Essential number of hones
I've been looking into buying my first hone for my carbon steel straight razor. I used it for a few months and kept a good edge with a leather strop. I used red dovo paste on linen once but was not too sure if I was overdoing it with the paste so I stopped using it. It is time for honing and while sending it out to be done professionally would be quick, simple, and fairly inexpensive, I'd rather do it myself since I need to learn how to hone sooner or later. The main question is what is the minimum amount of different hones I will need to hone and get a really good edge?
I've read on here that the Norton 4k/8k is pretty much the starting point for any starter hone set but have also read that the 8k will leave the razor shave ready but not completely finished for a nice shave. Is this true? Also, I figured if I bought a 12k Naniwa it would act as a nice finisher and if needed for bevel setting and such, I could just spend some extra time honing it but read that it would take days to set a bevel with 12k but I am not sure if it was an exaggeration or it would literally take days :thinking:.
Any suggestions to keep the cost down? Keep in mind that I want the bare minimum and I have a fairly new blade so I won't need coarse hones for restoring :p . Wish I could dish out the money to buy a few hones but then my bank account wouldn't be too happy.
Re: Essential number of hones
For my experiences you can feel the apropriate stone for.your razor with TPT. But starting out I bought the King 220-1k grit for.less than 40 bucks and the norton 4k-8k and then chromium oxide on a bench strop then pasted and finally reg strop. But starting out your biggest challenge will most likely be the actual holding of your razor and not using any pressure keeping the razor flat on the stone ( hardest part 4 me was at the end of each.single stroke I would catch myself lifting heel side of blade). If I could give u 2 good pieces of advice though they would be use the.sharpie trick for bevel setting, and watch the water in front of your razor. Both are explained and shown on youtube. Also in ending I have recently purchased naniwa super stone 1k and 12k from SRD. I highly recommend buying from them cheapest pruces I could find. Oh yes annother super important part of honing is LAPPING YOUR HONES. use the method of drawing a grid on your hones. You will never get.a.atraight edge with dips, dishing, and humps in your hones.
Re: Essential number of hones
Norton4-8k is what I have and its perfect for me but 1 question I wanna ask is are you looking into ( or do you have) silversteel? If so keep in mind that silversteel takes a little while longer to hone because its a little harder than most carbon steel razors. And to give my 2 cents on your strop I would just go ahead and get some treating paste for the 1 you have and a lot of sand paper and a block of (as close to straight and flat) wood. Then staple sand paper to block of wood but only on the sides. And lap that strop and work your way up through grits. Id do both sides then crox 1 side. Throw away your warped fabric n buy annother. That bieng said my favorite strop is the 3 inch wide hanging bridal strop from SRD. In thinking about how how your strop is warped I dont think I would not use a strop with the center bieng warped out to u even with x or rolling x patern because bottom (or heel) wouldnt make consistent contact with strop. But I would recommend rolling x on everything thats good n flat.
Theese r just my opinions though, but good luck and have funn!
Essential number of hones
Maintaining one razor? Get the 4/8 and a dmt d8c. Later get a finer stone. You don't need a 1k stone for one razor.
I would upgrade the strop. A crap strop can really hinder your development. You need a great strop. I recommend a handmade strop like tony miller or srd.
Michael