Thread: My first attempt at honing - success!

I'm still very wet behind the ears with this straight razor shaving, only having started a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I picked up an old double sided barber's hone for a gent in the States via evilBay. I tarrived nice and quickly.

It hade a few dents in the faces where someone had sharpened something other than razors on it!

Out came the emery papers and I spent an hour dressing the stone and now it's nice and flat so I go to it.

I bought an old straight (from somewhere in Montgomery in Wales, it says, must be the shop as I haven't read much about Welsh manufacturers.) at a car boot sale in Gloucester the other week. Cost me £1! It was in pretty good nick. A reasonable amount of hone wear but the edge was tidy.

Off to the hone I went following various instructions and hints I've found here and after a short while, it was taking the hairs off my arm effortlessly. I gave it a good strop yesterday and tried it out.

Bearing in mind I'm new at this, I was well impressed with the shave - almost as good as the properly honed one I bought from one of the members here when I started, and the actual shave was pretty clean too, except under the chin where I'm still having trouble with the angles!

A decent razor for a pound sterling!

Right, it's off to evilBay to find a few more. It never ends, this RAD...

Gareth

Congrats! Those barber hones are cool huh? The best beginner hones are those that cut slow! Have fun . . .

Nice one Gareth, I might get mine out in a minute as my razor was pulling a little this morning.

Nice work Gareth! Don't talk to me about RAD. Got my rotation up to 10, I keep saying I won't be buying any more and I'm already bidding on 2 of them, including the Tennis from Tony H that's reached my max bid 4 days before the end of the auction. Gonna get SOOOO sniped lol. Oh make sure you post some pics of your new baby