Thread: Honing questions.

Originally Posted by sweeneychris

Hi guys I am looking to start doing my own honing, I have been sending my razors away but came to the conclusion that I should really start doing my own.
The only problem is I have a few questions if you could help:-
1,what grits should I have? Is there a few "must have's"
2, is the norton stones the best out there and nothing else will do or is it personal preference? I have seen some welsh and Japanese stones for good prices.
3, would you recommend getting some razors to practice on rather my best ones?

Thanks guys

There are lots of good replies to your questions in the above posts. GSSIXGUN made a good post where he states that it depends on what you want type/mode of honing you want to do.

Question 1) The bottom line in selecting the hones you should purchase is dependent on the amount of time you want to spend on honing and the amount of patients you have to achieve an edge. The more time you have available and the higher your level of patients the less hones you will need. The more metal you need to remove from a razor to obtain a shave ready edge the courser the grit of your first hone used or the more time and patients you will need.

Question 2) Hones differ in the hardness of the grit and the strength of the bond between the grits. To get lots of razors honed quickly this may become important. For the person honing for themselves it is less important. The Norton and Naniwa hones are good all around hones and will perform well for most honing needs. There are many other hones that will get the job done but for the time and cost SRP members have found them to work well. The best hone to use would depend on the steel of the razor and the hardness of the steel but the Norton and Naniwa hones are good all purpose hones. As a person new to honing the only difference between the two that you will notice for a while if the 'feel' while honing.

Question 3) Yes. Pick up some good quality vintage straights that you can get cheap. The lesser known brands from Sheffield, Germany or Sweden are a good starting point. Local shops and/or flea markets may be cheaper than ebay. Using a low cost razor to learn honing with will take a lot of the concerns about making mistakes and may even result in an unexpected razor in your rotation.

If you have hones available to you know and you think that one of them may be around 8k grit size I would say to put a practice razor to your hones and see what ya get. An 8k hone is the roughest hone you will want to end your honing session with. You may not notice much improvement using hones finer than 8k until you can get good shaves off the 8k but you may be one of the lucky ones that can. Either way, the finishing hones can always be added a bit later. I shaved off 8k hones for quite some time back when that was the SRP standard finisher. You can always buy more hones if you want to improve on what you have handy. For touching up shave ready razors don't forget about using pastes and sprays like CrOx and/or diamond spray, just to name a couple as a cheaper alternative to honing or to improve/refine your freshly honed edges. Good luck.

Natural vs synthetic . It's nice to say natural if: you have a trusted source that will tell you what each stone can do.Not Just Their Names. And if you have the money.
Synthetic: ie Norton (new ones)You know what you're buying and you're buying at a reasonable price.
New to open razors and you don't live near someone that can show you... Buy synthetic and get a lapping stone.

You can do it all on a piece of slurry stone. But most people have more satisfying ways to spend their time than doing a pretty simple and straightforward task the most difficult way possible.


If you want to do it the easiest way start by simply maintaining your razors sharp with a hone. Once you are comfortable with that increase the challenge a bit by starting further away, i.e. cut a piece of paper with the razor and get it back to shaving sharp from there (you'll likely want to drop to a 4000 level for that, though it's not necessary and slurry on your touchup hone is going to be fast enough). Once you're good at that, tackle the bevel restoration part on something like ebay special, or faucetted razor.

This is the easiest way, period. I can prove mathematically it's the easiest, but the key is that it builds incrementally from the simplest tasks to more complicated ones by using what you've already mastered to leverage the next step.

Originally Posted by Lynn

So you like cubic boron nitride. Awesome. Where do you get it? Does it come in powder or paste? How is it applied? How many strokes do you use with it. What makes it different than other available media? How many razors have you been using it on at what intervals?

Thanks.

What I've seen is a liquid from CKTG. Not the cheapest stuff around. I use it every so often after I finish honing. Not too often for a touch up. Adds a bit of umph and smoothness to the edge. I rather like it. I use it over any other abrasives.