Thread: Essential number of hones

I Yves had a boker hone paddle strop combo for a few months now and a razor that I thought was junk and likewise for the boker setup. But I was.using it for pocket knives and was impressed so I lapped the hone with 220 grit and 600grit sand paper dry. And soaked it with rem oil a couple times and the hone soaked it up until it started to puddle up then with very little puddle (just enuff to be able to see displacement in front of razor) then started with 15 sets of 30 circles then moderate pressure rolling x strokes 15 and 15 light pressure rolling x and 10 or 15 no pressure rolling x, finally 5 no pressure strop strokes on hone. Then 10 cromium oxide passes and finally stropped on regular strop 40 passes and it was popping hairs like it was a higher quality razor, I guess I'll find out in a few. Next time one of my good razors needs honing Imma try it out it impressed me. And it seems to b pretty hard producing virtually no slurry. IM kinda excited about the hone one never honed a razor start to finish on one hone before.

There are basically four stages of honing a razor.
Bevel-set, sharpening, polishing and finishing.

Now, for maintaining just one user, you do not need a whole slew of stones available.
If you take care of it, and address any loss of keenness as soon as it starts to develop, a simple barber hone or a 4/8 combo hone should last you a lifetime.

Those two mentioned hones, and a whole bunch of other similar ones will take care of your sharpening and polishing.
Finishing can be done on a pasted strop of some kind as an example.

If you get a ding in it or it gets completely dull, a 1K bevel setter would be the ticket.
Although a 4/8 will do the job too, for the patient honer