Thread: Newbie question

Just wondering how often a straight razor has to be honed? If I buy a shave ready razor and strop how often should it have to be re-honed.

this is answered alot, but it depends on the razor and stropping technique. not often if your good at stropping and dont damage the blade
from what ive read, anywhere from a few weeks to months, depending on the stroppper and the blade itself.
ive only been at it a bit myself.
there is a wiki tab up top u should check out, itll have the answers to all the easy questions.

Yep, my answer was indeed in wiki. Was thinking though if I treated it like a knife and touched it up on a more frequent basis on a finish stone before it gets dull, would this do the trick?

i think the strop does that, it shouldnt be too neccesary, but im sure the occasional touch up does keep it from getting to where it needs severe honing , but you dont want to overhone, so its a fine line.
id say if your what one might call a "master honesman", than hone it all you want, but if your not, id only do the neccesary honing, to preserve blade life.
im sure someone more experienced ll add soon

Well I can put a decent edge on knife with a whetstone, but can do a really nice scary sharp edge with a sharpmaker from Spyderco. So I guess I wouldn't be classified as a master honer by any means. Strangely enough, I think maintaining a straight razor intimidates me more than the prospect of shaving with one.

Originally Posted by citizensoldierny

I think maintaining a straight razor intimidates me more than the prospect of shaving with one.

absolutely! me to, im not gonna ruin the razor on my face, but its not hard to do on a chunk of rock
hehe, try to shave with your wetstoned kitchen knife, see if its shave ready

Citizen, once a razor is properly honed, it can be kept that way indefinately with a barbers hone, which can be readily found on ebay. Once every so often when the razor starts to tug and pull and stropping is not enough to correct it, use the barbers hone, its simple as dirt to use. Just be sure to get the razor properly honed to begin with.

nun2sharp,
That is pretty much the reassurance I am looking for . I really don't want to maintain a fleet of razors, so that I can rotate them out to "honemasters". Not to mention the risk of loss in the mail and just the general inconvenience.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Citizen, once a razor is properly honed, it can be kept that way indefinately with a barbers hone, which can be readily found on ebay. Once every so often when the razor starts to tug and pull and stropping is not enough to correct it, use the barbers hone, its simple as dirt to use. Just be sure to get the razor properly honed to begin with.

+1 I did exactly that with a Dovo #41 and a Swaty Three-Line barber hone for 28 years. If you have trouble finding a barbers hone, you can do the same thing with a coticule bout. Once you learn the different ways to use a coticule, it can even be more flexible than a barbers hone. Just remember that we're talking here about maintaining a razor that has already been sharpened by someone who knows what they're doing.

citizen

this is the exact thing i want to do. I have one razor that was honed by Lynn and I just want it to stay sharp and dont want to get into honing my own ebay blades or anything. So i sprung for a 12k Naniwa superstone to use just as Nun2sharp and chimensch said they use a barber hone. Not sure why i didnt want the barber hone but thats a different story. Then I bought a felt strop from SRD with some Cromium oxide and diamond spray. From what I was told this should get me by for a long time unless I severly damage my blade by chipping or nicking it really really bad. Have fun...I have still not touched up my razor and have shaved with it for two months...YMMV