Thread: Which hone for finishing?

I just bought a Norton 4k/8k from Classicshaving.com and im wondering which hone I should get for a finishing hone? I think I seen mention of coticule? Or something to that effect... what are my choices here? And any feedback, tips or hints you can provide. Thanks.

-Billy

Try the 8K, that might do it!

A coticule or escher are my choices. A pasted strop (Tony Miller makes good ones) is another popular alternative, and much easier to come by than either of the stones. A good pasted strop is also pretty easy to make yourself. Modern coticules apparently have some severe quality control problems, and Eschers are damn near unobtainable by anyone with budgetary constraints. You can get a good shaving edge with just the 8k, though. A lot of folks make that their final honing step.

Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

A coticule or escher are my choices. A pasted strop (Tony Miller makes good ones) is another popular alternative....

Joe, can you use a Swaty as a finishing hone? Is there technically a difference between a finishing hone and a touch-up hone?

Gary

Originally Posted by dylandog

Joe, can you use a Swaty as a finishing hone? Is there technically a difference between a finishing hone and a touch-up hone?

Gary

Finishing hone and touchup hone are descriptions imposed on the hone based on your intended use. The Swaty is great as a touchup hone because its quite fast for that fineness. It lets you touch up in just a few swipes.

In the other hand the best finishing hones, tend to be not only fine but slow as well. It lets yoou bring the blade to the perfect edge without the danger of bypassing it. Typically, it also rwquires a lot more strokes.

You could use a Swaty to finish, but it can be difficult with a faster hone.

My favorite barber hone for finishing is the Honemaster.

The 15k shapton works well as a finishing hone. Lynn claims in his video somebody on SRP owns the mysterious and pricey 30k shapton, I'm still waiting to hear the review on that baby.

You can also use a pasted paddle with a progression of 1 micron, 0.5 micron, and 0.25 micron pastes (you don't have to go all the way to 0.25, I've got one with just 1 and 0.5 pastes). 1 micron is roughly comparable to 15k grit, and 0.5 micron is roughly comparable to 30k grit.

You can use a fine barber hone as a finishing hone, the 3-line swaty is probably fine enough to qualify. I've got a King barber hone that I finish some of my razors on, it's been lapped very flat and very polished and does a good finish.

The problem with barber's hones is they are very small and can be tricky to use. There's a good reason the old barbers put smiling edges on their blades, the barber hones are much easier to use on smiling edges. My King barber hone puts an absolutely wicked edge on my smiling blades, but it's a good way for me to dull my straight edged razors.

Originally Posted by mparker762

You can use a fine barber hone as a finishing hone, the 3-line swaty is probably fine enough to qualify. I've got a King barber hone that I finish some of my razors on, it's been lapped very flat and very polished and does a good finish.

The problem with barber's hones is they are very small and can be tricky to use. There's a good reason the old barbers put smiling edges on their blades, the barber hones are much easier to use on smiling edges. My King barber hone puts an absolutely wicked edge on my smiling blades, but it's a good way for me to dull my straight edged razors.

Aren't eschers and coticules typically pretty small as well?

(Thanks for your good advice the other night mparker, that did the trick both for the hone and the razor.)

Smiling blades: Hold the blade spine-up. Smiling blades curve up on the heel and toe, frowning blades curve down. Smiling blades are honed by rocking the blade along the hone, on small hones this works great because only a small portion of the blade is in contact with the hone anyway, and if you don't keep the hone or blade perfectly flat it doesn't matter much because you're always rocking it back and forth anyway.

Some eschers and coticules are small, but not all of them are. Lynn's got a big 'un.

Pastes are a classic sharpening tool, some of the old guys used chromium oxide (in the form of green paint) on paddles for sharpening their razors, and the white chalky paste has been used for a long time as well. And they're certainly cheaper than fine-grit hones -- the Shapton 15k is $130 or so, and the Shapton 30k is > $600 I think. A tube of 60k chromium oxide paste costs $10.

Originally Posted by mparker762

There's a good reason the old barbers put smiling edges on their blades, the barber hones are much easier to use on smiling edges. My King barber hone puts an absolutely wicked edge on my smiling blades, but it's a good way for me to dull my straight edged razors.

That's not the reason the barber manual tells you to do it in order to avoid a frown, which gives a bad shave. In other words, a smile is not presented as any better than a straight edge.

I recently determined that over time a hone which is not as wide as blade length but wider than half will give you a frown. That's because the ends of the blade spend less time on the hone than the middle. I believe that's why the barber manual discusses the smile. It would make the barber compensate for the typical width hone.

If you're getting a better edge with a smiling blade it probably has something to do with the way you shift the smiling blade as you're honing. If you used even pressure with both blades they should hone the same. If you put both blades on a wide hone with even pressure, the ends of the smiling blade are honed less, and eventually you will end up with a straight edge. To keep the smile, you would have to use more pressure at the ends of the blade, like the barber manual teaches.