Lansky Sharpeners

I am pretty new to straight shaving and don't have any hones to get into that aspect of things, but I do have a set of Lansky Sharpeners that I use on my pocket knives. The set I have has an extra coarse stone, a coarse stone, a medium stone, a fine stone, and an ultra fine stone. I ran these things over a razor I got at a local antiques store, and finished the razor up on the poor man's strop kit I got from Larry at whippeddog.com, I think the pastes on the balsa strop are .3 microns, and .1 microns. I haven't shaved with the razor yet, but it does easily pass the HHT, but I thought I would get the opinion of some of the guys on here before I actually put this thing on my face. Am I going to wreck my face with this thing or does my setup sound like it could have actually put a shavable edge on the blade?

Edit: here is a link to the kit that I have to give everyone an idea of what this Lansky kit is
http://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=LSLKCLX

And I did not put the razor in the clamp, I just ran the stone directly across the spine and the edge.

Well you will know pretty quickly once you shave with it. Personally I would be surprised if it worked properly as the stones are too narrow and would probably distort the thin razor edge. But stranger things have happened. Worth a try, I suppose.

The lansky ultra fine is only 1000 grit. I doubt that you have an edge you would want to shave with coming off the small hones that come with the lansky system.

superbleu said:

The lansky ultra fine is only 1000 grit. I doubt that you have an edge you would want to shave with coming off the small hones that come with the lansky system.

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I do see on the ultra fine stone that it does have a 1000 on it. This thing seems pretty smooth to me, and I have never actually handled an actual razor hone, so I wouldn't know what these things feel like, but how smooth are these hones? I feel like I'm not hardly doing anything to the edge with the ultra-fine stone, but your telling me the hones out there are significantly smoother than this?

(I'm not questioning you, I'm just kind of in disbelief that a stone could get that much smoother)

InvictusManeo said:

I do see on the ultra fine stone that it does have a 1000 on it. This thing seems pretty smooth to me, and I have never actually handled an actual razor hone, so I wouldn't know what these things feel like, but how smooth are these hones? I feel like I'm not hardly doing anything to the edge with the ultra-fine stone, but your telling me the hones out there are significantly smoother than this?

(I'm not questioning you, I'm just kind of in disbelief that a stone could get that much smoother)

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A 1000 grit stone is usually used just to set the bevel.

A typical hone progression for straights is:

1000, 3-5000, 8000, and then a finisher anywhere from 10-30000.

I use a chinese 12k for a touchup hone myself.

To get a comfortable shave you need to get to at least 8000 grit, even then there are folks that go up to 10K, 12K, 15K, 30K or even higher with some of the japanese natural stones.

An imperfect edge will pull skin and hair vs cutting it.

superbleu said:

To get a comfortable shave you need to get to at least 8000 grit, even then there are folks that go up to 10K, 12K, 15K, 30K or even higher with some of the japanese natural stones.

An imperfect edge will pull skin and hair vs cutting it.

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Well I went ahead and shaved with the razor against advisement. It did give me an extreamely close shave, but there was irritation. I did not feel any tugging or pulling, so I don't know if the irritation is due to a crappy edge, or if I was just not used to shaving with a razor this big. (I measured this razor at 15/16 vs the only other razor I have used which is about 11/16) I would be interested in feeling what one of these finer grit stones feels like. Are there any local places that would carry stones with this fine of a grit in stock that I would be able to handle? I've never been that big into knives or sharpening, so I don't know if these kind of shops exist on a local level.

I've only used a Lansky on a pocket knife.

While the 1K stone might give an acceptible short-term shave, long-term, it would start giving sub-par shaves.

InvictusManeo said:

Well I went ahead and shaved with the razor against advisement. It did give me an extreamely close shave, but there was irritation. I did not feel any tugging or pulling, so I don't know if the irritation is due to a crappy edge, or if I was just not used to shaving with a razor this big. (I measured this razor at 15/16 vs the only other razor I have used which is about 11/16) I would be interested in feeling what one of these finer grit stones feels like. Are there any local places that would carry stones with this fine of a grit in stock that I would be able to handle? I've never been that big into knives or sharpening, so I don't know if these kind of shops exist on a local level.

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Woodcraft should have at least the norton 8k. if you don't want to buy stones yet, you can try the lapping film there. doing a quick search looks like there is a woodcraft location in houston.

I googled some info, and according to one source the Lansky Ultra-Fine hone is 1000 grit US scale and 2000 grit Japanese or roughly 10 microns. That seems too coarse for finishing a razor, but if I tried it and it worked I wouldn't care who says what.

matt321 said:

I googled some info, and according to one source the Lansky Ultra-Fine hone is 1000 grit US scale and 2000 grit Japanese or roughly 10 microns. That seems too coarse for finishing a razor, but if I tried it and it worked I wouldn't care who says what.

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So you could do it if you jumped from there to your balsa strops. The transition from 10 micron to 0.3 micron would probably be pretty slow, but it's theoretically possible to get a nice edge with your setup.