Thread: What makes someone a Honemeister?

Well i'm the honemeister of the family. For years i've honed and sharpened the knives, wood working tools, axes and razors. I've also sharpened some knives for our family friends but they have been exceptions.
My wife once said that we all have some kind of perversions and knives are the ones that suits me. As soon i see a dull knife or tool or something i begin to yell and moan and vanish into my garage until i get out with a something sharp. Can't help it.

What it comes to razors i think it is a great help for beginners to send a razor to get honed by someone with experience enough to do that, but just in general i think that everyone should at least try to learn to hone his/her razors. Just like our grandfathers did.

A honemeister is simply a meister with a hone. Without the hone, the meister is not a honemeister. Without the meister, the hone is not one either. Together the hone and meister are the defenders of the world.

One indicator of how rare a true honemeister can be: On any day there are at least 1,000 straight razors for sale on eBay. There are almost never more than 50 of them advertised "shave ready," and usually around 35. There are just six people who regularly sell them advertised as shave-ready. Only three of them have meet the highest standards of customer satisfaction.

So there are thousands of people who sell razors from time to time. But only a comparative handful with the confidence to constantly buy, restore and resell razors in shave-ready condition.

Considerably more of those people are here in SRP than on eBay.

The really well made steel blades tend to give the best edges and I keep telling people who buy a $10 Chinese or Pakistani blade that there are limits to how sharp it can get. I prefer dubl ducks and Henckels, you know, Solingen steel for my razors and I am consistent in my honing. You can't make a silk purse from a sows ear.