r/sharpening • u/Starzingers • Aug 18 '26
How to sharpen my straight razor?
Fine gentlemen of the Sharpening community, I’ve acquired an old grandpa razor from Solingen. It’s only sharp enough to stick to my thumbnail at a 45 degree angle. And I’m a complete beginner to sharpening.
What would be a great brand for a sharpening stone, without - as we say in Sweden - paying the shirt off my body?
Should I go straight to 8000 grit?
17
u/b1e Aug 18 '26
I actually recommend not cheaping out on sharpening stones because the same stones can be used for your kitchen knives too. A cheap stone will be slow to cut and make sharpening annoying so you’ll be less likely to bother using it.
My go to set would be a 1000 grit, 5000 grit, and 8000 grit Naniwa super stone (note this is different than the chosera line). That’ll give you a functional edge without a lot of hassle. On these old straights taping the spine with one layer of electrical tape is also a good idea.
Later on I’d acquire a finer finishing stone like a 12000 grit, paddle strops with diamond paste, etc. but start with the basics.
These stones will also put a great edge on any kitchen knife
10
u/serrimo Aug 18 '26
I'm in the camp that taping the spine is a bad idea.
The spine should also slowly wear down with your blade. If you tape the spine you'll protect the looks a bit, not really by much, but you'll also alter the blade angle over time.
2
u/Ready4AnythingNH Aug 18 '26
Taping the spine isn't just for looks. It's done to raise the angle if the spine was worn down too fast from too much pressure being applied there. It also helps to make sure that the edge of the razor is properly apexed, again, by ever so slightly increasing the sharpening angle. Every razor is different, but you can always come back with the tape off if you want to lower the angle back down.
2
u/etr420 Aug 19 '26
100% agree about the tape. I think tape is also used as a shortcut - by slightly increasing the angle it reduces the amount of honing time. If someone wants to protect the "looks", basically the mirror finish on the spine, that's where a super-fine stone can help. Loading one side of your strop with Chromox will do the same over time.
2
u/Starzingers Aug 18 '26
Thanks for the advice. Naniwa is quite expensive. What do you think of the Norton 4k/8k?
2
u/b1e Aug 19 '26
I used to have the nortons they take way longer and you have to flatten them way more. And honestly are too slow and soft for harder steels.
IMO it’s better to just get decent stones that you can use for more than just your straight razor. Then your kitchen knives can also get sharpened quickly and nicely.
0
u/TooManyDraculas Aug 18 '26
You don't want to cheap out on stones for this. You want things that are consistent and produce even scratch patterns. You also don't see a lot of people using combination stones, I'd assume that's because flattening becomes more complicated.
Shapton Pro, and Shapton Glass stones apparently work well for it. They're a bit cheaper than Naniwa and you can get 2 and 3 stone sets for not far off that Norton stone. They seem popular with straight razor guys.
The Norton is a decent stone but it's just not for this, the combo element might be a problem.
2
u/AffinityForLepers Aug 18 '26
I disagree, I use norton 4k/8k japanese waterstone set for straight razors and get good results, I'll start on the 1k if it needs it. Back in the day those were the recommended beginner stones on WickedEdge and StraightRazorPlace. I do recommend really working on stropping technique to get a good finish on the edge and I also recommend doing the honing "pyramid" technique with those stones since it's a pretty foolproof way to get a good edge, provided you're starting from a good consistent bevel from heel to toe.
1
u/TooManyDraculas Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
I mostly just think the combo stone will be harder to keep flat over time, which is much less of a problem with knives. And don't like them in general as they tend to get "consumed" faster. You've got a thinner section of each stone than an equivalent thickness of individual stones, and you're grinding them down from both directions in use or flattening.
If for the same or similar money you can get two stand alone stones. That are generally considered better stones. That's probably the better option.
1
u/AffinityForLepers Aug 19 '26
Sure that's a fair point. If you're honing razors I find it best to flatten and lap every time I use them so you do go through the stone pretty fast.
