Thread: keeping it keen

So where did you get your little 2x4 stone?

You could finish as me with few strops, hones, razors no money but still only experimenting what would be the best for me.

You could finish as me with few strops, hones, razors no money but still only experimenting what would be the best for me.

I'm leaning toward either a barber hone (if I can find one) or just a 12k stone for the time being.

I made the mistake of looking into whether it would be best to get a Naniwa 12k, or a Coticule...whole other can of worms.

I agree with the simple approach though. I can't see men of old with a dozen stone and strops cluttering up the place just to have a shave. It certainly doesn't seem like barbers did either.

Make due with a strop 'til it starts to pull, then run it over a fine stone, strop it again, and continue on with life.

Ebay...
I checked on 5 or six this week (In case I'm missing something) and they're still out there.
Importantly, less is more. First time I used it I lost my edge and was it was very humbling. I'm not sure how many strokes but I knew I had to snap out of it and remind myself "this is not a strop".
Thankfully, I hit it with my strop 100 both sides and back in business. Now I use it only four strokes once maybe every two-three weeks and strop 50 ea side after every other day when I shave.
Newbie here so YMMV.

Eventually, my Dovo Special will have to get honed. My 4 sided strop with three sides pasted .50/1.0/3.0 will keep the blade sharper for a longer period of time, thus delaying the need to hone. For me, after few shaves, the Dovo Special needs 10 laps on the .50 pasted side to regain the fine edge that I prefer. Someday, it will take the 3.0 side to regain that fine edge and when it doesn't, time to hone it.

I do have a nice 3" latigo leather strop for regular stropping.

Pabster

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

IMO there may be a lot of people using pasted strops unnecessarily or to cover up poor technique, or just for the fun of it.

A big +1 to that. I can testify from my personal experience that you can maintain a shave-ready razor with a barbers hone or coticule. I've had less success with a Chinese 12K and I even tried pastes for a while. I gave up the pastes because, IMO, the edge doesn't last as long and I could get just as good results from a coticule (or barbers hone) that last longer.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

A big +1 to that. I can testify from my personal experience that you can maintain a shave-ready razor with a barbers hone or coticule. I've had less success with a Chinese 12K and I even tried pastes for a while. I gave up the pastes because, IMO, the edge doesn't last as long and I could get just as good results from a coticule (or barbers hone) that last longer.

+1 on that, you have my respect.

As we are finding out, it seems that you really can maintain your razor on a lot of stones including, Norton, Naniwa, Shapton, Coticule, Escher, Thuringen, Nakayama, Chinese, Barber Hones and possibly a few others.

It will really boil down to personal preference. Nothing wrong with using pastes to refresh a razor and prolong the need for honing. Again a personal preference thing. I have had great success with the .5 diamond spray, paste and chromium oxide. I have also enjoyed using a black boron oxide too followed by chromium oxide on razors that were close to bring them to poifect.

Lynn