Thread: Hitting the "Stone/Hone" Wall and Climbing over

+1 to the reference blade, indispensable as you're learning. It's like the first time you got glasses, and realized how well we're supposed to be able to see.

Great advice!!! Well done !!
I always keep a glass bottle near were I hone and if I get Bl#%^dy upset with a blade I will lightly wipe off the edge and start over maybe on my 4K Norton or sometimes my 1K Norton, and walking away is always' good advice, with my OCD issues it is the best advice at times!!!

Most Sincerely, tinkersd

Do a YouTube search for gssixgun or look in the video section of the WIKI (I think)

Originally Posted by SoldiersBurden

Where are the videos at?

JKRJ

Sometimes a blade just forgets what it's supposed to do. The advice is correct. Let it rest, and then start up again. Let the metal remember. Sometimes it's not 'in the chair' but the blade.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

So when do you hone ?

One of the pleasures of honing for yourself, and not for hire, is honing when you are in the mood. If I am not in the mood I don't go near the hones. I also know when to walk away. If the razor is frustrating me I will save it for another day, maybe even another month. No deadlines pressing me.

The flip side -- when things have just gone to hell, maybe I'm angry at the world, maybe I've heard one more piece of political comment than I can handle; that's often when I head for the hones. The work distracts me, gets me in a little rhythm, clears the spiders a bit. Hone therapy I call it, often supplemented with bourbon.

Nice to read the first post. Now I have a reason to drop my 800 grit

I was all over the map with my honing until I (a) decided to get one set of hones, one set only, and master them. I decided on Naniwa, 1K, 3K/8K, 12K. I had others, but just put them away and decided to eliminate the "which hone" variable. (b) I chose one single honing sequence, which happened to be the one posted by Glen on this forum sometime ago. It was mechanical, but it was a recipe to start with. (c) I had a couple brand new razors that were honed by Lynn, bought from SRD. Other than stropping, I totally left them alone to serve as my standard. (d) I prevailed upon a kind soul on this forum to actually take a razor I'd honed, that I thought was pretty good, and tell me how close I was. His assessment was super helpful. (e) pick one or two "experts" and put a premium on their advice, but be careful mixing ideas from different experts. Two perfectly working systems, combined, can produce one very badly working system. Have a good plan. Stick to the plan. Assess and adjust. Rinse and repeat.

I am a happy honist now, maintaining a nice little collection of fun, interesting razors that give me the shaving experience that brought me to straight razor shaving in the first place.

To the above: very good advice.

It's easy to miss the point, which is to get good shaves and to have fun.

“Light and Magnification are you BFFs”, so true. I bought an adjustable Halogen lamp from a thrift store for 5 bucks, what a game changer.

Went out and bought another for the shop bench, they are also great for taking photos especially with a USB scope.

You don’t know what you’ve been missing until you can see what you’ve been missing.