My honing/polishing equipment.

[Dave S]

Here's what I've got:

4"x10" DMT x-coarse/coarse
4"x10" DMT fine/x-fine
King Takenoko 8k water stone. Aggressive with a good polish.
Proprietary Ceramic. This stone is at least as fine as .5 Cro2, just not very forgiving due to it's narrow dimension of less than 2" wide.
Leather/nylon strop.

I'm wondering if there is anything else I might need to maintain and refurbish my straight razors. I see a lot of different types of stones, but I'm not looking for redundancy, at the moment. These are some of the stones I use for maintaining my woodworking tools, however I do realize that a shaving razor is different story altogether. I do keep even my axes sharp enough to shave arm hair with.

 

[Woodash]

Here's what I've got:

4"x10" DMT x-coarse/coarse
4"x10" DMT fine/x-fine
King Takenoko 8k water stone. Aggressive with a good polish.
Proprietary Ceramic. This stone is at least as fine as .5 Cro2, just not very forgiving due to it's narrow dimension of less than 2" wide.
Leather/nylon strop.

I'm wondering if there is anything else I might need to maintain and refurbish my straight razors. I see a lot of different types of stones, but I'm not looking for redundancy, at the moment. These are some of the stones I use for maintaining my woodworking tools, however I do realize that a shaving razor is different story altogether. I do keep even my axes sharp enough to shave arm hair with.

It's kinda hard to know what to suggest to you as far as maintenance and finishing are concerned. You're 'proprietary' ceramic is 0.5u or better you say? That's the equivalent grit of a Shapton 30K that a lot of people are gaga over. Two inch wide should be fine. Seems like you're all set. Maybe get a $30-50 barber hone and see how that works for you.

It also occurred to me that ~8K to ~30K seems like a big jump. Maybe something in the middle might be a good idea.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Got any info on that ceramic hone? It piques my interest.

I would definitely get something in the 10k JIS or 15/16k Shapton range to bridge the 8k and ceramic if you're correct about the particle size. I'd also get a 4k king or a 5k Taidea, since 1200 Mesh to 8000JIS is a big jump.

You don't NEED anything else, but you've got some big jumps there that will require a lot of time to make.

 

[Dave S]

I'll look into filling in the gaps. As I mentioned, my experience is with my wood working tools, some of which are A2, which is hard stuff. Does the thin edge of a straight razor make it more fragile requiring smaller jumps in grit size? with my tools I can easily go from 9 micron DMT to the 8k King to the ceramic. I don't have an exact grit size on the ceramic. The maker claimed originally that it was under 1 micron, and it will give a great polish, just like CrO2 on a paddle strop. I am limited to just my loupes for comparison, but he used a 400x microscope to compare, and the 8k water looked like blacktop compared to his stone. I find that the King 8k and the ceramic work very quickly. I'll see what I can do with the old Clauss that showed up today and let you know. Unfortunately he cannot get them made anymore due to the limited market for them.

 

[SliceOfLife]

The reason tools are easier to jump grits with is that with tools you press them into the stone. With razors you (mostly) rest the razor on the stone and add as little downward pressure as possible to maintain contact. Honing is dozens (hundreds?) of times faster when you use significant pressure, so the time it takes for smaller particles to abrade is much much much more noticeable.

 

[Dave S]

That makes perfect sense, thanks. I have a local hardware store that stocks a lot of the stones from the Japan Woodworker, that's where I got the King. I've got a 1k at work, and I'll look for a 4k as well. Oh, just remembered, the ceramic has a coarser grind on the back. I used to use that as an intermediate step between the 8k and the fine side. Thanks for the help.

 

[danjared]

Where in Massachusetts are you?

 

[Dave S]

Near the New York line.