My apologies guys. I tried to help, but I am not going to fight personal battles.
Thanks for all the responses.
Thanks for all the responses.
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Second Attempt Simple Honing NEEDS for New Guys
- Thread starter treydampier
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Coticule w/ slurry + strop is enough if you don't mind taking a little time to learn the ins and outs of honing start to finish on a coticule
Another option is DMT 1.2 and 8k plates and a finisher of your choice. + strop
I agree that people seem to talk up the difficulty of honing razors. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it isn't especially hard either.
Another option is DMT 1.2 and 8k plates and a finisher of your choice. + strop
I agree that people seem to talk up the difficulty of honing razors. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it isn't especially hard either.
I like the whole post, but this is the part I like the most.
I posted a little while ago that I thought it couldn't be too hard considering almost every adult male had to keep their own razors sharp in days gone by. Most people agreed and that it was just a lost skill as opposed to a difficult skill. I think that as most people now enjoy the art of straight shaving that they also take great care to hone their razors, hence the detailed and can appear complicated process that some of them go through. I've got a 1000 grit stone, a 10,000 grit stone, a Rayman blasa strop and a couple of decent leather strops and I can get a straight from blunt to sharp enough that I'm happy to shave with it. It would probably help and make it quicker if I had something like a 5000 or 6000 stone as well but I don't.
Call out these narcissists so that we can burn them at the altar of the honing gods. We will make them drink slurry, until we can hone on their backs. We will shave them with zeepks until they bleed. On this day we will be victorious and the narcissists will be done.
oh yeah.. woodcraft sells the "chinese 12k" stones also
oh yeah.. woodcraft sells the "chinese 12k" stones also
That is a distinctly uncharitable way to interpret the motives of members who have spent countless hours trying to help new guys. Honing a razor is pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. Getting there isn't always easy, but all it really takes is patience and practice. Anyone can do it. But advocating that an utter n00b pick up a straight of unknown provenance and a couple of hones is doing them a disservice.
I agree that he over-generalized but it is also a fact that some really excellent people have been harassed and ridiculed by so-called honing experts and banned from "razor sites", not for misbehavior but only because they expressed similar opinions.
Great Post, Thanks Trey.
I think part of the problem is in trying to convey tactile and sensory info through such a shallow medium; I could write for hours and still not come close to describing all that I'm feeling/doing.
At work, I now and again have to explain what I'm doing to new guys, and it's pretty hard to do. I explain some, but miss other, aspects. Sometimes I over analyze and confuse my new guy (and myself
) with too much info. And, most surprisingly to me, sometimes I think I can explain what I'm doing, only to realize that my explanation doesn't jibe with what I'm actually doing.
All in all, over analyzing can be a good thing. Teaching helps the teacher as much as the student. At the end of the day, this ain't rocket science, it's just hard to convey this stuff over a keyboard and monitor. But keep trying guys! Some of it's starting to stick!
I think part of the problem is in trying to convey tactile and sensory info through such a shallow medium; I could write for hours and still not come close to describing all that I'm feeling/doing.
At work, I now and again have to explain what I'm doing to new guys, and it's pretty hard to do. I explain some, but miss other, aspects. Sometimes I over analyze and confuse my new guy (and myself
) with too much info. And, most surprisingly to me, sometimes I think I can explain what I'm doing, only to realize that my explanation doesn't jibe with what I'm actually doing.All in all, over analyzing can be a good thing. Teaching helps the teacher as much as the student. At the end of the day, this ain't rocket science, it's just hard to convey this stuff over a keyboard and monitor. But keep trying guys! Some of it's starting to stick!
I've noticed a distinctly different "flavour" at some of the other sites
There's a reason I keep coming back here!
I suppose at the end of the day it is just rubbing a piece of metal against a rock......
I think Trey's post has a lot of good information for someone wanting to get into honing. It's not rocket science but it's not like chewing gum either. I hate seeing someone drop a bunch of money on hones, pick up a $20 razor off eBay and eventually give it all up because they get crappy shaves. I've also seen some really nice razors wrecked by someone learning to hone. I generally recommend anyone starting get their first few razors honed by someone reputable. That way you can focus on learning to use the razor and not be wondering if it's your technique or your bad honing. I agree most everyone can learn to hone but it takes some time, patience and the willingness to learn from your mistakes. In our society of "I want it now" not everyone is willing to invest the kind of time needed to develop the skill. Just mastering a straight razor is an accomplishment on it's own. Once you get comfortable with it there's always time to think about honing.
I for one appreciate this thread so far. I like to see that it doesn't have to break the bank to get started (especially with that Norton set on Amazon). As someone new to straights who would eventually like to be self-sufficient, thank you all.
I "mastered" honing (enough to get all the razors I've used shave ready), long, long, long before I got good enough at stropping that I felt my edges were really up to the task of delivering a smooth, bbs shave. I would actually argue that learning to get a razor sharp and shave ready before you even attempt to shave would be the best way to go about it. Yes, it takes a bit more patience than buying a shave ready and fumbling with a strop for a month, but it will make your first months shaves vastly better.
I can definitely see the simplicity and the economy argument for buying a shave ready and a touchup hone versus buying a junker and restoring it yourself if you don't plan to collect straights. But I would have to disagree that it is in the best interest of new users to imply that you should learn to shave before you learn to hone, certainly if they are going to be buying multiple razors.
I'd liken it to teaching your kid to drive without teaching them to change a tire because they've got a cell phone, and the car comes with tires already on it.
Personally, I find stropping to be much easier than honing. I was unaware that there were some who found it the opposite, so that's kind of cool to hear.
I'm curious about learning to hone before learning to shave. How would one know if a razor is shave ready besides shaving with it? (Sorry, I wrote this before I saw Slart's response, so now it's just redundant...)
Comparison versus another shave ready razor via TPT.
I find honing to be a more natural motion for me than stropping. Honing also doesn't mind going slowly. Stropping is less effective if you slow it down. I also find that the give in a hanging strop made it more difficult to recognize when I made a mistake, and the feedback from my strops is much more subtle than my hones. The main reason though is just that so much less time is spent stropping. While I may have spent an hour honing a razor at the start, I'd spend two or three minutes stropping, max.
I find honing to be a more natural motion for me than stropping. Honing also doesn't mind going slowly. Stropping is less effective if you slow it down. I also find that the give in a hanging strop made it more difficult to recognize when I made a mistake, and the feedback from my strops is much more subtle than my hones. The main reason though is just that so much less time is spent stropping. While I may have spent an hour honing a razor at the start, I'd spend two or three minutes stropping, max.
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Cool post, thanks Trey.
Plus what Chimensch said +1. Then again, after his sponge idea (which I now use everytime I shave) I'll support anything he says. "Viva La Sponge."
Plus what Chimensch said +1. Then again, after his sponge idea (which I now use everytime I shave) I'll support anything he says. "Viva La Sponge."
Don't you need to know what a shave ready edge's attributes before trying to recreate them? I am not suggesting years of straight shaving before learning to hone, but a few weeks might be a good idea.
Heh, heh... the sponge gets them every time!
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