Thread: Two week in with straights. Stones ordered.

Hello,

Maybe Its early, but after one + week shaving with a straight, I decided to order stones.

I went with Norton 4000/8000 and a 220/1000. Is this a good start for a newbie? What else will I need?

Thanks !

Originally Posted by yohimnbe2

Hello,

Maybe Its early, but after one + week shaving with a straight, I decided to order stones.

I went with Norton 4000/8000 and a 220/1000. Is this a good start for a newbie? What else will I need?

Thanks !

Yes it is early to buy... it is ok to shop.

If you have shave ready razors you can skip the 220/1000
for a long time.

A 4k/8k or 3k/8k combo hone is always a good investment.
There are some that will tell you that a Norton 4k/8k hone
and a DMT to keep the sides flat is all that you will ever need.

A lot of us are well pleased by something like a Naniwa Super Stone 12k hone
to refresh our shavers.

I hope you'll never need that 220 side. You will, as Niftyshaving said, need a 325-grit DMT plate to flatten (or lap) your hones. You'll need to do this before you use any of them; from the factory they're not flat enough for razor honing. Norton makes a flattening stone, but it itself needs flattening. Most of us skip that hassle and go straight to the DMT.

Also, as Niftyshaving said, the Naniwa12k is a wonderful stone. I would entirely recommend it; it's what I go to after my 8k. HOWEVER, hold off on that purchase until you can get a smooth-shaving edge from your 8k. That's the advice of the wise honers on this site. Until you've established that edge, a 12k can't really add quality anyway. It would just polish the high ridges of your not-yet-smooth-enough 8k work.

You shouldn't need the 4k or 1k grits yet, either, if you're only two weeks in... unless you've done some rough stropping.

Do some research in the Wiki before you put steel to stone... even if you've done great work sharpening knives in the past, razors are a different task. I learned a lot about my own honing by monitoring my work with a good 10x hand lens. You can tell, for instance, how much progress you've made in just 10 strokes. That's important to learn early--how much actually happens in a small number of very light strokes. I know my own biggest beginning errors were too much force and too many laps. For me it has felt as much a process of maturing as of learning.

Good luck. What kind and grind of blade are you working with?

Originally Posted by roughkype

I hope you'll never need that 220 side. You will, as Niftyshaving said, need a 325-grit DMT plate to flatten (or lap) your hones. You'll need to do this before you use any of them; from the factory they're not flat enough for razor honing. Norton makes a flattening stone, but it itself needs flattening. Most of us skip that hassle and go straight to the DMT.

Also, as Niftyshaving said, the Naniwa12k is a wonderful stone. I would entirely recommend it; it's what I go to after my 8k. HOWEVER, hold off on that purchase until you can get a smooth-shaving edge from your 8k. That's the advice of the wise honers on this site. Until you've established that edge, a 12k can't really add quality anyway. It would just polish the high ridges of your not-yet-smooth-enough 8k work.

You shouldn't need the 4k or 1k grits yet, either, if you're only two weeks in... unless you've done some rough stropping.

Do some research in the Wiki before you put steel to stone... even if you've done great work sharpening knives in the past, razors are a different task. I learned a lot about my own honing by monitoring my work with a good 10x hand lens. You can tell, for instance, how much progress you've made in just 10 strokes. That's important to learn early--how much actually happens in a small number of very light strokes. I know my own biggest beginning errors were too much force and too many laps. For me it has felt as much a process of maturing as of learning.

Good luck. What kind and grind of blade are you working with?

Thanks much all. I almost pulled the trigger on the Naniwa Super Stone 12k, but decided to wait a bit. I'll grab the 325-grit DMT as you say.

Good luck. What kind and grind of blade are you working with?

I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but I have one Dovo Tortoise and two Dovo Blondes honed at (http://www.vintagebladesllc.com------Lynn Abrams?) I also added a paddle strop. All are Carbon Steel 5/8 Full hollow. (I do have a Dovo Stainless on route with Stainless handle) Both of the new Solingens (Dovo?) are brand new and shave ready. They arrived today

I'd say that the next thing you need is some old razors to practice on.

Barring accidents, you should _never_ need to use the 220/1000 / 4000 stones on any of the razors you've got. If they've been honed, an occasional (like, annual) pass over the 8000 grit stone should be all they need.

Charles

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

I'd say that the next thing you need is some old razors to practice on.

Barring accidents, you should _never_ need to use the 220/1000 / 4000 stones on any of the razors you've got. If they've been honed, an occasional (like, annual) pass over the 8000 grit stone should be all they need.

Charles

Thanks, I think I understand. What about the Naniwa Super Stone 12k? Shouold I add this too my list?

220 can be used for bevel setting for your kitchen knives.
1000 is good for bevel setting for razors (you will be buying and restoring old razors before too long)

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?