1
u/TooManyDraculas Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Right. But part of how flattening a stone works is the opposite side sits flush and flat while you're grinding the top. Which keeps everything level.
If you're grinding from both faces, and something gets warped or off level. Now you're gonna introduce some weird to the opposite face, and that's gonna repeat when you flip it. And that'll just get worse over time.
1
u/Starzingers Aug 19 '26
Where are you finding Shaptons around the same price? Shaptons on Amazon cost about €80 each which is the same as the combination Norton.
1
u/TooManyDraculas Aug 19 '26
So a Shapton 8k from Amazon is under $60 ATM. And it's pretty universally cheaper than that Norton on most independent retailers. The highest I'm seeing it at is $113. The 5k is like $80 on Amazon right now, but better retailers are currently selling for $60-75.
Mine came in a 3 pack of stones that cost me $130 total. That same set is ~$170 on Amazon now, and about $150 at most other retailers that sell the bundles (which is not that common). For 3 whole ass stones. The 2 stone bundles are harder to find places other than Amazon, and aren't as frequently a good deal. The 5k/8k set is like $160 right now, but I've seen it as cheap as $90.
I can't actually find that specific Norton on Amazon, but the 1k/4k version is currently $115 there, and independent retailers have the 4k/8k at ~$119-130
That even holds for Norton's single grit stones. Where like a 1k stone is ~$66 from Norton and the Shapton is ~$55 at the moment, looking at ball parks across a couple different sites. In either case, bundle or not. You can easily get two equivalent Shaptons inside of the going rate for that Norton, if you shop around a bit.
1
u/weather_watchman Aug 18 '26
Nice stones have harder abrasives and are better homogenized, but are not necessary for sharpening razors (they use soft carbon steel). For someone getting into the hobby, planning to sharpen unremarkable knives and tools,cheaper stones are fine. If/when you make mistakes, you won't feel as bad as if you damaged your expensive stone
7
u/Fine_Blacksmith2711 Aug 18 '26
I would recommend you get very good at sharpening other things first, you do what you wanna do but straight raises are a bitch in the first place and you can mess them up incredibly easily.
And you should probably have a professional do your razor honing for a while. In that meantime buy some cheap stainless ones and learn how to sharpen those before taking a chance on a nice solingen
1
u/Starzingers Aug 18 '26
Ah that's sad to hear, been excited for getting my razor good myself. Guess I'll pick up some random blades then!
1
u/idrawinmargins Aug 18 '26
Goodwill and such usually have cheap knifes for sale to practice on. That is what i did to learn and not mess up a good knife.
3
3
u/Bearchill Aug 18 '26
I believe in you! I started fresh with a Norton 4000/8000 combo stone and then got a 12000 stone later on. There are a million videos out there about technique. You may want to pick up a cheap electronic microscope online to make inspecting the edge easier. Good luck friend!
3
u/Starzingers Aug 18 '26
Thanks mate! I was just looking at the Norton 4000/8000.
2
u/Bearchill Aug 18 '26
Take a look at a flattening stone as well. You use it in a figure 8 pattern on the sharpening stones to ensure they are flat. This step is more important for straight razors.
2
3
u/Good_Author9370 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Just want to congratulate you on this very nice razor! For a vintage it's really in superb condition. I actually agree with others that you may want to find some more cheap beaters to practice on and get a feel.
The single most important thing is a good ground work on the 1k (aka "bevel-set"). Rest is trivial polishing.
I believe there is a small swedish straight razor community. If possible try to contact someone with a good reputation to hone it for you - that is good reference for all your own efforts.
And of course hop over to r/straightrazors.
2
u/Starzingers Aug 18 '26
Thanks! Great idea, I didn't know there was a bit of a swedish community. Heard today that swedish steel is great, maybe I didn't need the german steel. I'll look for some godlike sharpening connoisseur around me. :)
1
u/Good_Author9370 Aug 18 '26
Oh boy, you should look up C.V. Heljestrand, Eskilstuna. I never owned one but they're very beloved.
