Thread: Trying to clarify my understanding

Originally Posted by phunni

Yes, but what do *you*use all those stones for?

Restorations and just to play with. I don't buy the naturals from anywhere other than flea-markets so they're rarely very expensive (actually, never. I just don't part with the cash if they are).

Just to add another voice for what it's worth...

I pick up razors at local markets and once in a while on the bay. To get them up to snuff I utilize a Norton 1k/4k and a 4k/8k. Before I got the scratch together to pick up the 4k/8k I used a Swatty or Keen Kutter (both barber's hones) to fill in. Both stones were less than $10 at local markets and the Keen Kutter is two sided. I could theoretically keep my razors maintained with just that stone (though it required some lapping as it had a dish on one side and a hump on the other).

From SRP I gathered that the Swatty was around 8k, and I got fine shaves off of it. But it took a long time to get from 4k to happy; leaving me to believe the Swatty's a little finer than 8k (somewhere near 10-12k IMHO).

So here's how I'm currently using my hones, somewhere around 500 shaves in, and a couple dozen honing sessions in.

New Razor (ha, none of my razors are new, so new to me) 1k to bevel performance. 4k to easy shave/sometimes popping hairs. 8k to popping hairs/dropping hairs silently.

Fading Razor (One that was shaving fine, but won't strop up to snuff) Swatty or Keen. If that doesn't yield quick results, I'll take it back to the 8k, but I haven't encountered that yet.

**I may take my razors from the 8k to the Swatty, but right now I'm experimenting with what I can get out of the Norton 8k on its own. Then I'll play with what the Swatty does from there.

So IMHO dropping money on a coti to maintain a good razor isn't necessary and is really only a step to take if you want to do more than just maintain. But then again I'm cheap. My $9 Keen will take blunting/micro chips out on one side, and polish/finish on the other maybe, maybe not as good as a coti, but there's a lot I could do with the money I've saved...including feeding more AD's!

Peace,
Jim