The Basic Process:

1. Make sure your razor is quality steel and made well.
2. Sharpen your razor on a 1,000 grit stone to establish the “bevel” of the straight razor.
3. Polish this bevel with higher grit stones in a progression. I.e. 2,000 then 4,000, then 8,000.
4. Polish with your “finishing stone.” Usually a 10-16,000 grit stone.
5. Strop
6. Test by shaving

Making Sure your Razor was Crafted to shave.

Every razor on this website is sold with the primary goal of everyday shaving.

Not all websites do this, and I often get razors in my shop for honing from customer who have bought from amazon or ebay, or a random website and it breaks my heart to tell them it can’t shave because of the steel or the poor craftsmanship.

I don’t want to spend much time in this section, but here are general guidelines on what razors can and can not be made to shave:

Good razors that can be confidently honed for shaving:

• Modern Production Straight Razor Brands: Dovo, Theirs Issard, Boker.
• Antique razors that do not have rust or damage (chips, cracks)

Razors to Avoid:

• Razors made in China, India and Pakistan
• Damascus razors that cost below $200
• Antique razors with rust, chips and cracks.

I don’t like saying anything negative – ever. But I do want to help you avoid razors that are not meant for shaving. Over the years I’ve received dozen of blades in the mail for honing, where the customer thought they were buying a razor that can be made to shave, but it couldn’t. It breaks my heart to tell them that the $200 damascus razor with fancy handles isn’t made for shaving, but a letter opener at best.

The general problems of razors in this category include: poor steel, not hand ground resulting in uneven hollows and edges, poor overall geometry.

My best tip: if the website doesn’t say where the straight razor is made, don’t buy it. This often means they bought it for less than $10 from china, and at best, they are showpieces, like mall swords made from cheap steel.

For antiques, if the razor has rust on or chips or cracks – avoid. Antique razors can shave great as long as they are in great condition. But, if they have defects, you can get into trouble. Honing a razor for shaving with a crack can be dangerous, and removing chips is often a bigger task than you imagine. Someday I’ll write an article on restoring razor, so stay tuned, and if you get an antique razor, make sure it’s kinda sharp, free of rust on the shaving edge, with no cracks or chips.

Honing Equipment for Maintaining an Edge – Essentials

This is the list that every straight razor user who wants to hone should have. Regardless if you’re touching up a razor that already sharp, or are a professional honing rare antiques found in a thrift shop – this is what you need.

• You must have a professionally honed razor at your side. This is so you can compare the sharpness of the razor you’re working on, with the sharpness of a razor that is shave ready. This will decrease your learning curve considerably, because you have a sharpness goal you can see, feel and understand.
• DMT flattening stone. Your hones don’t ship flat, and you must even them out to ensure a smooth edge. Flattening before every use is a good idea. If you don’t want to buy the DMT, use 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper and atop piece of marble/glass. In addition, you need to remove dull abrasive from the top of the stone occasionally (this is called “dressing” your stone)
• Niawa 12K. This is so you can ensure a nice final polishing of your razor. Other “finisher” stones exist, so see bottom notes for more information.
• A jewelers loop. To see what happens to the blade as you hone, polish, stop and shave. I feel watching the scratch patterns of a straight razor bevel change is a critical educational step in straight razor bevel maintenance.
• Chromium Oxide on a strop for final polish.

Honing Supplies for Restoring a Few Straights

If you end up honing a few razors from antique stores or ebay, it’s good to have a stone dedicated to bevel setting. This stage is 80% of the full razor sharpening process, so it pays to have quality gear at this level.

• King 1000k hone. This stone is for “bevel setting” on a budget (beware, it’s a slow cutter). For an alternative, check out the higher end Chosera (now called Naniwa Professional Stones).
• Norton 4k/8k hone. A popular choice for general honing beyond the set bevel. So, use this after your sharpness and geometry is set, and polish the bevel you created with the finer abrasives found in this stone. It can set a bevel if you don’t want to buy a 1K stone, but it’s very laborious and only practically successful on a thin German hollow ground razors (this stone is inadequate for any other types).

How to Hone a Straight Razor – Start to finish

This section shows you the process of honing your razor from start to finish.

Overview:

• Prepare razor and hones
• Set the bevel (establish the sharp edge shape)
• Polish the bevel (polish the shape you created earlier)
• True the bevel (strop the bevel to make sure the edge is very uniform)

First, you need to flatten your stone when it’s fresh from the factory, making sure you’ve removed the top 1/64th” or so of stone material to reach the true grits (the top is a bit rough on Nortons especially). Make sure your stone is perfectly flat. Use the DMT or the sandpaper I described above for this. It will also create a “slurry” of abrasive, and remove dull abrasive that is atop the stone from your last honing session.

Next, clean your SR in soap/warm water. Dry it, and put a piece of electrical tape along the spine and fold it over (like a book binding) if you’d like to preserve the spine and avoid wear.

Deburr

Controversial technique, and included because I personally do this on some razors, but not all. If a razor has a “wire edge” (a small thin foil of steel that hangs off the edge of the razor, often as a sign of over honing) I use this technique. To do this, I gently drag the shaving edge against my thumbnail for a bevel set only. If you’re on a stone beyond 8K, I would not recommend this to starting honers – you can spoil the edge, requiring jumping down to a lower grit.

