Thread: Inexpensive/creative honing?

Let's see...it's hard to quantify what the 'cheapest' hone I've successfully use is.

I've done 1 hone bevel set to razor sharp on: Welsh slates, Chinese 12K, and Translucent Arkansas stones. I'm a bit of a skinflint, so even my 12"x3" translucent stone I've not paid more than $30 for (Before shipping is factored in). The only additional rock I need with those is maybe a piece of Coticule slurry stone, the garnets from coticule will help you cut a bevel surprisingly fast once they're cut loose from their binding. Still on the lookout for a $30 or less decent sized coticule so I can see what all the fuss is about!

An Arkansas 3 hone progression should sharpen anything you want to throw at it, particularly if the "fine" hone is a Surgical Black/True Hard/Translucent which they usually are. Those are what give you that trademark "Arkansas" edge after all. I'm a bit biased and would rather have a soft/hard/fine set that's all natural, but a higher grit synthetic can make a great bevel setter. So much the better imo.

I'm gonna go ahead and say the Chinese 12K ($25 before shipping), with a little chunk of coticule ($12 from SRD, before shipping), is probably the cheapest method I've used to take a razor from too dull to cut wet tissue paper, and make it sharp enough to shave comfortably off of.

Cheapest for general touch ups? Swaty barber hone that I paid $15 bucks for, shipping included. That or the American Hone Co. barber hone that came packaged with it, it was 30 for the pair shipped. The AHC is 2 sided, I have a feeling that in the hands of someone like Utopian, one side would be more than enough to set the bevel with a handful of swipes to make an edge shave ready on the other side. I'm still working it out, slowly but surely. Maybe I'll get there some day.

Now that I have all of my razors shaving sharp I'm realizing that unless (until) I buy more razors (I'm currently at 13) all that I really need to maintain is my Chinese 12k that was $15 since I got the quartered version from Whipped Dog.