Thread: sharpening my first razor

I just bought my first straight razor on ebay, on the upper part of the blade is say "Across The Sea Sheffield steel". I tryed looking this up but did not find much information.

But my real question is, can get it sharp enough to shave with? My dad is a butcher and has a Japanese wet stone (suehiro 1000/6000), some unidentifiable lower grit stones(?250 and 500?), and 3 low quality diamond sharpeners, I thought that would be sufficient but after looking around i'm starting to doubt this. I am a broke college student without much money to spare on expensive stones, or even to get it honed professionally. Will I be able to sharpen this sufficiently using the hones I have available, micromesh, and maybe some jewelers rouge on a piece of leather?
I am not worried if it will take longer. Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by dc1126

I just bought my first straight razor on ebay,
....snip...
But my real question is, can get it sharp enough to shave with? My dad is a butcher and has a Japanese wet stone (suehiro 1000/6000),

A lot depends on your face and whiskers. A 1k/6k hone will get you close
so give it a try. If it does not shave well send it to a professional honemaster
(see the Classified links above). Getting a blade correctly sharpened is
a big help for beginners. Most of us are spoiled and shave off a 10K or finer
hone.

Do consult the WiKi (again there is a link at the top of the page)
on honing razors.

Since you are broke and a student look for a local Woodcraft
store and see if they have abrasive film. My local store
has 15micron, 5 micron and 0.3 micron film and you can
for sure shave off the 0.3micron. Apply the film to a
very flat surface (glass or granite tile)... A package with
one of each grit is less than $10.

Originally Posted by dc1126

I am a broke college student without much money to spare on expensive stones, or even to get it honed professionally. Will I be able to sharpen this sufficiently using the hones I have available, micromesh, and maybe some jewelers rouge on a piece of leather?
I am not worried if it will take longer. Any suggestions?

Add a layer of tape on the spine and do your best after watching some of the video's and reading the tutorials in the wiki and so on. If you still can't get it...keep on reading below. Keep away from the jewelers rouge as it's for restorations on buffers. That Suehiro stone is a nice stone and if you were to add a Chinese waterstone (they run around $20 shipped) from Woodcraft.com you should have all you would need besides patience and persistence.

Knowing what a shave ready razor is quite important as mentioned above. If you can afford to send the razor to me and pay for the return postage I'll hone it up for you. Just send a PM if you are interested.

It would be nice to see the razor though as it may or may not be a honeable razor...