Burs can cause issues, and may make for a rough feeling edge. I’ve found that this is a good way to remove them.

It may be unnecessary for some/most blades, but it’s part of my bevel setting routine throughout the various stone progressions, and by doing this, I’ve notice good things and increased consistency when I hone.

Setting the bevel:

While all steps are important, this step is foundational. Place your razor on your bevel setting stone, keeping the razor spine and edge completely flat on the surface together. Do tiny circle strokes (circular motion down the hone) so you do about 30-40 tiny circles as you move own the bottom hone. Repeat on the other side of the razor, moving up the hone in the opposite direction (and counter-wise circle direction). This is a set. Feel free to use a bit of pressure at this stage, as you’re going to be removing more material here than any other stage.

Repeat doing these sets until you can shave hair on your arm or leg by very slowly grazing over the tops of the hair – it should catch and cut with a bit of a tug.

It could take many of these sets to get your razor sharp enough to tug arm hair. If you get impatient and move up a grit (say, 1K to 4K) you’ll be wasting time. Your razor must be sharp enough to shave arm hair at this stage before moving to a new stone. 

To help you understand how long this can take: with an old blade from sheffield, you’ll be doing this for over an hour, and sometimes a thin hollow grind German blade will take just as long.

Once you can shave hair on your arm or leg all along the bevel (toe to heel) with uniform sharpness and cutting, you may be set. Do another 10 or so x-strokes, very lightly, very perfectly as a final sharpening for your bevel. See if this helps your edge.

Once you’re happy with your bevel, strop it and shave. If it’s painful, it’s likely your bevel isn’t set. If it’s decent, you’re ready to move on.

Polishing the bevel

At this stage we are very gently “refining” the edge that we set in the previous stage. The sharpness has been establish at a lower grit, and we are using much finer grit stones to polish this. If the razor does not have a “set bevel” it will not get sharp with the stones used in this stage.

After your 1K stone, move up to your next grit, like the 4K. Do another round of circle strokes as described in the last section. Follow this by 35 x strokes.

Clean your razor in water to remove any grit and slurry from the previous stage.

Move up from your 4K, to another stone, like the 8k. Repeat the procedure.

Again, clean your razor, and move to your final stone if you have it (usually a 12k). Repeat.

Tip: Always check for sharpness along the edge by trimming a bit of arm hair. You’ll learn a lot from an edge by doing this.

After all this, you should be done with the stones, and ready for stropping. The edge geometry has been established in the bevel set, and you’ve poslished this geometry with finer and finer stones.

Truing the edge (stropping):

Some prefer chromium oxide (crox) on the strop before using a strop that has no abrasive. If you want a bit more “bite” to your razor, use a crox loaded strop for about 30 passes (back and forth is one pass). After this clean the blade, and move to a stropping leather that does not have any abrasive.

After a honing, I usually perform 150-200 passes on leather – all spine leading, done very lightly.

The Shave

After all this, you should have a great edge. Give it a test shave and compare it to your pro honed blade.

While honing, you’ll likely get frustrated, but keep at it! If you’re getting aggressive with the razor, just give it a break, and come back later. If the shave is no good, post back here and we’ll help you diagnose.

Some thoughts:

I tried to present information that’s very searchable. StraightRazorPlace.com and Badgerandblade.com, reddit’s Wicked edge and Wet Shavers (among others I need to stop by and say hello on!) have archived many of the ideas that I just presented. I highly recommend researching on your own and reaching a personal conclusion. What follows are my personal opinions.

This equipment I suggest is not necessarily the best, nor is it bad at all. It’s great way to get started and find out what you like in a stone/routine. Some ideas to consider if you upgrade your set:

• Try a natural stone for a finisher. I use a vintage Thuringian hone called an Barber’s Delight Escher .
• Upgrade your progression by adding various in-between grits. I really like going from a Chosera 1K, to Shapton Pro (not glass version) 2K, 5K, 8K, 15K, then finish.
• Try finishing a blade with a pasted strop, and try without. Some love one over the other.

I highly recommend honing your razor as sharp as possible on one stone, strop as I’ve outlined, and give it a shave. For example, sharpen as much as you can at the 4K stage, and strop it 200 times. If it shaves ok, you’re on the right track. If not, you’ve got more work to do at that level of stone. You’ll be amazed that such a low grit can shave so well. If it’s painful to shave after your lowest stone…. you’re not done, and moving up the stones will not benefit your edge. Repeating this process of shaving up all the stone grits (4K, 8K, 12K) will help you get a feel for what honing at the different levels provide. Shaving off my 1K bevel provided me the biggest leap in edge quality while learning.

Don’t limit your techniques. Once you can confidently bring a restored razor to shave with consistency, I’d recommend playing around and experimenting. Though this, I’ve developed some strokes that are critical to my routine, and used effectively with every blade I sharpen.

Be sure that you’re honing the shaving edge from heel to tip. Straight razors come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, some being a perfect fit on a flat surface, others need a bit of creativity on the stroke… regardless, watch your sharpness develop along the entire edge, as it’s not uniform. Areas will require more time than others, and don’t be afraid to briefly hone one area for a bit to remove material and get it in line with the rest of the blade (heels can be a big pain).

Above all, experience is key. You’ll never know how to do it right until you fail. And you’ll never fail until you’ve tried. We’re just here to give you a few tips to make the road less bumpy.