Honing stones
- Thread starter slrjona
- Start Date
- Joined
- Wednesday August 5, 2009
- Location
- West Yorkshire
Well, you can quarry your own stone and I know of at least one chap who does so. Thing is, he gets his material from a nearly exhausted whetstone deposit, and the properties of the rock are well known. You're looking for some rather specific qualities in a razor hone - take slate for instance. There are quite a few varieties which are useful for sharpening, but only a few deposits produced the right sort of grit for honing a razor (Llyn Idwal, Dragon's Tongue and so forth). There's no reason not to experiment, but nor is there any reason to expect a random piece of slate to be suitable.
As for the expense, well that depends what you buy doesn't it? An Escher, vintage Charnley or Japanese natural may well set you back £200 (or more), but a Chinese 12k will come in at about a tenth of that as will a Belgian blue or modern Thuringian. For a lifetime's use that looks like a fair deal to me.
As for the expense, well that depends what you buy doesn't it? An Escher, vintage Charnley or Japanese natural may well set you back £200 (or more), but a Chinese 12k will come in at about a tenth of that as will a Belgian blue or modern Thuringian. For a lifetime's use that looks like a fair deal to me.
- Joined
- Wednesday June 22, 2011
slrjona said:
Your first question was answered most adequately by Arrowhead.
The answer to your second is simple demand. My time is valuable. I don't have the power tools necessary to cut down a stone. I don't have a truck to get out to the wilderness or undeveloped areas where the quarries are, AND all the good quarries have already been bought. AKA I'd be trespassing and stealing if I ever went onto their land.
Combining all of those factors, you can see how I would be willing to pay the cost of the stone. I'm willing to pay even more for a foreign stone because to get one of those I'd have to fly over to Europe or Japan. Clearly cheaper to just buy the stone.
Now, all that said, I buy the natural stones because I like them. Not because they perform any better. In fact, 99.9% of the time, I don't use a natural stone unless specifically requested by a client.
A Naniwa 12k is only $80, that is very affordable from my perspective. A coticule can also be had for around $100, again, affordable. A new Thuringian is a little more, but they come in larger sizes. A BBW is cheaper. I'm not sure, but I think surgical Arkansas can be had for under $100. And as Arrowhead pointed out, a Chinese stone is $20 or so.
Compared to the cost of a Shapton 30k, I think those are a steal.
- Joined
- Sunday July 12, 2009
I think you have to qualify what you call 'expensive' - in terms of honings per razor before the stone is used up it is surely a small price. What you have done in purchasing one is pre-paid for all the razors you will ever sharpen on it. If you had to buy all the petrol a car would ever need in one go, that might qualify as 'expensive' but you don't - you buy it a bit at a time.
As andy said, you can certainly quarry your own - but have you ever tried to lap a dished area out of a hard natural stone? It takes hours. If you had to shape it, get it roughly flat and then lap it it might be days. How much is your time worth?
Then there is the mythos of natural stones fo factor in. You are, in effect, not paying just for a honing medium but also for a piece of history where many of them are concerned, as they are simply not in production anymore and some of them have such obscure origins that we can't even begin to speculate where the original mine was.
Again, concerning natural hone stones, where the mine workings can be identified - and quite a few can - all that is left behind is a heap of rubble not thought fit to turn into hones by the original owners. Deeper workings are often flooded and even if they could be probed, the useful veins would be worked out. The quarries that supplied charnley forest hones are of interest here - when it became less profitable to mine the rock as hone stone a great expansion of highways was in progress and it was more profitable to mine the rock and crush it as chippings for road foundations. You could find useful sized pieces of rock there - people still do - but it takes ages to find it. It just isn't profitable.
Lastly and as always and evidenced by Lee's post, most things if not bigger and better are definitely cheaper in the US. Replace the dollar symbol with a pound sign and your getting near for most things, but you usually have to add some. I remember talking to a guy at an english shaving company who stocked well-known american strops - he was charging aroung £80 - £90 and they retailed for less than 80 dollars in some cases in the US, and he was making a healthy profit - up to 100%, so he bought in for 40 dollars or so. Obviously the maker was making a profit on that 40 dollars - the cost of raw materials in the US must be a deciding factor - you could hardly buy the necessary materials over here for that, let alone factor in the time spent in manufacturing.
