Opinions on honing and stop paste?

Sooo... I shaved with a Dovo I bought from The Art of Shaving for about 2 months, and put a bunch of nicks in my strop, plus, had people give me crap for not using strop paste. I stopped for a few months and am ready to get back on the horse. I am planning on getting my razor proffesionally honed so I know what a shave ready razor should feel like. Having said that, I have two general questions.


1.) I want to purchase a set of naniwa 5k, 8k, and 12k wet stones so I can learn to hone myself. I would love opinions on how often i should need to hone if i am stropping correctly, and if I should use each stone every time, or just the 12k for touching up until i need more work.

2.) I understand correct stropping technique in genereal, but what are some opinions on the correct use of strop paste? Normally I would shave every other day and use the cloth, then leather right before my shave. Should I just condition the leather? Should i put past on the opposide side of the leather and canvas? How often should I ust the paste? OR... if i have a 12k hone, is strop past even nessesary?

Thanks for taking the time to help and i look forward to all your help!

My humble opinion

1)I think in that set of stones you need a 1k stone to complete your set. Just to set the bevel in case you need to.The honing time will depend on many factors, how much beard you have, the frecuency of your shaving, even the time that takes your shaving (if you are new, maybe your face can get a little dry if you do it slowly, and take and extra effort to your blade). The ultimate test is the shave test. When you feel a tugging feeling when you shave, then is time for "refresh" the blade. You only will need the 12k stone for this. I mention the 1k with the other stones, because you want to learn to hone, and I feel is better to be prepared to anything. An accident (like a chip on your blade) and you will need to restore your blade from the very beggining.

2)As long people are different, the desired result of the honing process will vary from different people. Some people like with ending the process with the 12k stone and no pastes required. Others (like me) prefer the chromium Oxide paste to finish (0.5 micron size), and there are those who even prefer sharper. Only be warned if a blade is sharper you will need to "refresh" it more often.

As an additional comment, I have my boker edelweiss professionally sharped and is still a great shave, just with the stroop and no pastes. But I have the set as I told you in case of "emergency", and pastes until 0.25 microns. I learned to hone in a cheaper blade, and use the boker to compare. I stopped in the green paste CrOx, and I feel almost the same shavingin both blades.

The link can help you to relation grit size and microns
http://www.idrockman.com/Documents/G...rsionChart.pdf