Thread: Two week in with straights. Stones ordered.

Since these are all brand-new and well-honed blades, I'd say yes to the N12k now. That should be all you need for touch-ups. It's a surprisingly fast stone for its grit size.

As far as working on practice blades, limit your honing on them to the 8k level until you're getting a smooth shaving edge... then they'll respond to your 12k.

Since you've got this wealth of nice brand-new blades, I'd recommend that you keep one of them out of your rotation--hold it back as a reference blade. The edges degrade so slowly that it's like an eyeglass prescription... you don't realize the degradation is happening until the day you get a new pair of glasses with the new prescription. Oh yeah, that's how well it's possible to see! Oh yeah, that's how sharp a razor should be!

This will be especially helpful because your technique will be improving at the same time your blades are dulling. Every 6 weeks, maybe, pull out your reference blade and just do one swipe under a sideburn. If it feels significantly better than your other new blades, try touching them up on pasted felt or the 12k.

6 weeks might be too soon for a hone touchup, or it might not be... depends on your stropping technique.

Good luck with it all. You're off to a well equipped start. Here's a temptation to fight, at least until you get some junkers to practice on: Just because you HAVE all those hones doesn't mean you need to USE all those hones.

Best wishes to you.

Originally Posted by roughkype

Since these are all brand-new and well-honed blades, I'd say yes to the N12k now. That should be all you need for touch-ups. It's a surprisingly fast stone for its grit size.

As far as working on practice blades, limit your honing on them to the 8k level until you're getting a smooth shaving edge... then they'll respond to your 12k.

Since you've got this wealth of nice brand-new blades, I'd recommend that you keep one of them out of your rotation--hold it back as a reference blade. The edges degrade so slowly that it's like an eyeglass prescription... you don't realize the degradation is happening until the day you get a new pair of glasses with the new prescription. Oh yeah, that's how well it's possible to see! Oh yeah, that's how sharp a razor should be!

This will be especially helpful because your technique will be improving at the same time your blades are dulling. Every 6 weeks, maybe, pull out your reference blade and just do one swipe under a sideburn. If it feels significantly better than your other new blades, try touching them up on pasted felt or the 12k.

6 weeks might be too soon for a hone touchup, or it might not be... depends on your stropping technique.

Good luck with it all. You're off to a well equipped start. Here's a temptation to fight, at least until you get some junkers to practice on: Just because you HAVE all those hones doesn't mean you need to USE all those hones.

Best wishes to you.

Thanks much for all this great advice ! I will keep one of the blonde Dovos as a reference.

Now I wonder why the guy above thinks I'll be restoring razors. I have been to a few old pawn shops and am considering buying a Dremel to polish/restorre old Straights, but this doesnt lead to anything bad does it?

Hanging out in pawn shops will definitely lead to something bad. Using a Dremel to work on old straight razors can lead to far worse: broken blades, burnt scales, nicked scales, and in the worse case, grievous bodily harm from blades or blade chips flung in unpredictable directions at extremely high speeds. I'm deadly serious about this--especially if you don't have previous experience with a Dremel. They spin so fast that when bad things do happen, they're instantaneous. A better rotary tool is a dog toenail grinder. Ours doesn't spin at thousands of RPMs, it has a controllable speed, and best of all it stops spinning if it hits heavy resistance. That keeps it from ripping the hair from between your dog's toes, and also keeps you from putting too heavy a hand on it while polishing a blade. The collet is the right size (1/8") for all the Dremel goodies.

The best way to work on old straights, especially as you learn to, is the slow way with sandpaper and patience. Read up in the restoration threads and, of course, in the Wiki.

A great way to polish blades, if you don't mind a really passive approach, is to put them in a vibratory tumbler. There's a long thread on that--just search the site for tumbler. You may still need to sand them first, to remove rust and sand out pitting, but the tumbler replaces fine grit sanding (above 600 or so, if I remember the consensus of the thread) and all the buffing.

Sounds like you're really throwing yourself into this. Do you have other hobbies?

Originally Posted by roughkype

Sounds like you're really throwing yourself into this. Do you have other hobbies?

Yeah, now that you mention it, I do have many hobbies. Maybe I'll slow down a bit here and give up on the idea I can use a straight everyday. SE and DE have been working quite well, this is getting complicated and expensive.

Thanks for the reply. You actually knocked some sense into me and I am realizing I dont have time to sink into ANOTHER hobby.

Also thanks for the warning about Dremels. I got the Idea from the Lynn Abrams video and his demonstration of restoring blades.

And just in case folks are curious--my Hobbies are: ( I really need to prune this down --I'll squash the Straight Hobby before it starts) Thanks !

1. Cycling
2. Camping (family)
3. High Power Rocketry. (Triopoli #25)
4. Photography.
5. High End Audio. (Vacuum Tubes/Vinyl Records)
6. Guitar (Strat and Acoustic)
7. Performace Cars (Audi/VW)
8. Drums (Djembe)
9. Tai Chi
10. Cooking/Grilling (Lump Wood Charcoal)