So 'expensive' has many connotations and meanings - like so many other things in life. A simplistic 'why?' can accrue a multiplicity of answers.
Regards,
Neil
As andy said, you can certainly quarry your own - but have you ever tried to lap a dished area out of a hard natural stone? It takes hours. If you had to shape it, get it roughly flat and then lap it it might be days. How much is your time worth?
Then there is the mythos of natural stones fo factor in. You are, in effect, not paying just for a honing medium but also for a piece of history where many of them are concerned, as they are simply not in production anymore and some of them have such obscure origins that we can't even begin to speculate where the original mine was.
Again, concerning natural hone stones, where the mine workings can be identified - and quite a few can - all that is left behind is a heap of rubble not thought fit to turn into hones by the original owners. Deeper workings are often flooded and even if they could be probed, the useful veins would be worked out. The quarries that supplied charnley forest hones are of interest here - when it became less profitable to mine the rock as hone stone a great expansion of highways was in progress and it was more profitable to mine the rock and crush it as chippings for road foundations. You could find useful sized pieces of rock there - people still do - but it takes ages to find it. It just isn't profitable.
Lastly and as always and evidenced by Lee's post, most things if not bigger and better are definitely cheaper in the US. Replace the dollar symbol with a pound sign and your getting near for most things, but you usually have to add some. I remember talking to a guy at an english shaving company who stocked well-known american strops - he was charging aroung £80 - £90 and they retailed for less than 80 dollars in some cases in the US, and he was making a healthy profit - up to 100%, so he bought in for 40 dollars or so. Obviously the maker was making a profit on that 40 dollars - the cost of raw materials in the US must be a deciding factor - you could hardly buy the necessary materials over here for that, let alone factor in the time spent in manufacturing.
So 'expensive' has many connotations and meanings - like so many other things in life. A simplistic 'why?' can accrue a multiplicity of answers.
Regards,
Neil
- Joined
- Thursday July 7, 2011
The above replies are very well written. I try to stay away from the words 'cheap' and 'expensive'. I rather alway try to use 'reasonably priced' or 'not....'. Cheap, to me, has come to be something that is 'not well made' and not something that is inexpensively priced.
- Joined
- Wednesday June 22, 2011
slrjona said:
Add a piece of micromesh to the slate tile and you have yourself an inexpensive and disposable hone. Better yet, use a piece of granite or marble that's been lapped to .001" straightness.
Your other inexpensive alternative is chromium oxide or diamond sprays on the back side of your strop. You could even get one of those magnetic strop/honing devices and use that to sharpen your razor on.
All that said, I don't see the problem. Honing stones are for people serious about honing. As Neil said, its double, triple, or quadruple a lifetime worth of honing in one shot. I'm going to go with 10x lifetime as I'm fairly certain I've already gone through an entire lifetime's worth of honing on my Nani 12k and it's barely dented. I've also seen barber's stones with plenty of life in them and they've gone through an entire lifetime's (or business's) worth of professional use.
Honing isn't for the uncommitted. IMO.
- Joined
- Tuesday February 8, 2011
I use the King stones and find them excellent, I use 1000, 5000. 8000. and a Naniwa 12000 stone, and a small naniwa slurry stone from the 5000 onwards, they are excellent quality for the money, and easily sourced in the UK. I also have a Naniwa 12000 super stone which are again reasonable, but the King 8000 stone I would say is not far away from the Naniwa 12000 in finishing the razor, this is only my opinion but the Naniwa is never 4000 grit level above the King 8000. so with my learnt but costly knowlege if I could go back and replace a stone with another I would buy the King 10000 over the Naniwa 12000.
Jamie.
Jamie.
- Joined
- Wednesday August 5, 2009
- Location
- West Yorkshire
I know the King 6000 very well indeed, and used a 1000 for a while too. The 1k is a fast cutting soft stone suitable for bevel setting of relatively blunt razors, and it will need frequent flattening: more than once per razor like as not.
The 6k is a workhorse and gets used on every razor I hone, unless I'm having a moment of coticule madness. It's best characterised as an edge refiner. Used with slurry it's very effective for removing the scratches left from lower grit stones; dilute the slurry down progressively down to clean water and it leaves a keen edge which just needs a little polishing. I use another King 6k to raise the slurry, but either a diamond plate or a nagura will do just fine. The stone needs flattening fairly frequently - once per razor will usually do. I have never shaved with a razor directly off the 6k and don't intend to because I don't think it's fine enough, but at a pinch you might just get away with it; better to add another hone around 10k or better. A Naniwa would do nicely, or maybe the slow cutting but cheap Chinese 12k.
