Thread: What to buy and when to hone?

Dear Carl and Castel33-Thanx again for the quick and detailed replies! Just finished shaving with a shave ready Morley full hollow ground and she shaved great! Dried off the blade and scales That makes sense about not stropping a shave ready blade. Another member suggested buying a couple of inexpensive practice razors -Hope that I can find some clean ones Take care all-Gearhead

If you've already got 8 razors I'd say practice on one of them. The problem with inexpensive is that 'inexpensive' might mean dull edge (you'd need to set the bevel) or a warped blade or chips etc. I think if you're a beginner to honing, it's an easier way to learn via doing touch ups at first. You could get a Shapton 16k or similar and do just 10 laps on that (I may have said that before). Then, later on, progress to either intentionally dulling the edge or getting a razor that isn't at all shave ready and working on that. Again, the JANorton thread is a great way to learn. The idea of that thread/project was to take a shave ready razor, dull the edge by running it across a bottle, and using ONLY a Norton 4/8 to bring it to shave ready. The idea was to be a little minimalist. later on you could get a bevel setting stone (1k) and tackle a bigger job. I don't have a bevel setter myself, I've used 1k grit wet and dry wrapped around the Norton 4/8 to set the bevel. It worked for me. Generally, I'd rather buy shave ready razors and work at keeping them that way than buy dull razors. The reason for this is that at the moment I don't want to spend TOO much time honing, and I'm not good enough at it to tackle too many problems. However, the razor I did start from scratch with had multiple problems, so it was a great learning experience.

I'm glad you're having fun :-)

Thanx again! Just received some Japanese Feather blades and it IS true what is said about their sharpness. Used one in a vintage Gillette razor dialed to 9 and not only did it shave ultra close, but very few nicks!-Gearhead222