Straight Razor General Care

skankles

Hey, I have a strop. What honing stone or stones will I need? And Where's a good place to get them at reasonable cost?

hitemfrank

When your razor arrives, don't strop it before your first shave with it. As stropping is unfamiliar to you, you stand a good chance of either damaging th strop or rolling the edge of the razor and dulling it. When you do start stropping the razor, take it slow and carefully.

Assuming you don't manage to dull the edge when stropping it or touch the edge off of something that dulls it completely, you won't need much stuff for honing. You will only need a very high grit stone to get the edge back to shaving sharp. If you do manage to dull the edge it will need much more work and a series of different grits starting at around 1000 (lower if the edge is physically damaged).

As for what you want to do the honing, it's up to you. You can go for either natural stones or synthetic. Natural stones are generally more expensive than synthetic stones and will not come with a grit rating so some trial an error needs to be done to find out which stone goes where in your progression, from setting the initial bevel to finish polishing the final edge. Some people maintain that natural edges are nicer to shave with than a synthetic.

Synthetic stones will come in defined grit sizes so it's easy to know which stone to use at what time. Again the trade off being what the edge is like to shave with. Some people will find that they much prefer one type of finish over another (i.e. natural or synthetic). So find out how the razor you get was honed and take note of it.


Now with all of that said I'll try address your question. Reasonable cost is very much dependent on how much you are willing to pay for your honing set up. Natural hones can go into the thousands depending on the stone (99% of naturals won't go that high) or can be gotten for below €50. Synthetics can be had for pennies but can go into hundreds.


Now if you want a cheap setup that's easy to use I would say go for the synthetics. Specifically go for lapping film from cablemonkey. If you get the 3um, 1um and 0.3um you are set for keeping the edge sharp (less than €7 without shipping). As they are plastic film they need to placed onto something perfectly smooth. A piece of float glass works perfectly and can be had fairly cheap. 0.3um can feel like a fairly harsh edge which some people just can't shave with, while others like it once you modify very slightly how you finish the last number of strokes. Some people find 1um to be perfectly fine to shave from. Personal preference pays a big part in honing.


That's quite a wall of text so I leave it there

skankles

That's a fairly comprehensive reply. Thanks.

hitemfrank

No worries. Here are 3 videoes that show a method of honing on lapping film. I'm hoping these links work as I'm on my phone so it's a bit awkward

http://youtu.be/dsp2u7L_WuY

http://youtu.be/Qec_QpMEX5c

http://youtu.be/Vbacxy8cn2g

It's pretty simple