How did Grandpa Get By with One Stone?

[Raissermesser]

Serious question, the answer to which may be "If you look at non-refurbished vintage razors, you'll see he didn't." My father's father had a special hone for straight razors and a strop, and that's all. The hone says it's for razors, with a surface that looks slick to the naked eye. He used a different whetrock for knives, and a file or long, oval, whetrock for outdoor tools (would have loved to know what he used on a scythe).

I'm thinking that straight razors in his day really were shave ready or close to it, and the razor hone worked because all he needed was a touch up every few weeks or so. If so, does that imply a modern razor that's really shave ready only needs occasional honing on the equivalent?

 

[stone and strop]

My father's father had a special hone for straight razors and a strop, and that's all. The hone says it's for razors, with a surface that looks slick to the naked eye.

I'm thinking that straight razors in his day really were shave ready or close to it, and the razor hone worked because all he needed was a touch up every few weeks or so. If so, does that imply a modern razor that's really shave ready only needs occasional honing on the equivalent?

Pretty much - ya.
You could get by indefinitely with a finish hone as long as you didn't ding your edge.
Which hone you have makes a world of difference.
Please post a picture of the hone if you can.

 

[Raissermesser]

Please post a picture of the hone if you can.

It will be a while. It's in a drawer at my mother's. There's damage to one corner, but it's out of the honing area. Came across it after my father died.

 

[stone and strop]

It will be a while. It's in a drawer at my mother's. There's damage to one corner, but it's out of the honing area. Came across it after my father died.

No worries, be nice to see though.
Its nice you will have a chance to try it and see what shaving was like for your Grandfather as well as having a personal item from him.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Who’s guessing this guys gonna come back with a picture of a Norton axeman?

 

[stone and strop]

I'm guessing coticule with the "damage to one corner" many cotis are clipped on the corner.

 

[miguel]

Probably going to be a barber hone, which most people got through the Sears catalog.

 

[David]

According to my grandmother, her Father had one razor, one hone, one strop, and one brush. My uncle has the razor, strop, and brush in a shadow box, but for some reason the stone didn’t make it in the box and now belongs to me. It’s a 7” two toned thuri that’s about 1/2” thick. The strop is a 4 sided paddle strop that has at least one kind of paste on it (Red IIRC but it’s been a while). If it came down to it I could take one 5” Coticule and happily live the rest of my days with a sharp and comfortable razor. I think most of us have just turned this into a hobby instead of a chore.

 

[stone and strop]

According to my grandmother, her Father had one razor, one hone, one strop, and one brush. My uncle has the razor, strop, and brush in a shadow box, but for some reason the stone didn’t make it in the box and now belongs to me. It’s a 7” two toned thuri that’s about 1/2” thick. The strop is a 4 sided paddle strop that has at least one kind of paste on it (Red IIRC but it’s been a while). If it came down to it I could take one 5” Coticule and happily live the rest of my days with a sharp and comfortable razor. I think most of us have just turned this into a hobby instead of a chore.

Sounds like he had damn fine shaves!

Its funny how many think that people before us must have "suffered" through their shaves.
We have just learned what they already figured out long ago.

 

[Alum of Potash]

Hah, "one strop" with four faces--one, two, or three for pasting. That's how great-grandpa got by with one stone as needed back in the day. ;-)

 

[buca3152]

Old school was more pragmatic. You used what you had. And forums didn't exist so you wouldn't know what you were missing. Lol.

 

[Twelvefret]

Serious question, the answer to which may be "If you look at non-refurbished vintage razors, you'll see he didn't." My father's father had a special hone for straight razors and a strop, and that's all. The hone says it's for razors, with a surface that looks slick to the naked eye. He used a different whetrock for knives, and a file or long, oval, whetrock for outdoor tools (would have loved to know what he used on a scythe).

I'm thinking that straight razors in his day really were shave ready or close to it, and the razor hone worked because all he needed was a touch up every few weeks or so. If so, does that imply a modern razor that's really shave ready only needs occasional honing on the equivalent?