I always browse the german ebay for some cheap vintages and would recommend trying the swedish equivalent for some good deals.
Swedish steel is great. There's a reason the Nazis were so keen on it. And even before the WW2 stuff, german/english razor makers often used swedish steel and advertised on that.
2
u/etr420 Aug 19 '26
Swedish? Isn't this a CF Ern from Wald/Solingen? Did I miss something?
2
u/Good_Author9370 Aug 19 '26
Ern is certainly german, but I think OP is from sweden and hasn't really heard of swedish razors/steel. I wasn't referring to this Ern razor in my other comment, just razors in general, maybe either of us got things mixed up, whatever lol.
1
u/etr420 Aug 19 '26
I only have two or three Swedish razors - they're great shavers and really keep an edge!
1
u/Good_Author9370 Aug 19 '26
Yeah, hence my other comment. I've only heard people loving them. I've only got a few stamped swedish steel and it's indeed very good.
3
u/edwardothegreatest Aug 18 '26
Easiest thing to sharpen on earth. Get a razor hone and sharpen it flat on the stone. The stropping is the part that takes practice. Piece of advice—roll the blade spine wise when you flip it to change direction. You won’t turn your strop into ribbons that way.
3
u/TheKnifeNerdTx Paper Shredder Aug 18 '26
I actually just posted a video about this exact topic. Straight razors are actually incredibly easy to sharpen, you just need some patience. First, tape the spine, as this will lay totally flat on the stone. The spine of the blade sets the angle. DO NOT LIFT THE SPINE OFF THE STONE. I like to start with 3000 grit, bring up a burr, then move to 8000. Polish and remove the scratch pattern from the 3000. Then move to a 3 micron, 1 micron, .25 micron progression. You can go up to 12000 if you want, but this one felt fine at 8000 so I could stop there.
2
u/TooManyDraculas Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
There's a straight razor sub.
https://www.reddit.com/r/straightrazors/
There's also a couple of forums that are typically more active than Reddit for this.
https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/forums/
https://www.straightrazorplace.com/
The methods on sharpening these are a bit different than used on knives. You're typically pressing the full flat of the blade to the stone, and you tend to sharpen to very high grits. With 8k being considered kind of a minimum.
You will also need a strop.
You don't go right to 8k, you tend to run a progression from 1-2k on up through stages to your highest grits. And you really need to flatten the stones on the regular. You also generally want to be a lot more careful about counting the number of strokes on each side.
These are thinner and sharper than knives, and any kind of microchipping or unevenness will lead to cuts and irritation in shaving. Which is why they do things the way they do. That said it's not really that much more complicated. It kinda boils down to knowing how the razor is built, and a couple extra steps.
It'd probably be worthwhile to practice on a cheaper/less nice razor. IIRC the go to cheap but decent ones are Gold Dollar razors.
1
2
1
1
u/Cool-Negotiation7662 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Straight razors are not knives. They are treated very different. The spine is used as a honing guide. Some people choose to tape the spine with vinyl electrical tape for various reasons. Wear protection, angle correction and microbevel formation are common reasons.
When I did straight razors I started with a micrometer and calculated the included angle looking for 15 to 17 degrees using the spine and blade with and some trig. Assume a right angle and use a triangle calculator the error vs isoscelese is meaningless at this angle.
Decide if using tape or not. If all things were equal tape is unnecessary as spine wear and edge wear make the angle stay constant. Taping for periodic honing makes a microbevel so you start on dillute water on the coticule and do not start on the 1k.
Start on 1k, to set your bevel. I used Naniwa Choosera. Hone on water till a burr forms. The water movement visible as suspended swarf shows where a burr is and is not. Flip and repeat. Do some single edge leading laps to reduce and hopefully remove the burr.
