Newbie honer to newbie honers :)
So, I have honed two razors now to shave ready and shaved very successfully with both. One I needed some advice from the kind and helpful people here on SRP to know what to do with it, the other was straight forward. Both are vintage blades.
I thought it might be useful for me to share my experience with other newbies thinking of honing their razors, there is a whole host of great information on this site but sometimes when you know so much about a subject it’s easy to forget what it’s like when you first start.
A bit about me: I have been making things sharp from a very early age. Been a joiners son (the old timer type joiner that started his appentership at 15) I was first introduced to the oil stone to make chisels and plane blades sharp. After a few lessons I was told by my dad that “you have a knack for this” but I’m not sure if that was because he didn’t really like sharpening his tools and been a young lad having your dad say your good at something just makes you want to do it more. So for years I sharpened all his tools up to when he retired. Since then I found a love for, initially folding pocket knives and later kitchen knives.
Over the years I have tried a variety of sharpening stones, mostly synthetic stones but I have tried and own a few natural stones that in all honesty I have never given the time to master. These days I do the vast majority of my sharpening on Naniwa super and chisora stones. Prior to owning a razor my stone set only went up to 8k but I have since added a 12k naniwa for razor use.
That brings us up to date. Now I must admit that having a long sharpening history made me a little over confident in my ability to hone a razor (I suspect that if you come from a knife sharpening back ground you will be guilty of this also), when I read things like “razor honing is a whole new ball game” I thought to myself “yeh right it can’t that much different to a knife, what’s the big deal”. I was wrong ! Now I’m not saying honing a razor is more difficult than sharpening a knife well BUT IT IS very different and requires a completely new approach to sharpening compared to a knife.
So in my admittedly limited experience in honing, as a newbie here are the things I have learnt. I hope you might find it useful when you are starting your journey in honing your own blades.
1.) Buy / have a shave ready razor done by an experienced hone master. I can’t stress how important this is. Your perception / expectation of what sharp is and what a shave ready razor edge feels like is not likely to reflect the reality. You truly do need a reference point to know what you are aiming for. Had I not had that reference I am 100% sure I would now be shaving with a blade that while sharp and would be able to shave to a point it would not be shave sharp in the true sense and would more than likely be uncomfortable. The consequence of this is that you would / will have an inaccurate straight razor experience and more than likely give it up as a bad job before you even get going. You REALLY REALLY DO NEED that pro honed edge to start with.
2.) Get the right tools for the job. You simply will not be able to get the edge you are looking for with bad equipment. It is a bit of a funny situation but you are likely(and IMO need) to spend more money on honing equipment than you are your razor. I stuck with my Naniwas because I know the stones, I know what they do and how they feel. Like I said I do have some natural stones kicking about but I never took the time to learn how to use them properly. I would like to try them to hone a razor in the future but for the time been I will be sticking with the Naniwas, there is enough new things to learn without adding stones into the equation. My advice is stick with what you know and I will be using them until I become comfortable with razor honing. If you don’t own any stones at all and are new to everything I would recommend sticking to synthetic hones (My personal favorite are the Naniwa Superstones and they also appear to be highly regarded in the razor world which was a bonus for me), you know what you are getting and are consistent. By all means go for natural stones but I think you are just adding more complexity that really isn’t necessary but whatever you decide buy good stones NOT cheap eBay stones which are more than likely just junk.
3.) Time, you will need lots of it. By far the biggest difference I have found up to now is the time it takes to properly hone a razor. With a knife I can set a bevel and polish it up to 8k in about 40mins (if all the micro scratches are not removed it’s no big deal on a knife and you probably won’t even know they are there, on a razors edge YOU WILL) ……..i haven’t even been able set a razor bevel in that time. Give yourself plenty of time and don’t rush it, each stage requires allot of time to make sure you have removed all those scratches from the previous hone. I think this is mainly due to the pressure (or lack of) required to hone a razor which brings me to:
4.) Pressure. It seems like everything in straight razor use has a great deal to do with the pressure used and honing it seems is no different. With a knife you can press down pretty hard on the stones and it won’t brake you edge, a razor is very different. A razors edge deforms very easily and using your normal knife honing pressure on a razor WILL destroy the edge !
5.) Know what you are looking at. I wish I had took the time to read about razor blade geometry before I started, it would have made things much easier when reading about honing a razor as you know what parts are been referred to. Sounds obvious but I didn’t, don’t make the same mistake :)
It isn’t much because I have not done much razor honing yet but this post was not intended to be a honing guide (there is much better information on this site by much more knowledgeable razor honers than me) but just a few pointers for newbies like myself when starting out. Hope it helps someone :)