Several thoughts:
1. There are those seven day sets which I suspect each were honed and stropped by barbers/sharpening services for a man.
2. Rural men grew up using tools and were mechanically oriented as we are technically oriented today. Someday it might be asked how we got by with just a cell phone.
3. I suspect men shaved with the edge they could produce or otherwise grew facial hair.
4. Just from my perusal of eBay, barber hones were plentiful.
5. Men knew how to handle tools and especially sharp objects. As that generation died off, Gillette introduced new ways not to have to handle the blade.
6. Sickles and such were sharpened on grind wheels either foot propelled or electric.

 

[HazMat Shaver]

Also keep in mind that an edge way way back when, was not as keen as we use these days. I bet back then if it knocked down the biggest part of the whiskers they were happy. Barber hones, coties, thuris were all great back then and plentiful if a person wanted to take care of buisnetss themselves.

 

[stone and strop]

Also keep in mind that an edge way way back when, was not as keen as we use these days.

Why would you think this?
The same stones were available then as now.

 

[Gamma]

There really is no way to know for sure how sharp razor edges were or weren't way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But, I'm fairly certain that a good number of barbers were able to achieve extremely sharp razor edges back 'in the day'. I recall seeing signage hawking 'very close shaves' that dated to the 1800s. I would hesitate to believe that shave standards were absolutely and universally lower a long time ago. At the same time, I doubt that there was as much fussing back then as there is in these forums today.

I had a barber's kit from the late 1800s that had an old very bellied oil soaked synth and an array of pastes and in combination that set up yielded some wickedly sharp edges on the razors in that box.

Coticules and Eschers have been around for ages and edges off those stones can be pretty spectacularly sharp. Same for Arkansas stones and abrasive compounds like FeOx and Chromox. Were barbers using .1 diamond on a hangin linen? I would guess not, but once an edge cuts a whisker effortlessly and flush, that's it and you can't cut it flusher or less effortlessly. That can be done rather easily with the aforementioned stones and/or very simple pastes.
I think the sharpness issue plagued the regular Joe at home though; no skills, no tools, no one to teach him how to hone a razor. The early DE blades hyped 'no stropping and no honing', which was probably a huge relief.

As for honing frequency, I find that my razors like to be honed often, and I like to keep them happy. I enjoy honing so it's a win/win situation for me.

 

[C FrankC]

Vintage Tamagane Kamisori, (J-Nat) Nakayama with a handful of Nagura and go back a hundred years with a skilled user I think you might be surprised just how sharp the edges were.

 

[HazMat Shaver]

I wad thinking along the synthetic side. No 20k stone around back then. And I've never found a natural that can be a keen as a 20k edge. Not saying naturals are not keen. I just shaved with a great keen Jnat edge but it still wasn't as keen as a 20k.

 

[EL Alamein]

Don't forget that many men sent their razors to the barber for honing.

I remember my barber telling me this as a teen. He said he did the honing on Sundays while watching the game.

Chris

 

[Jnatcat]

For the past 18 months I have used only one Nakayama Kiita stone to maintain all my razors, at the beginning of 2017 I honed 12 straights and when one would start to tug I would quickly do a super light tomo slurry and do about a 5 min session in the bathroom and then strop and this has worked super well over the last 18 months so yes it is possible to get by with one stone but if one were to bang an edge it would take more than that to get the edge right

 

[Legion]

Don't forget that many men sent their razors to the barber for honing.

I remember my barber telling me this as a teen. He said he did the honing on Sundays while watching the game.

Chris

Pretty much this.

Every town would have had at least one guy with the stones and skill to hone a razor professionally. And for the one horse towns that didn't, there were travelling people who would pass through and do all the local knives, scissors, razors, and whatever else.

All a man needed was a daily strop, and a touchup hone for when that didn't do the trick. If the edge was damaged, or dulled to a point where the touch up hone didn't work, he took it to a pro to have it sorted (unless it was a Gold Dollar, then the pro would tell him it was unhoneable, and send him on his way...)