Thread: What do you think of this honing process?

There's a shop in my town that sells knives. I decided to go in and see if, by some rare chance, he sold straight razors. Not only did he offer new Dovo's and Boker's, but he offers straight razor honing for $15. I asked him if he could show me the process he goes through to sharpen his razor, and here's what he said:

He first takes it to a grinding wheel. I can't remember what the wheel was made out of, but it was charcoal black and fairly porous. I think he said it's the same as a scotchbite pad?

He then takes the razor to the largest, oldest, coolest hanging leather strop I've ever seen. 100 strokes.

He then takes it to a large paddle strop, felt smoother than the hanging strop. (I think it was) another 100 strokes.

He then uses a smaller paddle strop that felt extremely fine and and smooth. Another 100 passes. Maybe it was 50 passes on those last two...can't remember. He said the whole process takes about 15 minutes.

I know absolutely nothing about honing (yet!) so I wanted to ask you gentlemen if this sounded like a viable way to sharpen a straight razor. Based on the amazing vintage gear (strops) he had in his workshop, I was pretty convinced, but I wanted a second opinion.

Run away !!!!!
Sorry , on a serious note , maybe that works for knives but any kind of grinding wheel is no way to hone a razor.
By all means buy a razor in a sealed box from him but get someone else to make it shave ready.

I certainly wouldn't be letting him near any of my razors.

Look up Glen's honing videos on YouTube. Something like gssixgun norton 4-8 will probably find it in the search bar. There you will see the proper way to hone a razor. You will understand afterwards why they told you to run away. Seriously, don't let him touch a piece of steel you plan to shave with.

Ooooo.......even better, ask him to show you how he shaves with an edge that he prepares his way.

before you run away you need to go and tell him that razors are not knives and as such they are not honed on grinders.
Also ask him if he ever shaved with one of his edges and if he is a masochist.

That's not a honing process. That is a process that will cause pain to your face. Politely thank him for showing you his process, and then walk away.

Honing straight razors is done by hand, on sharpening stones, slowly. Not on a grinding wheel spinning at 3450 rpm, or is we want to be conservative, 1750 on the low end.

My two cents.

GRINDING WHEEL?.........

Richard

There's got to be some way to set the guy straight. Somebody should. If he sells razors in that condition and swears that they are ready to shave, then he's going to convince a lot of people that straight razors suck.

Maybe he works for Gillette.

Ask him to skip the grinding wheel and it's not a bad plan. It would require a pretty sharp factory blade though for it to work.

You know I read through your description a few times, because there are different ways to get razors shaving...
We here at SRP tend to be very "stone/hone" oriented, we even tend to be more water stone oreinted...

There are other ways of doing this, but they are not very popular on SRP and get shuffled to the back, one of those ways is a progressive stropping routine using pastes.. Reading your description you did not mention there being pastes on the strops but then again he might not have explained that to you... The progressive stropping routine is also normally done on either Paddle or even more preferably Loom style strops...

The grinding wheel at the beginning just flat scares me, I am trying to figure out why he did that and can't come up with a good thought at all...

If you had said he started with a wet grinder at a slow 50-120 rpm then moved to 3 or 4 different strops I could have put that together in my head as to what he was doing , but the process you described I can't figure out from the info... The worst part is that what you described isn't a knife routine either
Let's just say it is not a Razor Sharpening Technique that I am familiar with

Hehehe: afdavias11/Alan was typing faster, but I was typing more...


v/r Glen