Thread: swaty barber hone

Is there a coarse and fine side on the swaty barber hone? Can someone give me a lesson on how they would use one to refresh a razor.

I was wondering the same thing.

Accd to my directions, the bottom side is somewhat coarser than the top side.

I have one without directions. Both sizes seem the same but I only use the top side anyway and I am not sure I'll be able to discern any difference even if I wanted to without some serious experimental methodology

Just because nobody has said it so far, but I know people (including Michael) have shared this: the Swaty may not be all it's cracked to be. It's not a bad hone at all, just not all that

Cheers
Ivo

I personally think the Swaty's popularity has as much to do with its ready availability (and easy identification) on ebay as it is to any honing qualities. There are several barber hones that work better and that have been thusly acclaimed in some of the same threads as the Swaty. But anybody that reads one of these threads and heads off to ebay is likely to find several Swatys and none of the others - even if they were on ebay they're often harder to identify because they're missing the box that tells the clueless seller what they've got. So the Swaty gets the reputation. But of the four barber hones that I still own the Swaty is at the bottom of the pile.

I think there are other reasons too, Michael

I will actually pick up another Swaty at some point just to test another specimen and compare to what I have (but I think I have the best version, just a bit chipped here and there)

But I will most certainly not pay $50 for it - what are these people thinking?

Cheers
Ivo