Originally Posted by
JimmyHAD
I've gotten razors honed by some of the leading honemiesters and I would say from the results of my shaves I am a fair hand at honing myself but there is 'always a faster gun' and many are faster than me. I would love to say that my sharpest razors are some that I have honed but, living up to my avatar, I cannot say that.
I bought two razors on ebay from a seller known as Cedarfurnitureman. He is a young man from Mississippi named Quinton. He is a forum member as well and his screen name is Razor Talkin. His vocation is making custom furniture out of .... you guessed it..... Cedar wood and his passion is restoring straight razors.
These two razors, bought in separate auctions, are the sharpest I've encountered out of somewhere over 150 that I now have. They happen to be a Shumate Tungsteel and a pre-Dovo Bismark but I'm convinced that it wouldn't matter what brand they were if Quinton honed them.
I was so impressed with the edges that I contacted him and I've spoken to him at length on his honing. I expected to find out that Quinton has many Eschers, Coticules, Nakayamas and such exotic stones and uses some secret techniques. To my surprise he uses a Norton 1k for bevel setting and follows that with the standard Norton 4/8 pyramid he learned from Lynn's posts on the old Yahoo SRP group. He finishes with diamond paste on Balsa with 1.0, 0.5, and 0.25.
I am fond of the expression that it ain't the arrow, it's the Indian. Quinton is the personification of that old adage. With all of our searching for the ultimate sharpening stones and trying this or that method he is getting razors as sharp IME as they can be gotten with that boring old workhorse the Norton 4/8 pyramid .... and a hell of a lot of skill.
Edit; Speaking of the skill, upon Quinton explaining his method I've tried to duplicate his results on my hones and I ain't there yet.:) I'm going to keep at it though.... you're not a loser until you quit.