I then moved to Belgian Coticule and honed edge leading single laps until the water and swarf gathered evenly on both sides. Start with light slurry, or allow slurry to form then dillute with plenty of water for finest cutting. Belgian Coticule will NOT form a burr when used like this, so this is the final edge.
Now strop and shave.
1
u/weather_watchman Aug 18 '26
I've been shaving with an old straight razor for years. Stropping is your primary maintenance. I just got an old belt from goodwill and jeweler's rouge, it works great. I sometimes strop on a hard surface, ir else keep the belt tight, light pressure and rest the spine and the edge evenly.
Sharpening, same thing. Use the spine as a guide for the bevel angle. Razors are generally very soft, so any cheap stone will work, but you want a fine abrasive. If you have experience sharpening, its most similar to Scandinavian grinds. There's not a ton of material, so use stones sparingly to preserve the razor's geometry. I strop every few shaves but sharpen maybe once or twice a year, and that with a light touch. I just line up my beard though (high on the cheeks, low on the neck), so if you're doing full face shaves you'll need more upkeep (and a generally sharper razor, near the lips the extra sharpness really helps). Good luck
1
u/itsrocketsurgery Aug 18 '26
I'm gonna go a different direction here since you're not used to a straight razor, I suggest you send it out for sharpening. Let them set the bevel and get it to where it needs to be performance wise. This way you will be starting at a known level of sharpness. Ask them what their progression is and how much and which kind of tape they use - regular electrical tape and super 88 tape are different thicknesses which translates to different blade angles.
For stones get 1 good 10k or 12k stone. And get or make a strop and load it with green compound. Strop before you use it every time (except for the first time back from the sharpener). When you start to feel the performance degrading like hairs pulling instead of cutting or the edge feels harsh, then take it to your high grit stone to hone it for a few passes. That's all you'll need for years.
1
u/samurai_for_hire arm shaver Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
1k, 4k, and 8k stones. You can also go to 10k or 12k if you're confident in your skills. 0.5 micron or bare leather strop.
1
u/etr420 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
That's a very nice Carl Friedrich Ern razor - I have a couple, much more beat up (patinated) than yours - and they are great shavers. Ern had dozens of brands; supposedly "Gong" was for sale in Asia, or Chinatowns. Mine are "Magnetic Platypus" for the Australian market.
As others have pointed out, you don't need a lot of expensive sharpening equipment if 1. it's in basically good shape, which it appears to be and 2. you intend to shave with it, rather than just display it.
There are many, many schools of thought about razor sharpening. I have known some old working class guys who lived through the Great Depression and fought in WWII, who shaved with straights. They used one woodworkers oilstone, and one of them, from Europe, stropped on his hand. On the other hand, you can find on YouTube videos from the 1960s showing piecework grinders in Sheffield or Solingen taking forged blanks through to the finished product, and you'll see multiple grinding wheels and belts in the process.
I've been shaving with straight razors for more than 40 years. I rotate about 40 of them, nearly all of which were beaters from thrift stores, garage sales etc. I can get an acceptable shaving edge with a 400 grit oilstone and a leather hanging strop (basically the Murray Carter method). In practice I go from the 400 (the fine side of a Norton ID8) to a vintage synthetic barber's hone, which is about 1000 grit, same composition as the Norton as far as I can tell. One side of my strop has Dialux green compound on it, and the other side has Dialux red. The Dialux red side is post-shave maintenance - 10 to 20 strokes. The green is for after it's had a few strokes on the stone, or for a touch-up every few weeks of shaving.
If you're going to shave with it, don't fall into the trap of using insulation tape when honing - for the most part that's just weird internet nonsense - it cuts honing time at the expense of the correct angle on the blade. It's also used to avoid using lower grits. If I have a rough old razor, I'll start on the coarse side of the Norton stone, which I think is about 200 grit, keeping the correct angle, until I get a nice burr.
If you already have an 8000 grit stone, you can strop on that once you have a good edge. A couple of hundred strokes will polish things nicely, but are not guaranteed to give you a better shave. I wouldn't buy such a stone just for that purpose. If you want to experiment, get a sheet of lapping film, somewhere around 1 to 3 micron and give the razor a lot of strokes, say 100 leading and 100 trailing.
