Zulu Grey Hone

UKRob

UKRob

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5,357
Location
Lichfield
There's been a lot of discussion on SRP about the merits of this hone and how it compares favourably to the very expensive Japanese Natural Stones. Mine arrived today - a decent sizes 8" x 3" and although lapping and repolishing is recommended I went ahead and tried a few different razors (carbon, Swedish steel, smiling edge) just to see how it felt. It's a very easy stone to use - compared to my experience with a Coticule where I'm still at the beginning of the learning curve I feel. It generates a very silky slurry which seems to grab the blade - I deliberately chose decent blades - but then the diluted and clear water laps feel completely different. I did about 30 laps with slurry, 30 diluted with a couple of squirts from a spray bottle and then about 40 on clear water. The results feel good to my thumb pad test - I don't have a reliable HHT to use - but the real test will be tomorrow morning.

I'll update the post afterwards.
 
This morning was the first shave off the new hone and I'm very impressed - there was a noticeable step up in terms of sharpness and I was left very smooth with little irritation after my normal two passes.

When I say there was a noticable improvement in sharpness I should explain that I have some pretty decent edges anyway so it was more a case of today's razor now being comparable to my better (Filarmonica etc) ones.

I will now try one of the known very good blades to see if I can get a similar improvement.
 
Jamie, I got the details from SRP and used the pm but it's better to use the link below.

Michael Cramer [ZuluGrey] <michael@zulugrey.com>

I've no idea about grit equivalent but many of the well known names (GSSixgun, Mainaman etc.) were given stones to evaluate and gave positive reviews as a finisher. One theme that was an ever-present was the ease of use when compared to other natural stones - my only experience as noted above, is with Coticules, but some of the SRP contributors who use Japanese stones were, again, very complimentary. The price is nothing like the Jnats and there is a choice of sizes - they are cut to size as with Coticules, so you get a much bigger stone at a fraction of the price.

As you can see, the stones are shipped from South Africa - mine took about 5 weeks.

Rob
 
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