Stainless Steel Hone Type 15s incoming!

[Estariol]

Although i usually don't comment about razors i can't afford (but do highly appreciate their existance), i simply can't stay silent about the Hone. @Hone , your razors are , subjectively speaking, the pinnacle of minimalistic design. When speaking of cars, airplanes, knives, swords, mostly everything i like the most is curvy (no pun intended), and Hone razors are no exception. Especially since i never thought a safety razor could have that much harmony in it's outlook, and lines uninterrupted by corners and sharp edges in it's design.
Keep it up, i wish you great succes in your work!

 

[Hone]

With the good news on things moving forward, combined with the fact that I had been shaving exclusively with a shavette for the last month, I really had a hankering to shave with my Hone 15t, so popped in a new blade and have been using it for my last three shaves.

I definitely need to downsize my collection of DE razors, but I cannot see myself ever parting with the Hone. Of course it shaves well, but the key is that it shaves so uniquely versus any other razor I own. So if I ever want a different shave experience, I know exactly which razor to reach for. With most of my razors I tend to angle towards the safety bar, but in the case of the Hone, the right angle is very much oriented towards the cap to the extent that in my head it feels like it should be cutting nothing, yet cuts closely with no blade feel. (Blade feel does come into play if I angle too much towards the bar).

There is this really cool, high pitched scything sound as I shave -- more pronounced when shaving without shaving soap and just water, more often when buffing. Not sure if that happens with the bronze or stainless, but it makes me think of this invisible samurai just swinging his katana and slicing my stubble.

As I said, fun shaving experience that never gets old. Razor is well balanced and is not heavy at but has a decent heft ... more tangible weight as compared with my Blackbird Ti.

Thank you @Zhang Doe

 

[Morpheus]

Thanks @LeeMaz It's important to hold on to them at least until I have the full batch as a reference point. I would expect to have some very small final things to fix on these or that might not be up to scratch, so I don't think I would sell them. But if they are functionally up to standard then I would be ok looking at some other way of them being used, or gifted in some way.

Maybe offer one up in the pass around?

 

[Hone]

Although i usually don't comment about razors i can't afford (but do highly appreciate their existance), i simply can't stay silent about the Hone. @Hone , your razors are , subjectively speaking, the pinnacle of minimalistic design. When speaking of cars, airplanes, knives, swords, mostly everything i like the most is curvy (no pun intended), and Hone razors are no exception. Especially since i never thought a safety razor could have that much harmony in it's outlook, and lines uninterrupted by corners and sharp edges in it's design.
Keep it up, i wish you great succes in your work!

wow @Estariol thank you for the kind words! That gives me a lot of inspiration to continue hearing this.

 

[Hone]

Maybe offer one up in the pass around?

Not a bad idea! I think we can come up with some creative uses indeed.

 

[LeeMaz]

Not a bad idea! I think we can come up with some creative uses indeed.

I’d love to try one out! I’m torn between waiting a longer time for the brass, trying to grab a steel version when they are done or just grabbing an aluminium one now to inevitably upgrade later! It must be a sign of just how good they all are, as I’ve been looking for a brass version for the last 4-5 months since I was made aware about them, and I’ve yet to see any sold on the secondhand market, on forums or eBay! Nearest I’ve got is the kind offer of a handle, which is polished and looks different to the current version? Did the brass have a different finish initially?

 

[Gairdner]

I must dig out my Hone 15 brass after my move. Once I got the sweet spot (not difficult), it was the best of all the modern razors I’ve tried. Stainless steel? Wow…

 

[Masamune]

Did the brass have a different finish initially?

The brushed/polished brass Hone was a limited run. I found mine secondhand by chance. The textured/matte version is the standard. I don't think it is overly complicated to achieve the brushed look but I'll let Andrew @Hone advise on the best way.

 

[Hone]

This is the update I put on the website. Perhaps to add some commentary here I'm not happy about this and looking at my options...
UPDATE: August 13th 2021

I was excited to get the V3 sample razors after the production shutdown delays caused by COVID. I did my usual thorough inspection on them and while there are improvements, there are also areas I was not happy with. Details called out in the last samples were still not 100% addressed. These parts passed tolerance and geometry tests and shave very well, smooth and no irritation whatsoever! Even more so than the brass. I can only put that down to the subtle surface difference.

But I was hoping for more when it came to the final finishing quality of these parts.

