Thread: Barber hone instead of pasted strop?

Barbers hones are typically fast- like 5 laps is all I need to do on my swaty to bring an edge back (provided I do it soon enough)

I use barber hones exclusively (Swaty is my fave) & here's my experience.

(1) Chrome Ox gives me a finer edge than the Swaty alone.

(2) However, if I put the Chrome Ox on a hanging strop & use the strop exclusively to touch up, the edge gets slowly convexed over time. At first, the convexed edge is quite nice, but eventually it becomes too convex to shave with. (How long this takes depends of course on how often you touch-up). When this happens, you have to do a good bit of work to undo all that convexing & make the edge triangular in cross-section again. I have had to resort to coarser hones than the Swaty to do this quickly. There are 3 remedies for this that I know of:

(2.1) Ditch the Chrome Ox and just shave right off the Swaty.

(2.2) Every time you touch up, do a few laps on the Swaty, then finish on the Chrome Ox.

(2.3) Apply the Chrome Ox to a non-compliant surface, such as a lapped piece of oak, which will not convex the edge. Then use the Chrome Ox exclusively for touch-ups.

I am still experimenting with 2.3 & it's too soon to say anything conclusive, but so far the results are quite pleasing. I have also done 2.1 and 2.2, and they work fine also. My least favorire solution is 2.1, since I like a slightly finer edge than my Swaty can give, but the Swaty is an excellent hone, and this, admittedly, is nit-picking.

I got a method like this from watching Lynn... I don't know why he does it, or if the results vary /that/ vastly, but if it works for him, and the blades of mine that he does it on shave this well, I might as well do it too.

When my blade starts to tug, I will give it 5-8 laps on a Barber's Hone. After that, I give them 10 laps on Wool Felt with .5 micron Diamond Spray, after that I do my normal stropping progression (way in depth and way more than you need to do, just strop it, fabric and leather afterwards) Dunno if it makes a big difference, but I get GREAT results!

My lazy everyday kinda touch up is 5 laps on the swaty, 10 laps on a sharpening strop (very fine, like CrO or less) then regular stropping (30/30 cotton/horsehide)
My full ultra touch up is 5 or so on the swaty, 20-25 on my Thuringen (its small so laps are high) 15 laps sharpening strop, then regular stropping.

LOL Like everything alse about this crazy hobby, it appears there are as many opinions as people! I see that nobody said 'My god don't do that, I did that and wore out my blade in no time!"... so I guess I'll play around a bit. Keeps it fun. The barber hone is pretty fine (Velvet Edge) so I am not too worried. Thanks for the responses.

no idea how many razors you have, how well you take care of your razor, tough your beard is, but you shouldn't have to touch up every week, even if you shaved every day (this is the point of stropping... to hold an edge) but even if you did it would take a while to wear out a blade, and the pasted strop would be no different either way a touch up removes metal to restore an edge

Another member here told me they use the barbers hone after every shave. 2 or 3 passes with lather, strop on leather and store the razor for the next shave. They said they had done that for a very long time. I'm doing a little experimentation along that line myself now.

Possibly, honing overkill. Don't know...

Originally Posted by khaos

no idea how many razors you have, how well you take care of your razor, tough your beard is, but you shouldn't have to touch up every week, even if you shaved every day (this is the point of stropping... to hold an edge) but even if you did it would take a while to wear out a blade, and the pasted strop would be no different either way a touch up removes metal to restore an edge

I have a possible rotation of about 6 usable razors but I am just using one to try and minimise the variables while I experiment with this (stropping vs razor hone). At about 1 week of daily shaving is where I notice a drop off in performance, so thats when I touch up. But, you may be right about the stropping being a factor. I am currently using a home made one of Latigo (Tandys) and belfast linen with chalk on it, with 25 passes on each. My results might vary with different technique, different material, different number of passes... etc .. more to play with. Finding out what works for you is half the fun, I guess.