Thread: Use lather as lubricant for honing (w/ Charnley Forest, Llyn Idwal novaculite-type)?

Over the years I have read and watched videos on the various uses of lather. Besides using it for shaving the old time barbers used it on a barber hone to freshen an edge, Glen (gssixgun) has a video on it. Also they used lather to clean and condition their strops, do a search to learn process. I've used it a few times in the past to refurbish dried up vintage strops.

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

That strikes me as how barbers "of old" might have used lather too. The question is, what kind of soap were they using? Another question that comes to mind is if the said barber was using lather each time to hone and was leaving the lather to dry on the stone afterwards each time, would that have a mitigating effect on the stone's surface?

Back in the 1980's I had a straight razor shave (my first) from an old school Barber. He must have been in his late sixties to mid seventies, so I'd guess he had his training in the 1930's or 40's, maybe earlier since some Barbers started their training as children. He used lather from a lather machine to hone his razor. As I remember, his hone had a noticeable dish in the center, quite concave, so he apparently did not bother to flatten his hone. Still, he was able to achieve a "Shave Ready" edge just fine. I don't remember him rinsing off the hone, but maybe after I left his shop.

Before lather machines, economy minded Barbers probably used whatever shave soap puck, powder, or bar that was available in their shop. I think oils would have been too messy and time consuming for a busy shop. Soap is water soluble and is easily rinsed or wiped off.

When you think of all the old stones out there stained and saturated with oil that are a real pain to try and clean up now the kind of soap probably doesn't matter even in a porous stone. It would clean up relatively easy.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

When you think of all the old stones out there stained and saturated with oil that are a real pain to try and clean up now the kind of soap probably doesn't matter even in a porous stone. It would clean up relatively easy.

The Charnley Forest & Llyn Idwal seem relatively non-porous. I was thinking of type of soap more from a performance standpoint than a cleanup standpoint.

Oil will penetrate a stone, if left on. It can take weeks or months of soaking to remove all the oil.

Be careful with soaps on synthetics, it can break down the binder on some, in seconds on some synthetic stones.

With your naturals you are safe, but as a general recommendation one should use caution.

My first natural finisher was a CF. I messed around with about everything: kroil, 3n1, mineral oil (sewing machine oil), used kroil to thin both those in various ratios, water, lather, water and by Glen's recommendation I tried Smith's Honing oil. Smith's is just about perfect and the most consistent that I have found.