Thread: Inexpensive/creative honing?

I'm wondering if any of you have managed to get an ebay straight shave ready without all of the usual expensive hones?

I've done it (kind of) and don't necessarily recommend it but it's an interesting topic/concept to me anyway. What I'm really curious about is if some of you with a lot of honing experience (and a lot of expensive hones) have tried to get a beater straight razor shave ready using minimal equipment or even odd ball methods?

I have tri hone arkansas stones for knives. It was around $20. The rough stone is synthetic and the medium and fine stone are supposedly arkansas stones.

I have two water stone slip stones (about $25 each) that are 4000 and 8000 grit and I have one of Whipped Dogs quarter stone Chinese 12K for $15 or whatever he sells them for. I also have a paddle strop with green paste and a regular leather strop.

That's about $85 spent altogether. Of course you could probably get a Norton 4000/8000 for that. Used at least.

Anyway, none of it is very easy to use as the two slip stones are small as is the 12k and with the Arkansas stones you are going from oil to water. It's what I had and I made it work and I didn't intend to have many straights in the first place.

Some of my earlier ebay purchases had small pitting on the blade edge so any rough hone could be used to file that down I suppose. After the bevel is set any fine stone could probably make it shave worthy presumably and with some stropping somewhat smooth.

Have any of you, for the challenge, tried to take a beater and see what the least honing would be to be able to shave with it.?

Could it be done with just a 1k and a 12k? What did rural people do back in the day? I have to imagine that they just used one stone and a strop?

I am retired and on a limited budget. I have a diamond hone from harbor freight. A Japanese water stone (6k) about $60 and a (12k) oil stone about $30.

I set the bevel on diamond hone then 6k until edge is polished. Now 12k and finish on a sheet oh 1/2" glass. Finally strop on canvas with paste then leather. Sell my razors on eBay and my customers are very satisfied. So are my customers from my honeing business.

Yup, many roads to Rome.

Arks have been used for hundreds of years, and a 2 or 3 stone progression can deliver a smoking edge.

A new King 1k, is $18, and I have bought them used for as little as 2 bucks.

Really, all you need is a low grit stone to set the bevel, and a finisher, though a mid-grit stone will save you some time.

Or a King 1k, and lapping film, about $35-50.

A lot will depend on your skills.

I'm sure there are many ways to do this. One idea is say a king 1000 as a bevel setter or norton 1000 both are rather inexpensive. Once bevel is set you could use a dovo paste progression on a home made canvas strop stuck to a piece of wood or whatever. So Dovo green paste is 6 micron then use the Dovo/Herold red paste 3 micron then some chromium oxide to finish and you would have a shave ready razor. Another way is to get lapping film and get a few sheets, they come in all sorts of grits and a piece of float glass or granite tile from lowes / home depot to mount it on with water and hone it up. Just a couple of ideas with easy to get and pretty cheap materials.

Depends on the state of the ebay straight razor. Most of the ones I've encountered have had a few chips requiring more than just bevel-setting. So that needs to be factored into the equation as well.

A useful tool in this is a red-pasted Solingen loom strop: one side red paste, the other leather. That rules out any fetishistic finishing stone and leaves a more basic approach.

As said before, there are many roads to Rome. Assuming a water-stone progression, then a cheap one would be a Suehiro 1k/3k combo synth followed by an Inigo Jones dragon's tongue. That will put you in range of the red-pasted loom strop for a pittance.

That leaves the aggressive chip removal off the 'bay. Depends on whether or not you want to breadknife. If not, then a Beston 500 will do the trick. If so, then it's off to a 150 or 180 synthetic Omura. The latter is definitely a bench stone whereas the others may be placed upon a fully outstretched palm (avoid curling the fingertips along the sides!).

Oil-stones may result in a simpler progression in the end, as they respond more to variances in pressure. But that is another subject entirely.

Yes

If you look at my Youtube Channel and Lynn's Youtube channel you will find dozens of what we called One Stone Honing systems

Many of those I used a King 1k so people would understand that it could be done cheaply also

I have one with a King 1k and a Chinese PHIG.. Lynn has one with a 1k and a Barber's Hone and dozens of others



The other way is a Norton 4/8 or a Naniwa 3/8 you can get some serious work done with just those and some talent



That is where the rubber meets the road too, and why you won't find a ton of recommendations to learn this way, but if you know how to wield a hone well then yes you can do quite a bit on very few hones...

It can be done but it's a tough way to learn. Especially when you start talking about eBay razors. A good set of stones can last you a lifetime. Like you said, you can get a Norton or Naniwa combination for the same money you spent on the stones you now have. So we're no really talking about "inexpensive" honing. We're talking about honing with less then ideal stones. If you're serious about honing and on a budget, I'd recommend patiently saving until you can get a 3k/8k or 4K/8k combo. You can do a lot with one of those and when your budget allows, you can get a bevel good setter. Like Euclid said, they can be found for under $20.

Actually, I forgot that I do have a King 1000k waterstone. I didn't have it with the rest of my shaving stuff and didn't remember that until later.

I think the bottom line though is that if you only have one or two razors and just want to keep them shaving (as opposed to fixing ebay razors) a Whipped Dog 12k and a pasted paddle strop probably does that for a long time (along with a regular strop).

I was thinking more about what one could do as an experiment regardless of what hones you actually have. There's a YouTube video of a guy sharpening his knife on a brick even though he is a "knife guy" and has many actual hones.

I do all of my honing with a set of 1/4 nortons from whipped dog. I got them for Christmas last year, I think around $40?? Every now and then I do use lapping film 15 mic for bevel setting. I just did a 1in W&B on 15 mic film for the bevel then finished 4k 8k with my 1/4 nortons find out how well she shaves today You can certainly make do with what you have.

Real easy to do using lapping film. That's about as inexpensive as it get as far as I know.