I was also upset to see minor inconsistencies and small handling errors and there are still some possessing improvements to be made. I provided all this feedback to the manufacturer in my usual detailed report. This week they have been identifying actions to fix the outstanding issues and they are creating planning to implement tooling improvements and other fixes.

There were some strong improvements such as to the branding which now looks very crisp and sharp.

Early next week we will have a briefing session where they will provide me with a timeline and specific details for when they would be able to provide these fixes. Based on the outcome of this discussion there are some tough questions that need to be answered; I will make a call if I think it is sufficient to get these parts to the expected level of finish, and if they are still the right supplier for this job.

I will be sharing more next week! Crunch Time!

 

[Rowlers]

This is the update I put on the website. Perhaps to add some commentary here I'm not happy about this and looking at my options...
UPDATE: August 13th 2021

I was excited to get the V3 sample razors after the production shutdown delays caused by COVID. I did my usual thorough inspection on them and while there are improvements, there are also areas I was not happy with. Details called out in the last samples were still not 100% addressed. These parts passed tolerance and geometry tests and shave very well, smooth and no irritation whatsoever! Even more so than the brass. I can only put that down to the subtle surface difference.

But I was hoping for more when it came to the final finishing quality of these parts.

View attachment 98393

I was also upset to see minor inconsistencies and small handling errors and there are still some possessing improvements to be made. I provided all this feedback to the manufacturer in my usual detailed report. This week they have been identifying actions to fix the outstanding issues and they are creating planning to implement tooling improvements and other fixes.

There were some strong improvements such as to the branding which now looks very crisp and sharp.

View attachment 98394
View attachment 98395
View attachment 98396
Early next week we will have a briefing session where they will provide me with a timeline and specific details for when they would be able to provide these fixes. Based on the outcome of this discussion there are some tough questions that need to be answered; I will make a call if I think it is sufficient to get these parts to the expected level of finish, and if they are still the right supplier for this job.

I will be sharing more next week! Crunch Time!

Another great update Andrew. You always seem to have a battle on your hands...

Would these minor details be noticed by the average Joe?

 

[Hone]

Would these minor details be noticed by the average Joe?

I think they would... I can perhaps dig out some more detailed shots to expand. I had an interesting discussion with one of the pre-order customers who is a production engineer and he agreed that these shouldn't have these issues.

You always seem to have a battle on your hands...

This all goes back to the machine shop in the UK going into liquidation out of the blue. I'm still dealing with the ripples from that here. I have produced 100's of products over the years, and only encountered this sequence of issues once maybe twice... But adversity makes the result even sweeter!

 

[Hone]

Some tough news, I've just sent this update out to all the pre-order customers.

This isn’t the updated I wanted to send. After some difficult discussions, unfortunately today I had no other option than stop the contract and close the relationship with the current supplier as they have not been able to deliver to the agreed specification and I need to start the search for a new supplier.

Considering this I will be refunding all the pre-order customers immediately, today. In addition, I will give all pre-order customers a discount code to keep the 10% saving for use in future with Hone on any order they wish with no expiration date. I will also make sure any pre-order customer will get priority to place an order if they wish when I have the Type 15s complete.

I know you would have all preferred to receive your razor, and I am truly sorry. I feel frustrated letting you down but I think compromising the quality would have been worse. I have already reached out to new manufacturers and started looking for a new machine shop; But until I have a manufacturing contract in place again I wouldn’t be comfortable holding onto any customers pre-orders.

I made the video below to go through how and why I made this decision, I thought a video might be a better format to tell a complete story. As always please get in touch with any questions or comments.

Andrew.

And here is a link to the video with more detail is anyone is interested.

View: https://youtu.be/Z9e7eEFnSI0


Happy to answer questions here if there are any

 

[Estariol]

Sorry to see these kind of news, but also impressive that you stand your ground in relation to the customers to the standards you've set.

 

[RazorMcRazorface]

+1 impressive show of dignity and commitment. Compared to other Manufacturer, what stands out is the communication and transparency. I have to say, I didn't eaven preorder, but seeing this video, I'm rather sure this is an Enterprise worth supporting. Matter of fact, I was waiting for the Blackland Era up to this point, but I think I change my priorities now.

 

[HereticHermit]

Really sorry to hear this update.
Glaring negligence with QC in producing samples, let alone what commitment they intend to bring with production batch.