I've been curious about pros/cons of using lather as a lubricant with my Charnley Forest, Llyn Idwal stones - I've seen it mentioned a few times. I've been using Smith's honing oil (which seems to work well), but using lather as a certain attraction.
I've used lather on a coticule to up edge a little, and it seems to help there. A CF used with oil usually gets me there, ditto with Welsh purple slate, so I haven't felt the need to try lather with them.
In honing with lather, there is a sense of cushion from the start. I try to maintain this as much as possible. As the lather is continually wiped off the surface with each pass, I then place it back on the surface again and again. From this, I think it is lessening the pressure at the end; something that is often advocated with coticules and hones in general.
Some of the old razor hones said to use lather in the instructions.
Over the years we've had many a discussion about shave soap as a honing aid and many do it.
Yea, I have tried it and it is ok.
Probably it became a thing, because if your razor needed a bit more, a guy had the lather at hand, so slapping it on the stone and giving it a few laps was a no brainer.
If the razor feels the slightest bit lacking, and stropping does not improve it enough, I just grab another one. I’m not honing it at the sink.
Ballistol or Smith’s and water is just a bit smoother for me. You can use oil on a clean stone and if you wash it right away with dish soap it will all come off.
It has worked for me.
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Has anyone noticed a difference between a tallow based soap and a glycerin based soap?
Plus on CF & LI, oil doesn't seem to absorb much into the stone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Euclid440
This was my going-to-be follow-up question: if lather, is there much difference between soaps?Quote:
Originally Posted by randydance062449
I've only honed with lather on a few occasions, but in doing anything with lather beyond shaving, I usually resort to a Stirling puck, which is tallow-based. Still, my sense is that it is the cushion which is helping things; so if I were to, say, want to hone the edge in the middle of a shave session to improve or restore an edge, I would probably use whatever lather I had whipped up for shaving.Quote:
Originally Posted by randydance062449
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?
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brontosaurus
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
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.