When I'm in the market for straight razors, how can I tell how the difficult the razor will be to hone? Does the metal the razor is made out of determine the honing difficulty level (carbon steel, silver steel, stainless steel)? Or do companies have harder razors than other companies? Or is it just the grind (like wedge, half hollow, full hollow)?
How Do I Determine Which Blade Is Easier To Hone?
- Thread starter raccoonandbrush
- Start date
As a very rough general rule, i find that wedges take more work, usually because they have a wider bevel. Beyond that, I'd swear the the Western style Japanese straight i have has much harder steel than my other razors. Second to that are my Swedish Eskiltunas, followed by German steel and then American and then English steel for order of hardness. But... that's just a general impression I get from working with them, and my collection is very, very modest.
There is usually more metal to be removed from a wedge, so honing razors with this grind can take longer. Silver steel is just a type of carbon steel (there is no silver involved). Carbon steel is harder than most stainless steels, but stainless tends to gall, thus, stainless must usually be honed on finer stones and this can increase the time required to get a good edge.
