Hones

[Laney1566]

I am not the kind of guy to sit around and depend on others to keep my blade sharp.
I purchased a straight from whippeddog today and know it will come shave ready. I just won an ebay auction for a KIEBITZ and will use it to practice my honing skills.
Question......Where is the best place online to purchase the proper hones?

I have watched videos showing the use of 1,000, 4,000 and 8,000 grit hones consecutively. Then the Balsa hones.

 

[rockviper]

I got my first hone (a combo coti) earlier this month. I went coti so that I would only need one stone instead of a set and found some very good threads on this site as well as great info and videos elsewhere as well. Took me 2 attempts to get a shave and the edge on the 3rd attempt was good enough for me to go ATG. I still have a long way to go with it, but it wasn't that hard to get a serviceable edge.

 

[Proinsias]

Depends on what hones and razors you want really

If you just want to keep a blade sharp then a barbers hone or finishing hone should be fine
If you want to take an ebay razor to shaving sharp then you'll need roughly 1000-10000 grit. You could do that with one stone, a coticule, or a progression of stones.

I use a King 1k/6k, a muller grindstone, a Chinese 12k, an old barber hone and chromium oxide on balsa.

I can get a decent shave from the king 6k side followed by cro ox and I can, slowly, hone out chips and set new bevels on the 1k side.

I can shave comfortably off the other stones and could probably use any of them to keep a razor going for years.

The grit ratings are also quite confusing my King 1k/6K is rated on a different scale to the Norton 4k/8k, I think the 6k side is a little finer than the Norton 8K and it seems the Chinese 12k often performs far below 12k

 

[azmark]

www.thesuperiorshave.com has some of the best deals in town on Norton's and you can pick up a finisher up there too.

Glad you're taking the plunge to learn yourself

 

[kfralin]

I would recommend anyone learning to hone start with a Norton 4/8K. You can actually do everything needed from bevel setting to shave ready on this one stone. Once you master getting a shave ready edge from this, it is easy to graduate to other stones. If you are not able to attain a shave ready edge off of this hone, all the additional hones in the world won't help IMHO.

 

[Disburden]

The Norton 4/8K is great for beginners and so is the coticules.