Thread: How often to hone

Maybe this is discussed in another thread or in a wiki post, but I couldn't find one that talked about this. So, here goes:

My question is, how often, typically, would a razor need to be run on a pasted strop or a barber hone? Is it just personal preference, i.e.: when the blade tugs and simple stropping doesn't fix it? Or is there a general guideline, i.e.: after x number of shaves you should stop it on paste or a barber hone?

This is, obviously, a newbie question, but I just want to make sure I don't over-hone or hone too often. Right now, my razors are fine, they don't need anything yet, I am just trying to learn as much as I can. That way, when it's time, I'll have a better idea of what to do.

As always, thanks guys!

Yeah, it needs honing when the razor doesn't shave well and stropping doesn't bring the edge back. FWIW, the better you get at stropping, the more infrequent your honing sessions will be.

Hope this helps

If you are worried about honing too often... don't be. Imagine you were to sit down and do 1000 passes on your finishing hone. You wouldn't remove enough metal to notice it was missing. Consider how many touchups 1000 passes on a finisher is equal to. Maybe 50-100? At a touchup every three months, that is several years. At a touchup every week (which I think is more than needed), that's still a year or two.

If you're really worried, take your razor and finishing hone, measure the blade width, and start honing. See how many passes before you can actually measure a difference.

When it starts to pull and tug and stropping wont help, it's probably time.