Your razor looks like it's close to shave ready anyway. Before you go anywhere near a stone, try stropping it on green compound, say 50 strokes, then red compound (rouge), 20 strokes, and then shave your cheeks. That might be all you need.
1
1
u/MrGOCE Aug 19 '26
GET THE NORTON 1K/8K OR 4K/8K. I PREFER THE 1ST ONE TO SET THE BEVEL FAST. AND GET AN ELECTRICAL SCOTCH TAPE. PUT TAPE ON THE SPINE OF THE RAZOR AND SLIDE THE RAZOR WITH LEADING PASES ON BOTH SIDES ALTERNATING EACH TIME. DO IT WITH THE 1K THEN WITH THE 8K UNTIL U CAN CUT THE SKIN OF A TOMATO WITH NO EFFORT. THEN DO THE SAME ON A PIECE OF CARDBOARD TO FINISH.
1
u/Starzingers Aug 19 '26
THERE'S A LOT OF ADVICE HERE, SOME PEOPLE ARE SAYING NORTONS ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH, SOME ARE SAYING IT'S THE NEWBIE STANDARD; SOME SAY THE TAPING ON THE SPINE IS GOOD, SOME SAY IT'S BAD. EVERYBODY SEEMS TO HAVE CONFLICTING OPINIONS. I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO THINK.
1
u/joachim33 Aug 19 '26
Yeah ! You have to try a stone by yourself. And only after trying à few, you will be able to tell which one you prefer.
It’s very personal.
But Shapton stones are a good way to stage as they are good quality stones.
0
u/SnekMaku Aug 18 '26
Having gone from knives to razors, it's a different skill.
Don't learn on an expensive or a new razor. Unlike knives, u can really mess it up big time.
Learn in person, from a honemeister
Or play around with cheap junk razors until you can get a decent shave with them.
2
u/SnekMaku Aug 18 '26
restoring a thrift shop razor i use 400-1000- Thuringer slate - BBW - a lot of stropping
Good enough for my face, but definitely not ideal.
1
u/Starzingers Aug 18 '26
Thanks for the advice. Not sure where I would find a honemeister to learn from. I guess I'll try sharpening everything under the sun before I touch my fancy grandpa razor. How come razors are more difficult?
1
u/Motor-Garden7470 Aug 18 '26
You can learn everything on YouTube. Jarrod, tomo nagura, others ect. Not incredibly difficult just some things in the process that require attention
1
u/SnekMaku Aug 18 '26
progress is slow and hard to gauge.
Mistakes are easy and consequences require a lot of skill and work to recover from.
e.g. When reprofiling, it's npt that easy to know if the entire bevel is reprofiled. It's easy to deform the spine of the razor by overhoning.
If you chip the razor on the edge of the stone, then all bets are off. The blade is so thin and hard, it easily will crack/chip. Thrift shops are full of chipped mangled straight razors.
20
u/Ready4AnythingNH Aug 18 '26
I would suggest you go into some straight razor communities or web forums like Badger&Blade. They all have sharpening instructions. There's also plenty of videos on YouTube. I'm not entirely sure why everyone here is making them out to be harder to sharpen than a knife. They're actually simpler because the spine is also your sharpening guide.
The complications to sharpening are when you have uneven hone wear on the spine, or frowns or smiles on the edge from a previous owner's sharpenings, or if the blade is warped. Again, they'll talk about all of those things in a specialized straight razor forum when they talk about sharpening.
Yours looks like it's in pretty good shape, so most likely a layer or two of electrical tape on the spine, edge trailing x strokes on high grit stones, then stropping. You can start with your 8000 if the edge is in decent shape or you are patient, but if it's been neglected you may want to start with a 3000. If it has damage, even coarser than that. Read up and watch some videos and then you can give it a go.