Thread: barber hones

I want to get a barber hone. I didn't think it was going to be that complicated. I would like to hear opinions from people who own multiple barber hones. How do they rank in order of smooth finishing. I realize that they don't exactly work out as to grits so the answers will be opinions, and thats what I'm looking for. What's in your collection and how do you rate them for smoothness of finish?

Rez,
A lot has been talked about pertaining to barber hones; so you might "short change " yourself with only the replies to this thread.
I suggest you use the "Advanced Search" button, above right & put in keywords such as barber hone, Swaty, & any other Barber hone name that you can think of. This will produce the barber hone related threads. Hours of good reading with photographs.

I'm fortunate enough to have several; they all vary in smoothness, even the Swaty's .
Try the search.

I have actually done quite a few searches, and read quite a lot. That is in part why I asked the question. I was trying to avoid what I did with razors. Buy everything and then try to figure it out. Although if I develop HAD it may temporarily distract me from my RAD.

There was a thread in here someplace where one of the members had collected information on a whole bunch of different barbers stones. I'm sure a better searcher than I can locate it (especially if they can remember who was doing it)

I've had a swaty, a random long dark brown barber hone with no markings and two am. hone co. barbers hones. The two am hone co hones are awesome. I'd put them at 12k easily and no issues with harsh edges on either of them. All depends on your budget!! there are quite a few frictionites up on ebay right now

I just bought a frictionite off off the classifieds and a franz swaty three line. I am curious to see how it all works out. Mostly I am trying to come up with an easy system for edge maintenance for my two boys. They are both in there early 20's. I have no issues but they have to swap out razor with me regularly and the post is getting too much. Mostly it's a quick touch up and gone. It will all get figured out in the end. Thanks for the input. It is exactly what I was hoping to hear but didn't want to get too far into it and find out it was the wrong path.

The frictionite hones are very highly regarded, however their also highly priced I'd say you got a good price on the one in the classifieds compared to some of the prices i've seen them go for. The franz swaty's are also a pretty good stone. But I'd say that's all you need in the way of barber hones.

I would actually recommend getting synthetics like norton 4/8k (naniwa 3k 8k was my first stone but I tend to favour japanese brands over everything else) for an easy system for edge maintainence. Barber hones can be great for touch-ups but I think their kind of limited. I think a proper progression would be better for a "easy edge maintainence system" and you can't go wrong with the 1 5 8/ 1358 / 1 4 8 nortons and naniwas as your first set. Barber hones used to be really cheap but now as soon as one of them is known to be a good sharpener the prices seem to jump up, hence the several hundred dollar frictionite and the CRAZy priced norton razor hones on ebay. So having said that, I don't think you will save much money by going the barber hone route anymore as the only inexpensive ones tend to be the unknown ones, I myself do buy the cheap unknown ones for collector purposes and also because I want to one day test them all out and document my experiences with them. But I wouldn't recommend a barber hone as an everyday work horse.

hope this helps.

Best regards,

-john

Big advantage to a barber hone is the speed at which it works and the size of the hone. They're extremely handy to keep in the bathroom, pack while you travel, etc.

I do spend more than 6 months a year away from home. I am a coastal mariner and I am gone for three weeks at a time. They should be handy for me and also good to check out for the boys. I do have the Nortons and some sigma II's at home.

You guys should know that there is a barbers hone out there (not going to name names) that is made of the same stuff like the Frictonite 00.
When I get one I'll tell you which one is it