Thread: New from New Zealand

Originally Posted by eddy79

What pasted strop do you have. A finishing stone can be used like a barbers hone for touch ups and is a definite grit. There are lots of good barbers hones but you need one in good condition and no all are great. Are you planning to learn to hone fully or just maintain your razors. There are a lot of different ways to get from a to b but your path will dictate what is best for you. If you can let us know we can give advice better suited for your needs.

I went on the tutorial on here and made one using my linen strop and some 1.5 micron dimond paste. And at the moment I'm just looking to maintain my razors as I dont have the money for a full honing set and think it would be more economical to send new razors to be professionally honed and maintain the edge

1.5 micron puts it at about 10k. That might be a bit harsh. Usually we don't go below 1 micron. Did you paste the inside and is it your only strop. If just maintenance then the naniwa 12k has to be the most reccomend hone and with a little slurry can bring back even a slightly abused edge with a bit of work. As long as you don't chip or damage the razor you can go a long long time with just the 12k and a decent strop.

Should have asked about the paste as well. What paste is it. Some are rated at a certain grit but it is more of an average size than the actual size. The stuff we recommend for razors is very uniform in grit sizes and very pure

sorry for the slow reply ive been away from my computer for the last few days i was mistaken the paste i was using was 0.5 microns not 1.5 i have no idea what brand it is all info except the micron rating is written in Asian charcters of some kind do you think it would be worth getting some Cr ox for the other side of the linen strop. and i will take your advise on the hone i remember some one saying that new stones need to be lapped so would i need a lapping stone too?

The manufacturer lapping stones aren't much good and will need lapping so you can use them too. If just doing the occasional lapping to keep the hone flat and only touching up the edge which will only take a couple no pressure laps then wet and dry paper on tje counter top/glass/tile is a cheap option or a diamond plate works well and can be used on the kitchen knives. I take it you pasted the inside of your linen so that you still have a untreated linen for daily use. If .5 micron hopefully it will be ok and you can't remove paste so may as well stick with it and see how it goes. If you do get the naniwa 12k you can easily shave from the stone only after stropping and say 5 laps a week should see the edge stay in optimal condition. Have a good look around for the stone most often it is cheaper to import from America or Japan for these stones. I have used both sharpeningsupplies.com and toolsfromjapan. Hope this helps but any other questions just ask.

Welcome to SRP!

Kia Ora!
Try looking up Grazor, he's the only Kiwi I've seen on the forum who seems to be based in NZ. He may be able to help you.