Thread: First honing set?

I think what you're seeing in this thread is that there are just a lot of different hones and approaches you can use to get the same result. We all like our own setups for different reasons, so you're going to get many different answers.

I tend to think of hones in three categories: coarse, medium and fine. Coarse hones are for fixing a defective edge. Medium hones set up the edge for the fine hones by removing the deep scratches from the coarse hones.

Fine hones are ones you can shave off of. Since you just want to do touch-ups, these are the ones we should be looking at. (There is a wide range of grits here, but let's not worry about that right now. Think about it in terms of shave quality. Some guys get great shaves from a barber hone that is probably 6K or so, while others really prefer a 30K edge.)

Is price much of a consideration for you? Do you care about natural vs. man-made?

Probably the two most commonly used fine hones are the Norton 8K and the coticule. I think most would agree that the coticule provides a slightly better edge. It would be hard to go wrong with a coticule if all you wanted was a touch-up hone.

Other options include:
- Escher (rare, expensive)
- Chinese 12K (inexpensive, seems to work better for some razors than others)
- Spyderco ultrafine
- Shapton 15K or 30K (expensive, tricky to get best performance out of)
- Barber hones (wide variance in grits and quality, sometimes even within same brand)

There are lots more. Keep in mind that if you don't like a particular hone, you can always resell it here and get a good portion of your money back.

Bottom line for me is that I'd have to recommend a coticule from www.theperfectedge.com. Pay the extra for the lapping surface and you won't have to worry about flattening the hone when you get it. Coticules work well even when they aren't completely flat, so you might never need to flatten it again.

Hope this was helpful.

Josh

I agree with what JoshEarl has said, and would also recommend that you start with a coticule based on what you want.

Wow, thanks for all the great info!

I'm going to spend this afternoon looking around trying to figure out what I want and get something ordered. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again.

If you think honing is `sexy', there's probably nothing sexier
than keeping your razors sharp with a coticule and strop

- Scott

I too am looking to get into the honing game to keep my razors up to speed. I am going to go with the Norton 4k/8k and a Chinese 12k to finish it off. I am having trouble finding the chinese 12k on wwodcraft.com web site. Maybe its just my ignorance but I cant seem to find it with any keyword search. Could someone link it? Just trying to save afew bucks here

Here is a link - looks like they are back ordered until tomorrow:

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=4920

Lou