Honing DE blades?

I know that DE blades are relatively inexpensive but I'm curious as to if it's possible to extend their life by honing?

I have an old bakelite hone for DE blades. It is flat on one side (for single blades and straight razors) and is curved on the other side (for double safety blades).

It would be interesting to play around with honing those blades but I won't do so if it's known to not work out well.

I don't have a DE razor or blades at the moment or I would try it out.

Does anyone have an old curved hone as I've described and does it actually work (well) to extend a DE blades life?

I'm thinking about getting a Gillette Super Adjustable at some point just for variety and in addition to my straight razor.

They are so thin that you'd have to make a tapered steel holder to do it, and even then, you never know what the coating is on them.

Why bother? not worth the effort IMO

I'm more interested in if it works than necessarily continuing to do it. It's actually no work however. Why throw something away if making 4 or 5 passes on the curved hone extends the life for another few days?

No holder is required. You just put your thumb on the middle of the blade and slide it back and forth a few times and turn it over and do the same.

These old safety razor hones were sold and I'm assuming were used as well. I'm just curious as to how well they worked.

Maybe it doesn't work with the edge coatings used today?

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Originally Posted by gcbryan

I'm more interested in if it works than necessarily continuing to do it. It's actually no work however. Why throw something away if making 4 or 5 passes on the curved hone extends the life for another few days?

No holder is required. You just put your thumb on the middle of the blade and slide it back and forth a few times and turn it over and do the same.

These old safety razor hones were sold and I'm assuming were used as well. I'm just curious as to how well they worked.

Maybe it doesn't work with the edge coatings used today?

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I am inline to think they work well other wise people would not have bought them.

But man haggeling with folks is the roots of my buying.
so i got one curved hone for de blades a swiss de blade sharpener with two stones and one leather.
and three that use the crank. but i have not used any of them yet.
One of the stropping devices for them should possible work to get a few more shaves.
cause by using it the unseen edge gets bent out of place so we strop the blades to get it correct.

Since the creation of the safety razor there were countless companies that came up with the cure all for the dull D.E. blade. People bought into the idea of sharpening blades and saving a fortune. Little did they know that after they got these contraptions home they might if they were lucky to get 1 possibly 2 more shaves out of a blade.

The de hones were made back when the blades were just uncoated steel, allowing them to be sharpened. Todays blades are coated which, from my understanding, gives the blades much of their sharpness. Honing them would only serve to remove the coating.

What I have learned from a gentleman that was older than dirt itself is to use the bottom of a glass to act as a strop. The glass must be made of glass and also be concave. Place the DE blade in the bottom and rub it around flip and repeat. I have tried this and it did bring some of the keenness back. I only did it once so I have no clue as to how many times this might be done but I image it can be done more than once. It might scratch the bottom of the glass so don't use it on your wife's good ones.

Here are a few examples
Some pretty unusual ideas

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Originally Posted by Theseus

The de hones were made back when the blades were just uncoated steel, allowing them to be sharpened. Todays blades are coated which, from my understanding, gives the blades much of their sharpness. Honing them would only serve to remove the coating.

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^^ I think this might be true. ^^

But that doesn't mean that every time I see one of those little DE hones on the Bay, that I don't want to give it a shot anyway lol. I think it would be fun giving it a go!

But you are kind of putting putting the horse before the carriage aren't you considering you don't even have a DE yet lol? :)

I initially bought the hone to try out as a touch-up hone for a straight razor without realizing how small it is.

It actually does have a flat side for straight razors and the curved for DE.

I'm working on (bidding) for a DE as we speak :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gcbryan

I initially bought the hone to try out as a touch-up hone for a straight razor without realizing how small it is.

It actually does have a flat side for straight razors and the curved for DE.

I'm working on (bidding) for a DE as we speak :)

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You can buy some pretty cheap new ones on line. Are you going vintage only?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Theseus

The de hones were made back when the blades were just uncoated steel, allowing them to be sharpened. Todays blades are coated which, from my understanding, gives the blades much of their sharpness. Honing them would only serve to remove the coating.

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There is a lot of truth to this. I do believe that the sharpeners are meant for the thick older style blades. As for the modern blades, the coating doesn't impart sharpness per se but smoothness. The coating fills in the scratches left by the mechanical grinding process, giving the "smooth/sharp" feeling. After a few shaves the coating wears off and the blade feels harsh. So, as Theseus pointed out, if you tried a sharpener on a modern blade it would pretty much defeat the purpose.

IMO if anyone wants to extend the life of a blade by a shave or two try palm stropping. I've tried it and it seems to work.

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Originally Posted by earcutter

You can buy some pretty cheap new ones on line. Are you going vintage only?

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I just bought (ebay) a Gillette long black handle Super Adjustable razor so by late next week I will have a DE. :)

I didn't see this mentioned, I hand strop my DE blades on the palm of my hand. Someone had a video of this and if I can find it I'll add a link. I use Derby and Astra blades and use palm stropping when the blade is getting a little rough usually 10 strokes each side each edge, it works! If it extends my use of the blade I'm going to do it, doesn't take long. My .10 cent blades go up to three days longer, and I've had some last 30 days comfortably. I shave everyday, Head and face. If you do this to every blade that's about 100 more shaves in a yr. out of 52 blades, seems worth it to me. Someone check my math, I've been up since 20:30 yesterday the 10th with no sleep, it's 19:27 on the 11th right now and I've had two 5 hour energy drinks today ;) weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Couldn't find the vid so I made onehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WumeVowuVDw .......I think hand stropping cleans the gunk off the blade more than anything, giving you a clean edge to work with, more than sharpening it. I don't know if it actually re-aligns the edge, it probably helps but I can't prove it, no loupe to check.

That's certainly worth a try.

I just bought 100 Astra blades for less than $14 including shipping and shipped from within the U.S.

I think I'm set for a while!

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Originally Posted by Tarkus

Here are a few examples
Some pretty unusual ideas

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Attachment 111846
Attachment 111847

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Sweet i have two twin plex and one of the other one. the next thing i going to pick up is some of
those glass hones. but am afraid of getting bid up on the darn thing of some well glass collector.

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Originally Posted by earcutter

You can buy some pretty cheap new ones on line. Are you going vintage only?

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I have only bought vintage DE Razors are the non vintage ones worth buying.

Wanting to try honing these things put me in the market for some useless stuff.
got good this at a fair price Vintage Master Hone Safety Razor Sharpener Honer Blades Sharpener | eBay

I found that just using a good quality but not super expensive blade one time only was the way to avoid razor burn, really whats 15 cents or so a day?

Sounds like you might want to try some different blades if your only getting one or two shaves out of a blade. That's a lot of blades in a years time, they are inexpensive blades, but if you could get the normal 3 -6 shaves out of a blade that suits you better, that's a new razor every year, if you collect. Or if you like to try all the different soaps out there, that's around $54 extra dollars you would have to spend on them. Just say'n

Who has had good sucess with some sort of maintenence of any type?

If I were going to do anything, it would be to run the blades against a hard smooth surface to re-align the edge. The coatings are too hard to hone, but you might be able to bend out nasties once or twice.