Thread: Hone Log

With infinite possibilities when comes to honing I like to keep a journal. I'll list the blade and what I used to hone it. What type of hone, with or without slurry, or both, Chromium Ox, diamond paste, how many strokes, etc...

IMO different razors, different types and grades of steel will react differently to the same hone, no two are alike, the same goes for hones, much like the Coticule, I have several, each are different. When I pick up a blade and shave, and it's fantastic, sometimes I don't exactly remember what combo I used to get there. That's where the journal comes in. I'm almost 50 years old. My mind doesn't remember short term stuff like it used to. Plus I have so many hones, strops, flatbead hones, and razors and stuff, it's impossible to remember every detail. I find the journal or log to be invaluable to me. When I pick up one of my Ducks, Livi, W&B, or Dovo for that matter, I can go back, check the log and see what I did to it.
I thought this may be helpful to some...Rich

+ 1 Rich...That is exactly what I had in mind. Should help with the consistency factor, especially if you have a sizable collection of razors.

Great minds think alike. Here is a post I made about a month ago suggesting that very thing. I have been keeping notes on an irregular basis. I have to discipline myself to do it. At first I was doing it longhand in a Composition book and then I tried the spreadsheet thing in Open Office (a Linux equivalent to MS Word) but I prefer a narrative format so I am using an Open Office word document. This is working much better for my purposes.

I am making files on specific razors with the details of the honing and the results. I date them and use the brand of the razor for a title. This way I can eventually have a file on all of the razors I have and I won't have to use the marker test again. I can have an idea of how long the edge lasted before it needed honing, whether I used naturals or synthetics, how the shave was afterwards. In that file format I can add to it the next time I work on the razor as well.

I like the MS word idea, keeping the files in my pc. When I posted, I figured someone must have thought about before. I read your thread Jimmy, Thanks...With so many razors and choices, I don't see any other way.

Yeah Rich for Rad&Haddicts that are compulsively honing one razor after another it seems to me to be the only way to really know what we're doing. I want more then a vague recollection when all is said and done on my individual razors and hones.

Doing it longhand in the book it didn't allow easy retrieval of a specific razor the next time I wanted to work on it. With a separate file for each razor I can keep track of the time lapsed between honing and edit the file adding the date and the latest results. If I really want to get a better take on the razor's performance I could also add a notation within the file each time I shave with it.

Knowing how many shaves before touch ups are called for would give an indication of the quality of the razor or maybe the honing. The trick is to have the discipline to do the log. I do take notes while I am honing to transcribe into the log when I get around to it. I have a stack of them now.

I've been entering each razor's info in a standalone wiki-type application called WikidPad (not server based). I just have a "table of contents" entry at the top of a page that indexes into each razor's title.

Works nice since I already use that app for all my note needs like todo list, notebook, bookmarks, birthdays, journal, etc. It's also unicode.

If the computers off I just jot a note on an index card 'till it's on.

Thanks Steven. That is interesting. I googled it and took a look. I would have to study that to see if I can figure it out. Looks like it might be more efficient than what I am doing now. If I follow through on the present log I will have a lot of individual files.