Honing Blades, by the numbers...

[GreekGuy]

So there's been a lot of chatter recently about honing blades. Does it make sense to do this, whats the savings, etc etc. So to put things in perspective I ran some numbers to answer the "is it worth it?" question.

Lets assume you shave everyday, paying an obscenely high price of 50 cents per blade, and that blade lasts you for 3 shaves (pretty standard imo)

Now, let us assume that you spend 30 seconds after each shave honing the blade (which I consider I vast underestimate), excluding the last shave of the blade. And this effort increases the life of the blade by 60%, so that you now get 5 shaves from that same blade.

Based on these estimates, you would save $24.33 each year. This extra effort, however, would take 146 minutes on a yearly basis.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Thats 146 minutes over a year. But I see it as 146 minutes of time possibly spent injuring yourself based on your technique and method.

So is 146 minutes of possible injury and hassle worth $24.33? Thats your call

 

[Sledgehammer39]

Personally I do not hone my DE blades. I fall in the category that this would be a waste of time vs costs/savings. I palm strop my SE baldes but that's about it.

 

[Kentos]

To be truthful, if I could find one of those vintage glass DE stroppers I would strop my blades just for the hell of it.

 

[ctkelly]

For some people, its not a cost saving tactic.

One of my fellow coworkers was honing a razor blade one day....I said you know I got about 200 of those sitting out in my toolbox do you need one? His reply was, so do I but thats not that point. It was the simple idea that he could extend the life of the blade by doing a little work and he took some amount of pride in it.

I have two aloxite DE hones....never bothered to put them to use though, just part of the display collection.

 

[GreekGuy]

For some people, its not a cost saving tactic.

One of my fellow coworkers was honing a razor blade one day....I said you know I got about 200 of those sitting out in my toolbox do you need one? His reply was, so do I but thats not that point. It was the simple idea that he could extend the life of the blade by doing a little work and he took some amount of pride in it.

I have two aloxite DE hones....never bothered to put them to use though, just part of the display collection.

As a straight user I respect that sentiment. But most of the times I have heard this issue brought up in discussion it has been in life extension for cost savings. So I did not mean to imply that this is foolish or anything like that, it was a strictly by the numbers demonstration

 

[JimboA]

Modern blades have a microscopic secondary bevel. They can be stropped at high angle on paper to improve their edge. Then they will give 4 good shaves and are thrown.
Vintage blades really can be stropped to give 20 shaves, then they must be honed with a jig then stopped and can last years. I went 6 months on one blade and it would still slice free hanging tissue at the end.

 

[global_dev]

Modern blades have a microscopic secondary bevel.

i remember seeing some pics of modern blades that actually had a third bevel.

plus modern blades IIRC also have special coatings that increase performance that only last so long...