Thread: Honing on dry hones

I have now been at straight razor shaving and honing hobby for nearly a year and loving every moment of it. I've said in other posts that as a long haul truck driver, this is a great on-the-road hobby, past time. I have learned much from going back and reading old posts and threads on various subjects, mostly honing and certain hone types. SRP is not my only source of information. I use YouTube videos, other internet sources, and have called and personally visited with certain shop owners across this great country.

I now have 9 new or NOS razors from Dovo, TI, Wacker, Dorko, Henckel; and picked up some used pieces off eBay in good shape. I'm not into doing restorations. And 2 Gold Dollars.

I also now have a complete set of Shapton Glass stones through 30k, 3 coticule, 3 Arkansas stones (2 hard black, 1 translucent), and recently a Zulu Grey. I hone some every day. I've taken to holding the stone in my left hand as I hone. I believe I sense feedback better this way. I'm doing well with coticule slurry and dilution too.

Something I've started with the Arkies, coticule, and Zulu is to hone on the stone dry at the end of the session for a few laps. I'm getting good results, meaning comfortable shaves. I read among the Zulu threads where one fella was doing the same, dry on Zulu, with good results.

My question is this: do any of you hone on a dry hone with these specific stones? Or other stones? With what results?

I have tried that with coticules, Jnats, Chinese hones, Eschers, and a few others. Never tried it on Arkies since I use Smith's honing solution or oil and neither dry very quickly. I did not really notice any particular improvement or harm so I guess I pretty much just forgot about doing it.

And this should have been posted in the honing section.

Thank you for your reply. I went to the honing section and pressed new thread. Sorry if that wasn't good enough. Feel free to move the thread if necessary.

Honing to Dry

I use that on a few stones/hones

But I mean exactly that, I hone on the stone as it goes to dry, I don't ever pick up a dry stone and start honing

I learned it watching a J-nat Sword vid quite a few years back and tried it first on the Lowly Norton 8k trying to max that hone out, use it on my Nakayama too..
Sometimes I will try it on the Naniwa SS 12k

Just another arrow in the quiver of tricks to try, as my friend Jimmy would say


ps: Moved to Honing as requested

I have an old small hone given to me by a frend - looks almost like a piece of grapfite
it is medium hard to hard aand it is dry hone - on razors it gave exeptional edges on finishing
it is a strange and weird feeling when you hone on a dry stone and the sound is hm strange
Anyway it work like a charm and it is very intresting piece

LongH, like you I often hold the hone in my left hand and right arm relaxed, i.e., not raised elbow as when hone in holder on table in front of you.

I started doing this because I tore something in my right shoulder rotator and with the raised elbow method sometimes my control isn't the best. An important advantage of hand holding/dry honing is that you can rotate the left hand toward zero pressure (less than full weight of blade).

I do always clean off the hone surface 1st and after a few passes. Obviously, the method of watching the pushed water/slurry is not available so I use the senses of feel from both hands and sound to modify my stroke.

This method is ideal for a quick touchup on my Nani12k.

I usually use water but, I have honed from water to a dry state many times with good results! Usually on a coticule. Have no experimented much with an Arky yet but, I will. I have touched up on a cnat that is so dang hard - water will not penetrate that stone so I hone to a dry state with that gem.

Dem hones, dem hones, dem DRYYYY hones. Sorry couldn't resist. You can hone on dry hones. Certain barber hones are meant to be used dry. I get the fact that you are on the road and it may be difficult to use water. Water helps the cutting action, plus when slurry is added you get the benefit of actually seeing what is occurring to the edge.
MIke

Yeah, I sometimes do a handful of strokes on a dry Jnat a la barber hone. Almost always improves an edge that is not quite to my liking.