[rowboy85]

I'm planning to start straight razor shaving soon. I've been looking for good hones and stropes. One in particular seemed like it could work well, but i dont know. I was looking at the handamerican knife honing kit. JapaneseKnifeSharpening.com

Would the honing pad achieve a razor edge? And would the felt deburring pad work for a strop?
Last question, would the chromium oxide stuff be good for a strop (the felt pad or a hanging leather strop???

and thx for all the help ahead of time.

[xman]

I'm not familiar with this product, but Handamerican gets great reviews by those who do and for keeping a blade in decent shape for a few or more months, I suspect it would work very well indeed. Eventually you would need to bring it to a stone. The question I have is, why pay so much? Chromium Oxide can be had for a better price at Classic Shaving and just about any leather will do. A glass plate or even a counter top would work as a flat surface rather than the plate. You could even splurge and get yourself a 2 or 4 sided paddle strop from Tony Miller over at The Well Shaved Gentleman and you'd be able to get more paste options.

As far as the stones go. If you wanted to learn how to hone your own razor, most of us use the Norton 4,000/8,000 grit waterstone and would be able to advise you quite well indeed on developing that skill. Some guys, yours truly included, like a little more zing than the 8k provides and will go to an ultra fine finishing product like the Chromium Oxide or a superfine stone.

What are you thinking for a blade? There are great deals to be had in the classifieds here.

X

PS I don't think the deburring thing would work well with a razor.

[dward]

Rowboy, it's great you are interested. Welcome aboard. You join a seemingly ever growing list of newbies who have taken the plunge. I commend your thoughts on honing. May I recommend an alternate course of action? The first razor you purchase should be one that is truly shave ready. Some vendors sell them pre-sharpened. The classifieds ads on this site are another source (and one that is friendlier on the wallet as an inital investment) that sells razors that are shave ready (there is a box in the ad that will indicate if the razor is shave ready). You will be getting a good razor that is ready to shave with. It's not that I am trying to discourage you from honing. Far from it. Get one or two razors from ebay or a local flea market to develop your honing skills. The shave ready razor you purchase will provide a baseline to compare your honings skills against. This will help ease some of the potential frustration at not being able to shave with an expensive razor that you haven't quite got the right edge developed.

[rowboy85]

I've got a cheap $6 straight coming in to practice honing and stroping. Haven't got a shave ready yet, but didn't want to practice on a shave ready. Just lookin for good options for hones and strops. The best knife sharpener i've ever used is a wooden plank with ceramic bars coming out at about a 35 degree angle, gives good control over blade and works nice, but i dont know if somethin like that would work for a razor. i'll check out the 4000/8000 stone. Also the cheap straight ive got coming for practice is 440 stainless steel. Is that even good for a razor??? Haven't found much info on the difference between steel types.

[Navaja]

For around $10 + shipping you can get on Ebay a Double Arrow razor that could serve both purposes, learn how to hone and shave with it. They are chineese razors that hold the edge pretty well.

[Lynn]

I use HandAmerican's flatbed hones with both leather and the felt. The felt is very nice with either Diamond spray or chromium oxide. We will be seeing a felt hanging strop in the near future. These can be used for touch ups for the most part or for fine tuning after coming off the stones.

Welcome and have fun,

Lynn

[gssixgun]

I have recommended this a a starter setup so many times I made a thread out of it...
A inexpensive hone setup for Restorations