Thread: New Guy with questions-please offer advice

Hey guys
I'm new to all this and had a couple of questions.

-1.) Is it easy to over-hone a razor? I guess I'm just wondering if when I get into honing I need to be really aware of not overdoing it. If you do overhone, is it hard to reverse the damages? How do you reverse the damages?

-2.) Same question but with stropping. Is it possible to over-strop? If yes, is it hard to fix and how?

Thanks a lot

1) Yes, it is. You need to learn to account for good technique and stropping to give you that razor like glide over your face. Absent that, new honers have a tendency to not know when to stop

2) Fixing it is easy, peasy. Just back hone a little. Its like stropping but on the stone, and then forward hone a little with the proper stroke. When you learn to hone, overhoning is probably the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 14th lesson you'll learn.

I just spent the past couple of months learning to hone so perhaps I am in a good situation to offer advice. Or perhaps my advice is not what you want to heed since I am far, far from an expert. In either case here it is:

Learn the various sharpness and edge uniformity tests and use them while honing to assess how the edge is progressing. In particular, learn how to tell when an edge is sharp enough (TPT, HHT) as this will tell you when to stop honing.

Thanks for the quick responses.
Is it possible to over strop? (sorry if these are stupid questions)

Not really in the same technical sense, but more stropping than required leads to more chance of making a mistake.

Past about 60 strokes, even the most inept stropper should have created as much alignment as can be had by anyone. It won't over "sharpen" the edge though.

And my apologies for not answering your original question fully.

They are not stupid questions. No one is born knowing this stuff, every on of us has had to learn it at one point or another.

If you are so new to straight razors that stropping is still a new concept, allow me to pass on a tip or two that you will find here and elsewhere. Get a pre-honed straight razor and learn to stop and shave with it. Down the road, once you know what you like in an edge, you can tackle honing.

It's fairly easy to over-hone but, as has been said, quite easy to correct by back-honing. Only time will develop a 'feel' for the steel and edge - after that over-honing is less likely.

It's not easy to over-strop - about 500 strokes might do it! Seriously, advice already given is good - I would say that if a working edge cannot be raisedin 30 strokes, get it back on the stone. However, I do feel - and I've said this before - that stropping is an under-rated and, to some degree, under-valued skill. A good hone job can easily be ruined by bad stropping! I would recommend concentrating on the technique of stropping carefully - you may well be surprised at he difference it makes!