Thread: shave ready?

When I first started shaving with straight razors, shave ready was a concrete concept. It is "shave ready", so you can shave with it. After a year of shaving with straight razors and several razors, shave ready only means it has been honed. You have to fine tune the razor to your face and shaving skill level. The fine tuning force you to learn how to hone, an expensive and time consuming process, but very enjoyable one. The more you shave, the more you hone, the more shave ready looses its meaning. Just a honed razor. Juan

I don't think shave ready loses its meaning, but the meaning may change. At first I thought it changed to become more personal, but then I found, as I got better, that it becomes more general. A razor Lynn hones should shave anyone. It may not exactly fit their preferences, but it shoupd give a close, comfortable shave. This is because Lynn has high standards for "shave ready."

Also, I don't think learning how to hone is necessairly expensive. I have been told by those I trust all you need to learn to hone is a Norton 4/8k. I would actually bet if I had only ever bought a Norton 4/8k and had used that one hone all this time, I would be better at honing than I am now. I would not have as braod a knowlegge base as I have now, but I think I'd be better at honing.

I was thinking about Lynn's DVD just yesterday. The part where he is sitting at a table with two hones in front of him. One is obviously a Norton 4/8 but the other is so thin that even though it is a combo I wondered what it was. Then Lynn says that it too is a Norton 4/8 but it is worn down.

One of many he has gone through in his years honing. I was slightly impressed by that at the time but not as impressed as I am now. I have honed quite a few razors but I haven't put any negligible wear on any of my hones and I tend to lap fairly often on synthetics. Can you imagine how many razors it would take to wear out a Norton 4/8 ?

It is true that I use many different hones but even if I had never used anything but the Norton I wouldn't have put much of a dent in it yet. I too think that I could shave just fine if all I had was the 4/8 combo but it is so much fun having many different hones and experimenting with honing many different razors.