Swaty hone = awesome!

[FaPat5]

Received a swaty razor hone today from a fellow b&b'er via the BST. Unfortunately I didn't have any homes left from my last straight razor experience, but it appeared that the "shave ready" straights I purchased recently were more suited to pulling hair out of my face than cutting.

Anyways, I slapped some lather on my new swaty, let the razors slide across a few times and voila! All of a sudden the HHT was no problem anymore (before, my 4/8 revisor for example could not manage it at all and my 5/8 garantie Solingen was a struggle.

in a sad way I can't wait to use it again lol! Is there any reason to use a pasted strop after the swaty or should it be fine as it is?

 

[Obiwan]

Congrats. Great little hones those are.

 

[rockviper]

Dovo black (~12k) or TI white (~10k) pastes can bring it up a notch if you find the edge just needs a little refinement.

 

[Disburden]

Swaty is awesome! I love mine. Paste is always finer than a stone so you may want to go more fine but its not needed by any means.

 

[jpcwon]

I like my little Swaty...sadly it doesn't see much use though as I usually use my small Zulu Grey or JNAT for touchups, but they are great little hones...

 

[FaPat5]

Well, I was debating just going straight onto a homemade denim strop I have (or possibly to make a canvas strop with some dovo white paste). I'll see how I get on with it, but thus far I'm still impressed with the little stone.

 

[gary haywood]

I have a swaty and it works very nice . A good quality strop and should be all you need . You may need a thew more laps on certain razor s ...

 

[Brooksie967]

What did you lap your swaty up to? I noticed a great improvement in performance when I took it up to 600, 1200 and higher.

 

[gary haywood]

I used a worn dmt325, I tried all the way to 1500 and didn't like the feel so back to my dmtc and the surface felt smooth.. I also coat mine in soap for a while seems to bring the shine back..gary

 

[Brooksie967]

I also fooled around with soap/lather and liked it better for sure.

 

[DFSDAILY]

3 line Swaty is what I use in conjunction with a CrOx pasted balsa. It leaves my edges smooth and sharp.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Swaty with lather is nice. But 1u diamond paste on balsa adds a lot to the swaty edge. If you follow up with .25u paste, you can hardly get a better edge than that. The balsa gives the edge just enough softness while still adding a bit of sharpness. Win/win.

 

[Brooksie967]

Slash, you're a big fan of films, pastes and treatments eh? When will he madness end lol??? If you're going to use something treated I prefer hanging strops over flat pieces of wood.

 

[Slash McCoy]

I don't like to treat a hanging strop with any abrasive. I prefer paste on balsa, or at least a big paddle strop. I think Balsa has just the right give in it for the perfect edge. Hanging leather with paste could eventually convex the bevel too much, though this could be minimized by keeping the strop consistently tight and using consistently light pressure.

 

[Brooksie967]

A slightly 'boathulled' blade performs just fine.

 

[Thomas Martin]

What's a swaty hone?

 

[jpcwon]

What's a swaty hone?

It's a kind of barber's hone, made by a company called Franz Swaty of Marburg, Austria. There great little "touch-up" hones IMO...Google "Swaty Hone" and you'll find a bunch of info on it...