to ship life. He would love to send out his razor to be sharpened but with 20 days to destination, sharpening time and then 20 days back to destination, it doesn't work.

What I need is some quick info on names and grits. I see 10K and 12K on a lot of things so I'm assuming that is the grit? And something that will be ready for him to use the day it arrives on board. Something that isn't going to be high maintenance while he is deployed, and something that won't require a bunch of accessories like pastes and oils, things that take up space-- he hardly has any.

I appreciate any and all help with this. I really wish I could sit here and read through everything, but time is of the essence for us and getting me started in the right direction would be a huge help. I will take time to read through and try to familiarize myself with hone names, synthetic v. real stone and so on so I can help him in the future.


Thanks so much!

Dechire