Thread: Lithide Barber hone thumbs up

Hi Gents,

I got my lithide through the post from Tilly yesterday (great service and nicely wrapped). Of course I had to unwrap it and give my dulling razor a quick touch up with it that very second .

Well, the hone looks very smart. It is jet black and looks really nicely formed with a lovely smooth surface. I bought this hone to use after my Japanese 8K to finish and also, due to its small size, I figured I could use it as a travel hone (my stropping is too unreliable to travel without a hone for an length of time).

Dispite the small size it is very easy to keep the razor flat on the hone. I think this is because it fits nicely in the palm of your left hand. It can be used dry too so is excellent for touch up work. I gave the blade 5 strokes on ech side and then jumped in the shower. The shave was fantastic. The razor was cutting arm hairs without making much of a popping noise too and passed the HHT. This is the sharpest I have had a razor. I will continue experiment with this hone. Does anyone else use a lithide? How many strokes is optimum?

Rob

No, I droped mine
Kind regards Peter

I have one of Tilly's Lithides and like it very much. I do a standard pyramid w/ it and one of her medium Wester Bros. hones. Now that I have razors that are pretty sharp I'll probably just use the Lithide for touch ups. My best guess would be 5 light round trips for a touch up. I did that for my Dbl Duck Dwarf and it worked beautifully.

Did any of you guys lap your lithide? I tried, and the experience was frustrating. After quite a lot of lapping, my hone has an area in the middle that's a different color than the rest of the hone.

And the surface is very rough, although I tried polishing it on several barber hones and high-grit sandpapers. I also tried lapping straight on glass, which had no effect.

I'm hesitant to use it for touchups, since the surface is so rough. Any suggestions?

Josh

I lapped my lithide with a fine (approx 600 grit) DMT diamond stone.

It worked very well, but dulled the surface.

While the surface doesn't feel as smooth as the original surface, it works as intended, but I've only used it a few times, so my experience is limited.

You can take a practice razor and use the hone several times, which may smooth things out a bit - also, I'm pretty sure that you can't make a hone coarser by lapping (assuming no cross contamination) - but I'm no expert.

Someone else reported good results when they lapped their lithide with a pice of another lithide hone.

You might also be able to buff the surface with a Scotchbrite pad - again this is just a suggestion.

In my limited experimentation with my lithide, the key seems to be very light, very slow strokes.

5 laps should be sufficient to refresh an edge.

I'm giving this thread a bump as I'm also interested in getting a lithide lapped smooth so I left it to collect dust especially after making that bench hone.

I lapped my Lithide with either 800 or 1000 grit 3M sandpaper (the kind in the yellow and black cardboard jacket) and had no problems. The surface looks dulled and almost greyish, but still feels very smooth. I've been happy with it for touch ups.

Jordan

I think I ended up with some adhesive cross-contamination as my surface feels uneven. It looks like I'll have to use 180 and then the 1000 to get it right.

I have had great results with Lithide on SOME razors. Like a WKC - worked very nice. Other razors, however, did not improve as well.

The jury is still out in my case. I have to say I don't use it for my current best shavers, only on the ones that need work. Getting uniform color might be tricky - I have had two such hones and both of them had variations on one side. The other side was OK.

Cheers
Ivo

I'm worried about the color only because it can sometimes be an indication that the hone isn't flat. Mine seems to be flat, even with the variation in color, so I'm guessing it's just an artifact of the material in the hone.

I used 220 grit sandpaper initially and then worked my way up to 1200. The surface really didn't change.

I think suzuki's right that you can't make a hone coarser, because the abrasive remains the same regardless of how rough the surface feels. I just worry about using a shave-ready blade on a surface that's rougher than my 4K Norton.

This is a silly question, but would anyone who has a smooth hone be willing to either take some close up photos or let me try it out? I could pay for postage, and maybe even send a PayPal deposit. Or would you be willing to sell one?

Josh