Thread: Confused by all the Honing Information

I'm with Winblows. Learn the shave first w/ pro-quality edges. I chose to try to learn honing & str8 shaving at he same time, and it was a colorful experience. I'm called pinklather for a reason. Shaves were a challenge, but not a pleasure. My first good edge was a game changer. Shaving was now a pleasure. The excitement at learning the straight and honing is very strong. I understand that. I'm just saying that in hindsight, I'd have learned the shave *much* faster if I had good edges.

Well I set both my sons up with a barbers hone and a CrOx pasted strop for maintenance. There are several top quality barber hones out there. There are a few threads on them here that you can access through the search feature.

Wow I never expected this much response in such a short time
Thanks for all the info!

From what I can gather I should be fine with just a finishing stone and a strop and judging from the video from Lynn ( thanks K37 it must have been the only video I missed )
the Naniwa 12K should do the trick.

@Lemur: They don't exactly pave the streets with coticules but we do make beer from pretty much anything (yes including chocolate) :P

I'm not gonna jump into honing blindly so I appreciate everyone that wants to shield me from moving to fast but i'm currently just getting info. Eventually I wanna be able to do the entire process myself so I wanna learn

Those barber hones seem to be a good bet too but from what I've read they aren't much better than an 8k stone and pretty hard to come by.
So.. I think I'll start with a 12K Naniwa and build from there.. without any major problems this should keep me going for a while I guess

Again, appreciate the effort and info!

Originally Posted by dirkr

So.. I think I'll start with a 12K Naniwa and build from there.. without any major problems this should keep me going for a while I guess

Again, appreciate the effort and info!

Not to confuse you, but I would get in addition to the Naniwa 12k, a paste on .50 microns, be CrOx, Diamond spray or CBN on hard wool felt. It will help in smoothing any roughness left by not using optimum finishing strokes on the Naniwa 12k. Even when you get the most of the 12k, some people prefer the smoothness they get from the CrOx or any other .50 paste.

If I had to do it over again, I would have bought along with my 16k Shapton glass, a hard wool felt strop from SRD, they have one with two strops on it, that would be a potential of 4 different paste for a nice CBN progression 1 micron, .5, .25 and .1 micron. I would start with .5 CBN only after you get a good shave from the Naniwa 12k. Start with 5 strokes and do increments of 5 till you find the sweet spot (more strokes don't feel any smoother or the edge goes back on sharpness). When you get that down, then I would venture to do a progression on CBN pastes.

Even if you don't want to ever get into pastes, I recommend at the very least a CrOx pasted smoothing. It will make your transition from newbie honer to experience one much smoother than without. Double O

Originally Posted by Double0757

Not to confuse you, but I would get in addition to the Naniwa 12k, a paste on .50 microns, be CrOx, Diamond spray or CBN on hard wool felt. It will help in smoothing any roughness left by not using optimum finishing strokes on the Naniwa 12k. Even when you get the most of the 12k, some people prefer the smoothness they get from the CrOx or any other .50 paste.

If I had to do it over again, I would have bought along with my 16k Shapton glass, a hard wool felt strop from SRD, they have one with two strops on it, that would be a potential of 4 different paste for a nice CBN progression 1 micron, .5, .25 and .1 micron. I would start with .5 CBN only after you get a good shave from the Naniwa 12k. Start with 5 strokes and do increments of 5 till you find the sweet spot (more strokes don't feel any smoother or the edge goes back on sharpness). When you get that down, then I would venture to do a progression on CBN pastes.

Even if you don't want to ever get into pastes, I recommend at the very least a CrOx pasted smoothing. It will make your transition from newbie honer to experience one much smoother than without. Double O

Can't really confuse me much more
From the video that Lemur posted from Lynn he also says to go from a 12K stone to a .5micron paste and then just do a regular leather stropping.
I'd love to get a 16K Sharpton but it's a bit expensive for my first stone.

I get the reason for going from a 12k stone to a .5micron (30k grit) paste but in the video ( yeah I reference that a lot ) it's also stated that you can do the 12k stone, the fabric side of your strop ( without paste ) and then a leather stropping. Does this routine make sense or is it a recipe for disaster?
I've bought the SRD 3" Natural strop with the SRD Premium fabric as a back strop variation.

My initial thought for daily use would be to strop on the fabric and then the leather before shaving, and do the same after a refresh honing on a 12k stone.

What's to be confused? The first (very kind) six replies gave you a clear choice of at least seven or eight different products and methods to choose from.







I mean, these same guys got me through a month of shaving without slicing my lips off so I can't complain too much. It's just that when someone asks "Tell me how to hone a razor" the fact is, there are about 1,000 different answers and about 100 very helpful guys will each tell you about their 10 favorites. I think it's a virus.

I agree completely I don't get how I could be confused at all

I'm not really looking for "how do I hone a razor" since there are plenty of (very helpful) videos out there.
My main issue was to find some path within this rainforest of stones.

I think the 12K or 16K stone should be fine to start on (and considering the prices I've seen on the 16K glass stones I'm leaning towards a 12K :P). My only confusion now is whether a higher grit (paste or stone) is really needed. (I guess the answer would be, not really but it is advised )

You don't need paste after the 12k.

It's something you might want to experiment with later on, but it's not needed for a good shave.

Originally Posted by dirkr

My only confusion now is whether a higher grit (paste or stone) is really needed. (I guess the answer would be, not really but it is advised )

That's exactly right! I'm a believer in buying once and buying right with added value on it. Some times we lack the knowledge to do this and we end up going through different things until we find what works for us (part of the fun). Other times we lack the funds and we want to get the most for less (possible and most satisfying). You could substitute the CrOx for news paper and probably get similar results. I haven't tried it, but read about others that have. CrOx on balsa is very inexpensive and better than nothing. However, the best edge out of the CrOx is on hard wool felt or rough leather vs balsa. Just giving examples here.

I think you are doing it right, learn to shave and strop, then maintain your razor before you move to full honing and God forbid full restoration.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Just pick one and try to master it, before you move to something else! My sincere advice. Double O

Originally Posted by Double0757

I think you are doing it right, learn to shave and strop, then maintain your razor before you move to full honing and God forbid full restoration.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Just pick one and try to master it, before you move to something else! My sincere advice. Double O

That's the idea. I get that I'm trying to run before I can even crawl since I still got to do my first SR shave.
However I believe in getting as much knowledge as possible early so I don't have to start researching when I need the info and because of that maybe try to move too fast and miss some things!

Jikes, haven't even shaved yet and I'm already hooked