Thread: What grit stone should I use?

I'm in the proess of getting my first straight razor and I was wondering what grit stone I should use. On a youtube video I watched the guy used a 4000/8000 grit (expencive). Is this essential to a shave ready razor. I have access to a 4000 grit but not an 8000. is that good enough?

Thanks in advance

Originally Posted by 7StrangeFruits

I'm in the proess of getting my first straight razor and I was wondering what grit stone I should use. On a youtube video I watched the guy used a 4000/8000 grit (expencive). Is this essential to a shave ready razor. I have access to a 4000 grit but not an 8000. is that good enough?

Thanks in advance

No...4000 grit will establish an edge but it's really too rough to shave with. It's pretty established practice for most people to have 4k, 8k, and some sort of finishing stone or pasted strop.

The only way you might get away with using only a 4k stone is if you follow that with using multiple grits of pasted strops...which is going to be a long hard process and almost if not more expensive as getting the stones you need.

If you can truly only afford only one stone my recommendation is to get a finishing stone and some .5 micron chromium oxide paste. Then spend the $20 to get your new razor professionally honed and use your finishing stone and pasted strop to keep it sharp. It will be a long time before you need anything coarser than a finishing stone and then if you still don't want to spend the bucks get it honed again.

Agreed that a 4K is insufficient. Its great for restoring bevels and chip removal but you need an 8K at the minimum as a final finisher. Sorry but that's the way it is. Consider the pasted strop route as an alternative which would probably be cheaper.

I've heard of guys shaving off of the Belgian Blue stone (~6k) but it wasn't said to be a comfortable shave.

An 8k-ish barber hone might be the cheapest route, but knowing the grit in a barber hone is a wild guess unless you buy it from a member here who will vouch for it.

These stones are said to be nice stones: Toolshop - Natürlicher Wasser-Abziehstein - fein 292715 but you'd be working for a while to remove the 4k grit scratches on it.