Ultimate Barbers Hone

[Fnord5]

What would it be?
I have a vintage Thuringan, and a Champion barbers hone.
I have read that the grain on the Champion is far too coarse to be any good for straight razors over on SRP, but mine seems to do OK.
My Thuringan is a little over 1.25 inches wide, and 6 inches long. A little narrow for me, as I do not have the utmost confidence in keeping the blade straight and flat on it, but it puts a lovely polished edge on my blades.

I hone my straights with lapping film, 15um, 5um and .3 um, no pastes, and my home-made strop.

Instead of breaking out the .3um film, which is a pain, I would like something comparable in fineness, but a stone.

Is the Thuringan my best bet?
Should I look for a Swaty?
Keep using the .3um film?
Shapton 30k?

Just looking for best bang for the buck, and maybe someone to test out my champion to see if it is worth using.

 

[Bacchus]

I've heard that it hard to tell the difference between the Shapton 30k and the Shapton 16k unless you're really picky, but if you get it, how 'bout sending me a razor off of it to test for you

 

[leighton]

The attributes of a barber's stone in my book are:

On the narrow side
Light enough to hold in hand
Freakishly hard and a PITA to lap and therefore never needing another lapping unless your honing 100s of razors per month
Brown in color

The modern equivalent that fits the bill and offers a nicer finish is the spyderco UF. Meets all the specifications minus the brown part. Plus I think its just better than the old barber hones. Its harder, its finer, it looks cleaner..... definitely will never ever need a lapping.

 

[jzono1]

Search for a good Nakayama in your preferred size

Tho, they can be pricey.

 

[LessLemming]

Well, that totally depends on what you think of a "barber hone".
If you mean a single one hone you can get along with all your live,
then my guess would be a belgian blue or yellow.
Why?

The blue and yellow are both fine enough to finish with Chromium oxide,
but slurried will cut fast enough to reset some minimal damage due to normal use.
Both are very versatile items.
A transluscent Arkansas could do the same job for you but is much, much slower.

If however you want the ultimate finishing hone for touch ups only,
a franz swaty could do the job indeed. But a vintage thuringian (that I envy you for) could do the same thing as well.
Thuringians querried nowadays are considered to be around 6 to 8k,
wich would be already "enough" to finish with cr2o3.
But vintage thüringer are sometimes considered to be much finer,
sometimes 12 or even 20.000.
Both can be used to shave with, without pasting afterwards.
Ideal touch up hones.

Another fantastic touch up hone would be a chinese 12k,
at a fraction of the cost of a normal hone this fine.
My finest hone would be my Shapton 16k, pricy but nice as well.
This is the only stone that I have so far I use for finishing my blades
without any pasting afterwards with great results.
Personally I would rather go for sweet 16 than the 30k,
because at the expense of a Shapton 30k you might go for a Nakayama instead

A Nakayama would be the ultimate finish,
but I wouldn´t even use it for touchups,
but after my actual touchup hone.
These are way pricy but considered to be 20k at minimum (mostly considered 30k+)

btw. I always see Nakayamas to be considered expensive,
but quite never see some actual prices.
The only source for that would be oldschoolshaving. There they go for as much as 300 to 500 bucks.
How about a smaller, irregular one? Is there a chance of getting a Nakayma a *little* more inexpensive?

//Edit: I have got a solution for your thüringer problem;
It is said that you have to apply nearly zero pressure on your hone when finishing.
This ist true. You could however gently secure the blade on your narrow stone,
by putting your middle and index finger direktly to the edge of your blade,
leading the blade and securing it on the stone with a light touch. That´s how I handle my narrow stones

 

[jzono1]

Cheap Nakayamas are hard to find. Couldn't resist when one appeared in BST a couple of weeks ago, scored it for 200$-ish. Not perfect cosmeticly, but works well and shaves incredibly smooth.

The chinese 12k can do alot, but it requires extreme patience and there's next to no feedback. Work up a slurry and even then you're looking at at least hundred laps with pressure before things start to happen.

 

[LessLemming]

You´re right about the patience. Even slurried the results don´t come quick
AND are far worse than w/o slurry. But combined with a nice 8k hone,
or the champion it could work for him.
Chinese 12k is defenitely one of the best bang for buck
and I get HHT off the stone most of the time.
There are some others similar to this stone;
a slate from wales and a slate from portugal.
The latter is sold in germany as BM-Schiefer (bm = bessermesser, a shop)
he gets great reviews, too and costs around 30€

A Nakayama at around 200Bucks, sounds great. I could not resist that one either, I think
But whats BST (sorry for the noobishness of a non englishman)
Edit: ahhh, I figured it out myself: "Buy Trade Sell" ...

 

[RayG]

When someone says barber hone, what I think of is a stone for quick touchups. If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, my answer would be the Thuringien, since you already have it, and should fit the bill quite nicely.

Nakayamas are nice finishers, but personally, I don't know if I would want to use it for touch up honing. When the razor starts to pull, you will likely need to go back one grit down from your finisher, then finish on the nakayama (for another 100 laps or so if you have a hard, slow cutter). Too much work compared to 5 to 10 laps on a coticule, escher, paste, or barber's hone.

 

[Kees]

When someone says barber hone, what I think of is a stone for quick touchups. If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, my answer would be the Thuringien, since you already have it, and should fit the bill quite nicely.

Nakayamas are nice finishers, but personally, I don't know if I would want to use it for touch up honing. When the razor starts to pull, you will likely need to go back one grit down from your finisher, then finish on the nakayama (for another 100 laps or so if you have a hard, slow cutter). Too much work compared to 5 to 10 laps on a coticule, escher, paste, or barber's hone.

I agree with all of the above except one thing: Nakayamas give really nice edges.

 

[RayG]

Yes, they do, Kees.

I just don't use mine as a barber hone.