Intro and first question

Hi there:

I began straight razor shaving about three months ago and have never joined any kind of on-line forum until today. My straight razor experience has been both pleasant and rewarding to date, but soon I know I am going to have to cross over to the confusing side of sharpening using either hones or pastes. I have searched the web, read the threads and watched the youtube videos on the subject and am still undecided on which way to go. My entry razor of choice has been a brand new factory sharpened TI 5/8s half hollow with an Illinois strop. I realize from what I have found, read and watched that sharpening technique is very much a very personal matter and has been a topic of some discussion on this forum. However, any guidance, suggestions or help that you can offer although maybe not crucial may yet prove to be pivotal in my decision. So, let's get the ball rolling with my first of many questions. If I choose to go with hones and my razor was already sharpened and shave ready when it left the factory, should I use a Norton 4k/8k hone or a fine grit barber's hone to refresh the edge? The journey, as does the learning curve, continues.

Well....If you don't plan on really getting into honing, then you'll probably survive with a barber's hone for the touchups...and once a year maybe less, send it out to get honed.

If, on the chance, you'd like to delve further into the realm of sharpening and polishing, then the Norton 4/8 is where you'll want to go.

There's the paste route as well. There are lots of options, but the real question is "What are your goals with this razor or hobby?"

Thanks Maxi for your reply.

As for the "real question" I believe it is incomplete: "What are your goals with this razor, ???? or hobby?"

I would like to delve further in to the realm of sharpening and polishing but as a potential newcomer to honing feel I am not ready to take that big a first step. After all there is probably a fine line between sharpening a blade and screwing it up. At present I'm leaning towards using a barber's hone for the touchups and sending the razor out for a serious honing once a year or so.

You're right, there are lots of options; perhaps too many.

If you have the funds, then go into honing. The Norton 4K/8K is a great hone and a good place to start. You can add a 1K Norton or other brand and a 12K for finishing. But if you go that route and want to tread that thin line between honing and screwing up a blade, don't do it with your primary razor until your skills are up to the task. You can find plenty of "practice" razors out there. Work on those when you start honing. That's what I did, and it took two casualties before I was able to work on my good razors. You have to make the mistakes that will guide you on your way, but make those on cheap, flea market razors.

Couldn't agree more

I feel myself starting to be swayed towards the traditional hone and away from pastes. Obviously you guys know something that I don't but am eager to learn and find out.

There are plenty of people who use the pastes to touch up their blades when they begin to pull. I'm not one of those people. I've not had good experiences refreshing with pastes. I do like to use them on some razors after I'm done honing though. I'll completely hone the razor and then use Chromium Oxide on hard felt for 10 light spine-leading strokes. I'm still playing around and trying to get consistent results, but it has worked better for me than "touching-up" using the paste method.

From my personal experience if you are only going to have 1-2 razors learning to hone will be a a challenge. On 2 seperate occassions MAXI spent 1 on 1 time with me showing me honing and still the results I got were very poor. Now this is taking razors with no bevel on them through a 12k or finisher of some kind. The only reason I even tried to pick this up was I was getting up to 10-12 razors and the cost of honing and shipping to be sending them out made more sense for me to struggle through and keep learning. But even at that once I started getting decent results I soon ran out of razors to hone and practice with so I had to go out and get more razors. it was a horrible thing

If I had stuck to 1-2 razors pastes, stroping and experieced people like MAXI are a better option for honing IMO.