How many shaves do you get out of your straight?

How many shaves do you get out of your straight razor before you strop or hone the edge? What is your process before you use a 1200 grit to finish?

I strop before every shave, no exceptions. I enjoy honing so I go back to the stones every 8-10 shaves for a quick touch up, but you can go much longer than that.
I think you meant to say 12,000 grit, not 1200.

Over a 100 easily


Ho inventato le fettuccine Alfredo

when you hone, do you hone in an angle or do you hone straight? and yah, fast fingers make mistakes when your attention is on other things.

I typically hone with slight heel forward strokes.

I strop before and after every shave.
As for honing, I have too many razors to know how many shaves it will take to run out the edge.

Rotate often and never counted #shaves before honing. I'm on the 3rd week of using the current razor and it's doing just fine. I strop after every shave with linen and leather, and before with leather.

I have a rotation of many razors so usually after 3 or 4 shaves, but that's at least a month or 2, I'll go back to the for just a couple strokes on the 15k and or crox. I always strop before on roo and after i on latigo enough to make sure it's put away clean. Shaving with one razor every day not sure prob crox once a week. Letting them sit longer means a few strokes to polish it up but always 1 micron or less, I like honing so that might just be me

I strop before and after every shave. Sometimes I refresh the edge on balsa with FerrOx and CrOx on the other side. I've actually needed to go back and refresh a straight on the stones once or twice, but never a Swedish razor. I've got a very large rotation.

I strop at the beginning of every shave. 20 laps on linen, 30-40 on leather, and I made it almost 12 weeks before I felt the need to sharpen/touch up the blade again using a balsa wood strop (impregnated with 0.1 & 0.3 micron abrasives) from Whipped Dog. Followed Larry's instructions and my razor feels as good as when I got it professionally honed. Since this was my first go, I'm hoping I'll get an even longer run before breaking out the balsa again as I work on improving my stropping technique. At some point, I expect that the abrasives in the balsa will not be enough to bring back the edge, and I'll have to actually hone the blade with a stone...

Dcaddo111 said:

I strop before every shave, no exceptions. I enjoy honing so I go back to the stones every 8-10 shaves for a quick touch up, but you can go much longer than that.
I think you meant to say 12,000 grit, not 1200.

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I'm the same. Strop every time. Hone on a slow Coti about twenty or thirty laps every tenth shave. Or so.

I used to use Crox on balsa for that, but have decided I prefer the feel off the stone, so I do that.

I always strop before & after every shave. I rarely hone my razors because they need it. It is usually more like "that was a great shave.....but I wonder if a few laps on the Jnat, or Thuri, or Trans Ark, or Guacamole 20, or Coti, or Balsa would make it better?" Always chasing the perfect edge. LOL

Here is an idea... ever take one of them 10x jewelers eye piece and look at your edge?

Jonesc said:

Here is an idea... ever take one of them 10x jewelers eye piece and look at your edge?

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Yes, on a daily basis. They work very well.

alpster said:

I always strop before & after every shave. I rarely hone my razors because they need it. It is usually more like "that was a great shave.....but I wonder if a few laps on the Jnat, or Thuri, or Trans Ark, or Guacamole 20, or Coti, or Balsa would make it better?" Always chasing the perfect edge. LOL

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Jnat to thuri, thuri to trans, trans to Guac, Guac to coti, coti to balsa. Sounds like a great progression to me Ronnie!

Okay, so I just bought a puma 222. Excited to get it in the mail but no tracking # yet. I do have a few questions.
Any suggestions on who I can send it off to get shave ready and how much?
any suggestions on where I can get stones and what grits should I use?
strop suggestions for a fair price?

For my first straight i did have to refresh it whit after my 3 shave cause i rounded my edge before i get use to strop. But after that 100 or more for some of my other straights, i do strop before and after my shave. I do 30 on Leather before The shave, 30 on The Canvas strop after The shave and about 60 to 80 on Leather. It's been more then a year and a half that i started to straight shaving and only 3 of my Straights had been refresh on The hone my others are still going whit a perfect edge so far.

There are many B&B members who can hone for you. I only have experience with Alfredo aka Doc226, outstanding edges sharp and super comfortable. The prices are on his site: http://www.doc226.com/Doc226/Home.html

Visit the hones and honing sub forum and read the stickies at the top, they should answer most of your questions far better than I could.
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/forumdisplay.php/80-Hones-Honing

Good Luck!

I never have to re-hone my razors after I got them right. I strop on pasted balsa after every shave, and strop on hanging leather before every shave, and I am never disappointed. Find my pasted balsa thread for how its done. Just guessing how to do it probably wont hurt but it probably wont help much either. Most guys do it all wrong so they still have to revisit their hones occasionally.

But since honing is actually kinda fun, I guess it doesn't really make much difference.

Without the pasted balsa I can generally go around 30 shaves. I could actually go more, but at about 30 I start needing two or even three passes and my usual shave is a single pass. With the balsa I can go forever.

Stropping is totally mandatory, here. I can shave a second time without stropping but definitely not a third time. A razor should be stropped for every shave. You will notice the difference if you don't.

Im receiving some really awesome answers on here. Thank You. And thank you for the reference. I like to hear back from people who has great experiences with others. Ill look into getting a strop. I can only do things one at a time. Depending upon if the razor comes to me shave ready, I need to pick up a few other items. Don't judge, but the first straight I have ever shaved with was one from Sally's beauty supply for 10 dollars that had a "removable razor blade" you break in half and insert. P.O.S.... horrible shaves. It was as if Wolverine used my face as a scratching post.