So I've been thinking a lot about barber's hones lately.

As we all all aware, a barber's hone is a maintentance tool for when an edge is already refined and shave ready. Now I have really good hones that give me a great edge on pretty much any razor I use them on. But when it's time to touch up a razor that just turned on me, I go through almost as much as initial honing in equipment drag out, so I wait until I have 5 or 6 and then touch up all at one time - I am sure other people touch them up as soon as required.

So I was then thinking, well, the barber's of old didn't have the selection of hones we have available to us - so enter the man made barber's hone. Then I thought, well what the heck, why isn't a small section of like a Naniwa 12k a barber's hone? Furnther, I thought, I really like two sided barber's hones, because they satisfy what I would do anyhow, which is drop one grade and then go to my finisher. I realize that is not as fast cutting as a barber's hone - but seriously, I don't have twelve people in my shave den all waiting for a shave.

So here is my question. If you were to take 2 peices of your favorite hones and glue them back-to-back to form a small two sided barber's hone to keep on your counter, what would be your choices?

At the moment, I would take a small piece of a Norton 8k and glue it to the back of a piece of escher - voila!