Thread: Newish to straight razors

Originally Posted by sicboater

I needed to lap my nortons right out of the box and I think most would say that you should. The 4k in particular seemed to need a lot of lapping before giving me a good surface to hone on. I lap all my hones before each use which may be excessive but atleast I know they are flat. I do the pencil grid and lap against a polished marble tile with 320 grit wet dry and then 600 grit wet dry for anything over 4k grit wise.

YMMV as always.

Well I got the flattening stone when I got the nortons, and am thinking on a DMT D8C(It would make honeing the nicks out of my mothers kitchen knives much easier as well).

I used a DMT 6" fine and very fine to lap the swaty after I used the norton flattening stone, as I thought it left a course surface.

Reading more on the hones part of the forum I now know that such assumptions are not highly accurate.

Well I went to the barber I mentioned and it was nice talking to him, but his basic advice was don't, use a mach 2. That and a bit of ragging on me for having long hair.

So I think Lynn's video is going to provide more useful information.

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

Well I went to the barber I mentioned and it was nice talking to him, but his basic advice was don't, use a mach 2.

That's interesting that you've said the barber discouraged you from shaving with a straight. I had a somewhat similar experience in talking with a local barber (still working) who's in his seventies. Great guy, not curmudgeonly at all. His take on shaves even back in the day were that from his perspective as a barber, a shave took twice as long as a haircut and cost less. So it wasn't one of his or his cohort's favorite services to perform. There wasn't a lick of "I wish I could strop up the old straights and start giving shaves again".

I talk about how great he is; he gave me a DD Dwarf (still my "go to" shaver at this point), a red imp and an economy razor. He refused to take any money for them.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

That's interesting that you've said the barber discouraged you from shaving with a straight. I had a somewhat similar experience in talking with a local barber (still working) who's in his seventies. Great guy, not curmudgeonly at all. His take on shaves even back in the day were that from his perspective as a barber, a shave took twice as long as a haircut and cost less. So it wasn't one of his or his cohort's favorite services to perform. There wasn't a lick of "I wish I could strop up the old straights and start giving shaves again".

I talk about how great he is; he gave me a DD Dwarf (still my "go to" shaver at this point), a red imp and an economy razor. He refused to take any money for them.

Chris L

Well he said he threw all his razors out 25 years ago. Funnily enough, his son who works with him lives next door.

But I rehoned my favoret razor(the first one I restored insterstingly enough, I get better results with it than the new ones I got(dovo best quality and timor blue steel) I can get a decent shave, but I am not sure if useing the swaty instead of finishing hone is good, and I used the dovo paddle strop that came prepasted with a red paste on a balsa wood side.

I think I might have problems with the HHT because I have rather fine(if as noted before long) hair. If I had a long section it would cut but not a short section.

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

Oh I honed them quite a bit starting at the 250 norton water hone, in part because when getting the tarnish and rust off I slipped with the dremmel and put some small chips in the edge, and needed to hone those out.

So I think I am doing OK with the EBay razors, they are certainly working about as well as my new ones.

I worked on a different one recently by going from a double sided norton india stone I have had for years, to a surgical Arkansas stone to the swaty hone and it seemed to work OK(or as well as anything).

It is that I am not at all sure if it is that I am not quite getting a good enough edge on them, or my technique while shaving is the problem.

I need to clarify here, when you said a full set a Norton Water-stones I believe everybody assumed that you had the 220/1000 & the 4k/8k is that the case????

Everyone has different ways they get to a shaving sharp edge but in general it starts around a 1k stone to set the bevel then to around a 4k stone to sharpen that bevel then to around a 8k to polish the bevel after that some people polish on anything from a 10k -40k stone depending on razor and personal preference, some then polish on .50 Cr paste or .50 & .25 diamond paste all that is just personal but the approximately 1k-4k-8k is pretty standard.... whether they use natural or man made stones doesn't really matter..... Keeping in mind that we are talking about e-bay razors here..

Hope that helps a little

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

Well I went to the barber I mentioned and it was nice talking to him, but his basic advice was don't, use a mach 2. That and a bit of ragging on me for having long hair.

So I think Lynn's video is going to provide more useful information.

I think you will get a lot out of Lynn's video. It is very informative.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I need to clarify here, when you said a full set a Norton Water-stones I believe everybody assumed that you had the 220/1000 & the 4k/8k is that the case????

Everyone has different ways they get to a shaving sharp edge but in general it starts around a 1k stone to set the bevel then to around a 4k stone to sharpen that bevel then to around a 8k to polish the bevel after that some people polish on anything from a 10k -40k stone depending on razor and personal preference, some then polish on .50 Cr paste or .50 & .25 diamond paste all that is just personal but the approximately 1k-4k-8k is pretty standard.... whether they use natural or man made stones doesn't really matter..... Keeping in mind that we are talking about e-bay razors here..

Hope that helps a little

I had already honed some nicks out of the edge on coarser stones, and it would shave, I was working on edge refinement.

Well I recieved my new order from classic shaving yesterday. I now have a new illinous 206 strop and a chinese 12k. That with the Cr2O3 I got from chris seem to have really made a difference in the quality of the edge I can get.

I restored another razor, working for about 45 minutes with a D8C to get the chips and small cracks out of the edge. Then I went up the diamond stones I have to their extra fine, and used the norton 4K/8K, chinese 12k and swaty, finishing it off with some Cr2O3 it seemed very very sharp if still a bit harsh.

I wonder at the manufacturor, as it only has the retail name on it but notes it is made in germany and has a makers mark of a small tree on the end of the tang.


I will try to post pictures later.

I have also decided that until I can get good one pass with the grain shaves consistently I will not play around with XTG and ATG shaves.

Thanks everyone who provided sugestions.