Thread: How to start with naturals

Originally Posted by riooso

Carazor you do not mention in your post where you are located, how long you have been using a straight and other things that might give us some sense of what you want. The journey to J-Nats might be long or it might be very easy for you. Once a bevel is set one can use Nagura and a moderately price mid priced J-Nat to get very close to what you want out of a stone. There are certain skills that one must have to hone and if you are resolute about learning on a J-Nat then that is very doable but, I would encourage you to go with a $200 mid grade before stepping up to a wold class hone that can easily cost you over $1000. My Asagi cost in the neighborhood of $1500 and I have never been sorry about the purchase, it is an amazing stone.

One of the easiest ways to do what you want to do is go have someone who is fairly well educated in hones show you.....actually put eyeballs and ears and fingers on a hone while someone is showing you how. It will save weeks of effort and answer thousands of questions but you must have shaved long enough with a straight to tell the difference between a razor honed on a 12K or a fine finishing Asagi. Not an easily accomplished feat!

So... I will cut the ramblings off but if you wish to PM me I could possibly head you off in a direction that may not be what everyone else has done but one that I have found rewarding! This is, after all, a personal journey so enjoy!

Take Care,
Richard

Richard, I will PM you in a bit. I'm located in the SF Bay Area. I've only been shaving with a straight for about 2 months, and I've worked my way through a Norton 4/8 and a C12k. Now I want to explore other things. I'm having fun with the journey and wanting to learn more now.

In all my experience with stones from all popular vendors in many price ranges, huge $$ does not translate to better quality necessarily.
The big $$ price tags come from bigger size, perfect rectangular shapes, color ,how clean the stone is, and of course hype of certain mines.
A great razor tested stone can be had from the right vendor for a great price. So my advice to the OP is to ask all vendors about their stone recommendations, and do not believe any hype about mines and colors and so on, that is just to raise the prices. Just look for performance.

Originally Posted by mainaman

In all my experience with stones from all popular vendors in many price ranges, huge $$ does not translate to better quality necessarily.
The big $$ price tags come from bigger size, perfect rectangular shapes, color ,how clean the stone is, and of course hype of certain mines.
A great razor tested stone can be had from the right vendor for a great price. So my advice to the OP is to ask all vendors about their stone recommendations, and do not believe any hype about mines and colors and so on, that is just to raise the prices. Just look for performance.

You are, of course, correct and there belies the problem with J-Nats. It takes a certain amount of experience honing to discover what your preferences are and if you are not careful you will waste time, energy, and money. I have seen some people chase the "perfect" stone only to find out that when they obtained more experience that the stone that they lusted for was already in their collection. It takes a very good shaving hand to be able to tell the difference in the performance of a razor that is obtained by doing a dozen water laps on a very hard Asagi. Very subtle, but necessary when you are trying to evaluated a stones performance.

Take Care,
Richard