Thread: "De"-honing a razor to compare honing methods?

GD, this is a good question. As you might suspect, some of the answers must use some assumptions. Are you equally familiar w/ each of the stones you wish to compare? If the Thuri is still in the mail, it seems the answer is: 'no'. With the possible exception of the barber's hone, each natural requires more than a little time to become familiar with what works for that stone with your individual honing/stroke methods. So prior to getting that familiarity with each stone - a comparison of edges is not a true comparison. At 363 blades honed, I'm fairly familiar with only one of the stones in the arsenal. So I still work alot on the stones I'm less familiar with, and often have to fall back to the stone I am familiar with. Another few hundred blades and I expect I'll be alot better on the more recent stones.

That doesn't mean you can't get decent edges on each stone, and the fact that you use a single blade for comparison means you get to learn how each stone needs to be used for that specific razor.

By all means - compare, have fun, learn. Learn some more. Of all the 'AD's I've had, my present one seems to hold the most potential: Skills Aquisition Disorder. Its a longer path than others, and paypal is no help at all. But once the skills are there, every stone you touch will be a better stone.

To address the 'dulling' question. The comparison of finishes doesn't require dulling unless your stone is picky about which stone is used just prior to finishing. Jnats can be picky this way. Mine doesn't like a c12k edge before its used. It does like most others. As the honorable Oz once told me - when I asked the same question - about 20 strokes and the previous finish is likely replaced.