Thread: Only One Stone

Hello all,

I have posted a few times trying to immerse myself into the world of straight razor shaving.

Hones are terribly expensive! Did you guys buy/aquire your stones all at once or did you buy one at a time when you started?

I am not ready to start honing yet, I still need to get the shaving down but if I were, where would I start? I couldn't afford all the stones from 1000 grit to 12000 grit all at once. So what stone is the single most important must have stone?

I think the 12k is the most useful as it is the one to use to refresh your razors. Unless your planning on doing restorations a 12k should do you just fine as you learn to refresh your edges and then later, you can start to acquire the lower grit stones, as it fits your budget.

This might be a bit old school, I'm not sure. But you could do a whole lot worse than a Norton 4/8K combination stone if you are planning on only having one stone for a while.

James.

Your first stone should be a finisher capable of refreshing your edge, a 12k Naniwa is ne of the usual suspects, and many like to follow that with 6-ish light strokes on balsa LIGHTLY pasted with CrOx. You need a strop of course.

After that, work backwards through 8k, 6k, etc as you can afford them, but one possibility is just the 12k and send the razor out once in a while if needed.

Some folks claim they never hone a razor more than once, maintaining it with diamond spray on balsa. I don't do that myself but it's probably right. Not very expensive to try, but make sure the balsa is 100% flat.

Cheers, Steve

If you are keeping your razor keen between shaves with a strop, you could take the Old Barber path which would be a Barber's Hone.
You might have to lap it which would require a truly flat hard surface, like glass, and silicon carbide paper. That might work for awhile until you find out that there is no such thing as terribly expensive or rather, terribly expensive is that line that continually moves ahead.
Put barber's hone in the Advanced Search box for some relevant info. There are some members here that have kept their razors going for years with a strop and a barber's hone.
Good Luck!
The search should tell you which barber's hones are time proven. Very few of them have achieved cult status, so the prices can be reasonable.

If I recall Ron (utopian) did just that a barbers hone and strop for I think he said 10 years ,,
And once you learn to strop and shave well, a finisher once in a while will last a long time, if you damage an edge it's just cheaper to send it out. Unless your buying and restoring a bunch of razors. Tc

Most people either buy them all at one or get one at a time. A benefit of one at a time is you really get to know it. Either way you'll be fine. One stone at a time is cheaper and by then you'll know if you enjoy maintaining straights. Some people don't.

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CrOx and FeOx on a balsa strop around $6.00 from whippeddog.com. it will last you a life time and will allow you to maintain a razor for months if not years. That was how I started. Some don't like pastes but it worked very well for me.

Make sure that you have "immersed" yourself in the Library above,,, this will save you time, money & frustration.

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