An aside: Lee mentions the surgical Arkansas stones. So far as I know the black ones are still available, but the translucent type is going to be a costly second hand purchase. There's a lot of dubious "information" flying about concerning the grit ratings for these, suffice it to say that they are really excellent razor finishers but not easy to use. Not recommended as a first hone.
The 6k is a workhorse and gets used on every razor I hone, unless I'm having a moment of coticule madness. It's best characterised as an edge refiner. Used with slurry it's very effective for removing the scratches left from lower grit stones; dilute the slurry down progressively down to clean water and it leaves a keen edge which just needs a little polishing. I use another King 6k to raise the slurry, but either a diamond plate or a nagura will do just fine. The stone needs flattening fairly frequently - once per razor will usually do. I have never shaved with a razor directly off the 6k and don't intend to because I don't think it's fine enough, but at a pinch you might just get away with it; better to add another hone around 10k or better. A Naniwa would do nicely, or maybe the slow cutting but cheap Chinese 12k.
An aside: Lee mentions the surgical Arkansas stones. So far as I know the black ones are still available, but the translucent type is going to be a costly second hand purchase. There's a lot of dubious "information" flying about concerning the grit ratings for these, suffice it to say that they are really excellent razor finishers but not easy to use. Not recommended as a first hone.
- Joined
- Wednesday June 22, 2011
What exactly are you planning to do with the stones? I can't give you good advice if I don't know the end game.
- Joined
- Saturday October 15, 2011
asharperrazor said:
most likely to hone a straight himself
here is his post from the welcome forum
"Just got into the straight razor thing & loving it.I've wanted one for almost 10 years now!!.Just waiting for it to come back from beining honed "
- Joined
- Wednesday August 5, 2009
- Location
- West Yorkshire
That's what I assumed - the King combi is not a good choice for that. The OP will get better value from us if he answers the following:
Do you see yourself acquiring more razors?
If so, do you intend to restore vintage blades?
Do you have any experience of sharpening (eg woodworking tools)?
How much time and effort are you prepared to put into learning to hone?
Do you have a strop; if so what is it?
If he plans to stick with just the Cyril Salter, I'd be tempted to say send it off for honing as and when it needs it - not to me! Sorry Neil!
Do you see yourself acquiring more razors?
If so, do you intend to restore vintage blades?
Do you have any experience of sharpening (eg woodworking tools)?
How much time and effort are you prepared to put into learning to hone?
Do you have a strop; if so what is it?
If he plans to stick with just the Cyril Salter, I'd be tempted to say send it off for honing as and when it needs it - not to me! Sorry Neil!
- Joined
- Saturday October 15, 2011
id agree about sending it off it he only has 1 or 2 razors
neil only charges £15 i belive a time which isnt expensive
same cost as a bar of shaving soap
neil only charges £15 i belive a time which isnt expensive
same cost as a bar of shaving soap
- Joined
- Wednesday June 22, 2011
Same page as you two gents. Makes no sense to buy even a finishing stone even if you own three razors. Not with the price of chromium oxide being what it is. Makes even less sense if you value your time.
- Joined
- Saturday October 15, 2011
asharperrazor said:Same page as you two gents. Makes no sense to buy even a finishing stone even if you own three razors. Not with the price of chromium oxide being what it is. Makes even less sense if you value your time.
+1
if you were aiming on owning 10-20+ straights then it would be worth buying one
(ive just noticed i started with the exact same kit you are using (correction, i got a different strop. one that has leather and linen on it)
- Joined
- Wednesday June 22, 2011
shanky887614 said:
I'm actually not even sure about that either. And this is why: With each straight razor you purchase, you reduce the amount of honings you need. So, if you own 10 razors, you only need to hone them 1/10 as often. Now, in the real world, this probably won't pan out to an exact 1/1 ratio as rust kicks in and screws up your plans, but for the most part the ratio will be 1/X where X = number of straight razors.
It makes sense if you restore your own ebay junkers and you plan on buying 10-20. That's for sure.
Anyway, I'm not saying I'm right nor am I saying it doesn't make sense to buy a hone if you own 20 razors, I'm just adding something else to the equation.