Thread: I need spoon fed!

Hi Natepaint,
Trying to figure out what hone to use is kinda like trying to figure out what martial art to study... same end goal, but different paths to get there...

For simple touchups on blades honed by a honemeister, probably the simplest path is a pasted strop and/or a barbers hone.

For actual honing beyond the touch up, you have dozens of option... so try to categorize your options and figure out what appeals to you.

Synthetic stones- probably the best one to start on as your foundation is the norton 4k/8k
Characteristics: consistant, quick. Need to soak the stone(s) in water.
Other note-- Lynn has a great BKM on how to hone on this stone. Later, you can expand your collection to include finer finishing hones, still using the norton as your base workhorse.

Other synthetic stones include glass stones, but I hear these can get expensive.

Natural stones- a good choice to start on is a yellow coticule + belgian blue whetstone. Bart has a good wiki article on how to hone with this combo. Note, you can do without the BBW and just use the coticule, but it takes a bit of practice to dial in the technique (which involves diluting slurry at a certain rate-- you need some trial and error to figure it out)
Characteristics: typically not the sharpest edge, but known for having the smoothest edge (some feel that a smooth edge is more important than an ultrasharp edge for shaving comfort, once you reach a certain sharpness threshold, but there are many opinions on that point). You can use the coticule with a slurry as an aggressive bevel setter, or with water as a fine polisher, which means if you want to be a minimalist, you can use pretty much this one stone for everything.

There are a bunch of other natural stones, but I don't know much about them-- I think they need to be used in conjunction with other hones as I think their effective grit level is more "fixed" than the coticule (I could be wrong on that point)

Let us know what you ended up picking. You can always sell 'em on the classified and try something else if you don't like your choice.

-Chief

Natepaint - I know where you're coming; I want spoon-fed as well. I've been reading all of this stuff for a couple months straight, and I have more comments, videos, and opinions than I know what to do with. It's pertinent to look before you leap, but I feel at some point we've just got to jump in and feel the water for ourselves. So much of this material is subjective and dependent on personal preference/experience that it's hard to get a newbie started at ground zero with a beginner's game plan. Personally I'm looking at the Norton combo like this to get me started on sharpening. A 220/1000 stone, 4000/8000k stone, and a lapping stone sound like a pretty good start to me. Norton seems to be the common denominator for beginner's and there are plenty of video tutorials with these stones, including those from Lynn. I'm sure with some experience I'll find Shaptons, Japenese stones, Coticules, and various barber stones more fitting, but I really need to get my hands dirty with some antique shop razor specials that I don't mind learning on.