Thread: New to straight razors (loads of questions)

yeah but it makes sense... changing the angle would make for honing a different part of the blade... i would assume the biggest thing to strive for in honing is angle consistency... no?

Originally Posted by Warlockdlx69

good lord... im looking at $150 in sharpening equipment arent i? of course, thats being conservative as hell! lol STARTER kit even.... ugh....

by the way, that was the site i was citing...

are there any cheaper stones? i mean say i want to go to a really fine stone in the future, im looking at another $100 just for THAT stone... im guessing sending the razor off for $20 - 30 is probably the best option... save for the strop itself... which is necessary no matter what...

Spend your $ on a good strop as you will use this every day.

When I started out I was on a tight budget too and someone suggested these stones:

http://www.w-u.com/wu_itemfind.htm?item=521006

Compared to the Norton they are slow cutting and small, so they are a bit tough to work with. They are cheep though and will definitely give you a good edge. In addition to these I also E-bayed a "Swaty" barbers hone for finer finishing. None of the razors I have honed up, save one have needed more than a few lap's on the Swaty to keep it sharp since it's initial honing session more than 9 months ago.


As far as how to use these hones I stack them so they sit flat but otherwise I treat them like a bench hone (though a very small one). To get a baseline for how many laps I need I take the number of needed laps on a Norton and multiply by four (they are half the size and about twice as slow). How to use a Norton is covered best on Lyn's DVD, but there is also a lot of information in the Library located off of the home page as well as the pyramid progression I used as a baseline for my stuff.

Originally Posted by Warlockdlx69

yeah but it makes sense... changing the angle would make for honing a different part of the blade... i would assume the biggest thing to strive for in honing is angle consistency... no?

In my experience the 8K Norton is a fast enough cutter that it will quickly remove any small double bevel caused by removing the tape.