Thread: 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?

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?

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.

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://

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!