Honing safety razor blades

[dgold]

Wonder if anybody has heard of this:

When I mentioned to my dad that I was using a safety razor he mentioned that his father used to use a double edge safety razor and that he would hone the blades to get more life out of them! This must have been in the 30's-40's or so. He told me what he did was to put the blade inside a drinking glass along the wall with the edge oriented up/down, press down on the middle of the blade, and slide it against the inside of the glass back and forth.

Anybody ever heard of something like this?

 

[Benoit]

See this post that links to an interesting article on the subject: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/338920-Delusions-About-Shaving

 

[razorhead63]

Wow, that is pretty interesting. Cool...I have not heard before of honing on glass. There are however a couple of brands of blade one can make last a lot longer by PALM STROPPING them. One is the Personna Med Preps and the other is the Perma Sharp Supers...
I actually took a Med Prep to 19 shaves once using this method. They were all good shaves too. (very smooth, nick free) It was the first one I used. Palm stropping will work to EXTEND blade life on most blades but they really need to be of harder steel than most available out there to achieve a high number of shaves. The Hospital Use ones (Med Preps) are in this category.... That is why they cost so much more than the Lab Blues... Yeah, I at first thought it was baloney before I tried it out but it works. Just make sure also, to keep the blade dried besides stropping it between each shave....
In addition, it helps to flip the blade over for every shave... it wears evenly that way.

Respectfully,
John H.

 

[Radium]

I sometimes hone my blades. Depending on the steel and brand of DE blades some do come back to life but after a couple of weeks of using the same ole blade I do get tired of seeing it so I just toss it and use a new blade.

 

[chrisf8657]

I sometimes hone my blades. Depending on the steel and brand of DE blades some do come back to life but after a couple of weeks of using the same ole blade I do get tired of seeing it so I just toss it and use a new blade.

Why even bother? As cheap a they are use them for 3-4 shaves and just ditch them. Taking the time to re-hone them is a waste.

 

[Radium]

Why even bother? As cheap a they are use them for 3-4 shaves and just ditch them. Taking the time to re-hone them is a waste.

Hi Chris,
I don`t hone my DE blades all the time but do so when I want to test out a new blade and to experiment to see the characteristics of each new blade. Mainly because it is fun tinkering around.

 

[chrisf8657]

Hi Chris,
I don`t hone my DE blades all the time but do so when I want to test out a new blade and to experiment to see the characteristics of each new blade. Mainly because it is fun tinkering around.

Hey if it's fun for you cool.

 

[Radium]

Hey if it's fun for you cool.

 

[DirtDiver]

In related news, I saw this on Etsy... http://www.etsy.com/listing/1243409...4&ga_search_type=vintage&ga_view_type=gallery

Kinda cool...