Thread: How often should you hone a razor?

Originally Posted by Augustagj

I shave seven days a week.

So that's over 700 shaves between honings. Is this on just clean strops? You may be a record holder. I get around 100 fairly regularly, I have one razor that went 131 shaves. I could have kept using it, but the toe was starting to dull when compared to a freshly honed razor.

Having a second razor is a good thing. Not only do you have a back up, but comparing the shaves against each other helps to keep your judgment calibrated.

The only thing which I believe I may do differently than most is strop the Razor with the strop lying on a flat surface.

I'm surprised no-one asked what the razor is ?

The one which my wife purchased for me Christmas 2014 is a Hart 7/8 square point. I've honed it once since then. The new one (which I ordered Friday) is a Hart 6/8 square point.

Originally Posted by Augustagj

The only thing which I believe I may do differently than most is strop the Razor with the strop lying on a flat surface.

That's how I learned to strop, was told that it helps to get the motion right with less damage to the strop and razor. Now I hang my strop and about every 10-15 shaves I use the balsa strop with cro2 and feo2 just to lightly refresh the edge and only two of my razors have seen the stones more than once due to them being the ones I learned to shave with,and how to hone. But with 10 Razors in rotation now, it should be a while before they need to visit the
hones,

Augustagj, I believe you might be the only guy in all of Razordom that is actually saving money using a straight. Well done

Originally Posted by Augustagj

I have only had my only razor honed once in two years.

I just ordered a second razor so I can always have one freshly honed.

That could be normal for some razors.
A correctly honed good razor will shave a long time.
Especially if you lather and prep your face and whiskers well.

One of the difficult things to learn is when a blade needs to be honed.

For a while I played with open blade Feather edges. A fresh Feather blade
was OMgolly sharp. Two shaves later it was marvelous then slowly it would
become intolerable. Knowing when a blade crosses the line from nice to
not nice is a more difficult lesson to learn that most think it is.

I hope you got your new blade from the folk that honed the one you have.
Sounds like they did a nice job.

I do not get years out of my blades. I have been refreshing with
an 8K Snow White and a 13K no English name Japanese hone. If I refresh
often enough the 8K and 13K are all I need.
I did spend decades with a single blade and a Belgian Water stone hone.
I never flattened the hone and just gave the blade five swipes with water
once a month or three. I suspect any ~10K hone is all that is needed to
refresh a blade... And a decent strop.

I can add that I have a Hart steel square point 7/8, about three years old, so it was before they were sold to Classic shaving. It has the initials of the maker on it. I don't count, but I have a box that has about 15 razors in it that are my shaving rotation razors, and thinking about it, I can't remember the last time I put the big Hart on a stone. It's always a go to razor, especially if I have a tough 3 day growth. So I reckon the Harts hold a better than average edge. I do every so often give all my go to razors 4 laps on a chromium oxide strop, but the Harts are hard steel in my view, so that may also be a factor in its longevity. I have two other Harts both 7/8 but round nosed, I'll write a count down next time I do hone one, just to see how they fare. I use the square point more than the other two because I don't like the very round nose much.

Originally Posted by Razorfaust

Augustagj, I believe you might be the only guy in all of Razordom that is actually saving money using a straight. Well done

Cheers, that made me chuckle.

Indeed, if be a rich man if it wasnt for this sport.

I actually started pondering shaving this way because I just hated the thought of the disposable razors being around darn near forever!

But it's really turned into a hobby, or perhaps my Wife would say obsession. I am hooked for sure on shaving creams from all over the world.