Barbers Hones Reviews and comparisons.

Recently I bought 4 and was gifted a fifth lot of vintage razor hones from a collection that was being sold off on eBay. I'm not much for synthetic barber hones myself, but I am curious, and I wanted to see how many of these were what I'd consider useable these days; as well as just get some info out there comparing them against one another.

Several hones I could have tested are missing. Firstly, all the DE/SE mini hones. I considered getting my hands on a vintage blade and testing them for that purpose, but decided it was too much time for something I cared too little about. Odds are, in the end, it would have been worse than shaving off a modern blade, and almost every hone would prove virtually the same. I saved myself 20+ horrible shaves and writing a catch all review saying that they varied from horrible to a bit worse than a good swaty. Also missing, are a bunch of swaty's. I picked the finest one and used it. In general I've found that the Import (SRD/Pike/AHC/etc) ones are faster and coarser than the geniune Austria ones.
Furthermore:
Several hones were skipped because they were clearly coarser than I'm comfortable shaving off, or just didn't strike me as worth wasting the shave for various reasons.

Frictionite, Norton are missing: They work fine. They're no better than most of what I do test and aren't worth a small fraction of their current cost. I've used them before, was not impressed, and am not buying them again for the purposes of this review.
Those long skinny dry razor hones. I sold them all before starting the reviews. They're decent. They work better on water than dry. A viable alternative to a swaty.

I'll be adding in reviews as I am able to, shaving daily with a break here and there for a real shave off a finish I like. Of the 50+ hones I picked up, I'll be reviewing about twenty, mostly ones that I see commonly, that I see very rarely, that I am just plain curious about, or that impressed me by how they felt to the touch or under a razor.

Rankings will be pretty cut and dry. 1-10 on how much the razor struggles (10 being no struggling at all), 1-10 based on a combination of how much aftershave burn there is and how my face feels after the shave, and a numberical value of the number of hours I consider myself "shaved" after the shave... keeping in mind that a good Thuri or Jnat edge shave lasts me well over 24 hours. I may make additional brief comments here or there about the nature of the hones, personal impressions of the shave, or whatever. But for the most part, it's going to be a picture of the stone, a picture of the edge, and these rankings.

Most of the hones that most interest me are being saved for last; because I like the suspense.

Why not start with a bad one. This stone was so interesting, I wanted it to perform well. I really did. It's crazy soft and very insistent that you better use it as it demands or you're a jerk.

Shave ease: 4/10
After-shave feel: 3/10
Hours of shave: 12

In case you can't tell... those are all very bad. Interestingly, the edge looks ok. Seems the hone is fairly good quality, just not nearly fine enough for its purpose.

Oh my - another barber hone expose'....

I like the Victory hone - is the other thing a giant Valium?

The big Valium leaves very mellow edges.
Slight detour-I saw a swaty hone finish strop at a flea market yesterday. It was a thick woven waxy material. Never seen one before.

Lol, I think the "other thing" is the companion rubbing stone.

Yes, the stone cautions you against using water. The other hone is to clean off swarf. It works quite well, since the honing stone is very soft.

I dont see the value in these, I never used one and have no desire to. Travel hone maybe? But with 50 hones I could find plenty of touchup stones, some fast some slow. How good can a synthetic stone be? and 6 to 10k is not something I would find enticing. No disrespect to the op or other posters here.

Some barber hones, like the Lakeside, Premier, etc. are more like 12-15k. For a quick, 5-6 stroke solution at a good price I think they're cool to have around. They also have cool artwork which enhances their value to me.

buca3152 said:

I dont see the value in these, I never used one and have no desire to. Travel hone maybe? But with 50 hones I could find plenty of touchup stones, some fast some slow. How good can a synthetic stone be? and 6 to 10k is not something I would find enticing. No disrespect to the op or other posters here.

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Like I've said, I'm not a big fan of barbers synths but I've found a few standout hones already. I think of these stones Mostly as collector's pieces , but finding a few that work well as a bonus is interesting.

Barber hones are, most of the time, fun first, and users second. And that's on a good day.
I like the the Frictionite 00, I can eek out a real keen edge on it pretty easily. Not bad for a 5k-ish stone eh?
Swaty's - also fun. Same for Pike Swatys and the Ez Edge Pike too. There are others.
I like mine the best so far though. But - that's a verboten topic.

To go from one extreme to the other. The best one I've encountered so far with my testing (about half way through);
The Carborundum Co. Aloxite.

Shave ease: 7/10
After-shave feel: 8/10
Hours of shave: 18
Though at a glance, I'd take it for a Swaty copy, I'd assume by the name it's alox based, rather than a mix (which Swaty's are). What impressed me was the feel in the shave, didn't feel like a barbers touch up hone edge. It felt like an edge off a modern synthetic. Very even and consistent edge. The razor didn't feel like it had the flaws barbers hones usually leave razors feeling of. Unusually good for a barber synth. And the feedback was right up there with some of the best barber's synth's I've used. You can almost visualize the edge under abrasion from the feel, which is a nice part of these extremely aggressive hones. Of course the shave duration exposes that the grit still isn't quite up to par with what is available today... for its day and for its speed it has really impressed me. Thus far, I'd consider this the "coticule" of barbers synthetics. The dark spots on the scope image are oil residue from the strop.

Gamma said:

...
I like mine the best so far though. But - that's a verboten topic.

Click to expand...

Did someone try your method and catch something on fire? Or were there concerns it would become a commercial enterprise?

(is it so verboten that i need to delete this post?)

Delete the post? You'd better leave town, and quick!

So why exactly is the subject of "yours" taboo Gamma?

We all know ;-) Eric you should know ;-)

Bit of a divergence for today. Next review tomorrow.
100x instead of 400x, same razor, same region.

Who wants to tell me, based on scratch pattern; which of these two hones is finer?

I'd guess the right.

Thanks, everyone can feel free to guess. I'll reveal the answer tomorrow as well. And so no one wastes their guess, no, they aren't the same.

I do have a certain logic to this guess even though the right side seems to be snowing a more ragged result.

Very cool idea, I would say you are taking one for the team.

How are you "sterilizing" the edge after each barber's hone?

At one point I was testing a bunch of JNATs and used film to wipe out the previous stone's finish.

The right one does seem to look more uniform and finer in scratch pattern, even though the edge looks more ragged for sure. It would appear that the reflected light, hence edge thickness also is less on the right.