Hones, Help!

P

Proinsias

Messages
576
I have a straight razor I got cheap and shave ready from SRP. I had another cheapie I sent back for a free touch up from elsewhere that's gone for good :(

I've got a pasted strop and a decent entry level latigo strop from Tony Miller. I don't think the razor can take much more pasted stropping without hitting a hone, I've abandoned it in favour of the shavette and safety's in the past week or two.

So

I might send it off for honing and I might buy another shave ready straight but I need, and want, to get into honing.

I've had a read over the honing guides here and elsewhere, it's a lot of info.

The King 1000/6000 I've never heard of before I came here and it looks too good and cheap to pass on. 1000 - 6000 seems like quite a jump for honing though. Would I need something in between if I have to use the 1000 side?

The main reason I'm posting this is really to get an idea of, fairly cheap, hones and sources for them.

I'm thinking about a King 1000/6000 and a Nagura slurry stone which I can get for a grand total of £30 from Axminster. But I open to, fairly cheap, suggestions

Is this likely to keep me going for a while along with the pasted strop, it goes down to diamond paste at <1 micron, or will I need something else. I don't plan on doing anything major with straights at the moment just buying shave ready straights and trying to keep them that way.
 
I have a King 6000 stone which I have used on a daily basis in the past, although never for sharpening a razor, please note. It is excellent, and roughly equivalent to a Hard Black Arkansas in terms of the edge it produces. For razor sharpening purposes, I'd say that it would nearly get you there, but ideally you could do with one more stone in the 10000 grit plus range, probably a slow cutting natural or a ceramic. Nonetheless, absent dire warnings from Neil, I see no reason why you shouldn't go straight from the 6000 stone to a strop as the edge should be quite smooth if you use the Nagura and allow the slurry to go rather dry towards the end: you're only risking a somewhat rough shave after all. When (if) I get round to honing my razor, the King stone will be doing the bulk of the work, but I'll be finishing off on either a 10000 ceramic or an unidentified greenish hone which I suspect to be a Thuringian or similar.

The 1000 side will cut very quickly and produce a rough finish: it's intended for resetting bevels and removing nicks really. It's quite a big jump from there to the 6000 side.
 
I have a coarse-and-fine combination carborundum stone that I use for knives (kitchen and pocket) and chisels, that is probably a combination of 1000 and 2000 grit (or something similar). This is a smallish (normal size for knives though) that was replaced for sharpening of speed skates (what it was originally purchased for) by a much larger combination carborundum stone of the same makeup.

The fine side of this 'stone' is good for bevel setting (in my very limited experience that is). For the rest of the honing I use something that can be described as comparable to the 'scary sharp system', a honing system that replaces (expensive) sharpening stones with a glass plate and sheets of high quality sandpaper. The advantage of such a system is the cost, the fact that you always have a fresh abrasive surface, and the fact that, if you carefully attach the paper to the glass plate, your honing surface is always flat and level. Now a few years ago, a Dutch maker of speed skates and sharpening tools for same came up with a variation on this theme specifically for polishing the contact surface of a speed skate's blade (which is straight in cross-section, not hollow like a hockey skate), a hollow aluminium triangular profile with a high quality 3M abrasive sheet (auto-adhesive) glued to each of the three sides of the aluminium profile. This thing comes standard with 40, 30, and 3 micron sheets (3 microns is comparable to 8000 grit). WIth this setup, I get a razor that is sharp enough to shave the hairs off the back of my hand and my arm.

Now I'm only waiting for my strop to arrive ;-)

Henk
 
A Belgian yellow couticle works for me. For setting the bevel I use SiC paper, 2500 and 4000 grit, or 10 micron diamond lapping film, then an hour or so on the couticle. It is quite slow but gives a nice smooth shave. You can also set the bevel with a couticle, in time, which means you only need 1 stone for all your razor maintenance. For more information look here;

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.coticule.be/home.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.coticule.be/home.html</a><!-- m -->


You can have a razor honed for free if you register.
 
Hi - honing need be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be! Let's start by keeping it simple and identifying what you want to do:

1. Lots of edge damage/nicks/reset frowns or smiles? Then you will need to commence with a coarse stone, below 1000 grit if you want speed, 1000 will do if you have some time. Man-made coarse stones sub 1000 grit tend to need an awful lot of lapping because they are so soft, so I would recommend a diamond plate, such as the DMT 325 grit. It's about £50 from various places. Get the continuous grit one, not the one with round dots on it. Break it in by passing a flat piece of steel (old knife, screwdriver shaft, etc) for a hundred or so laps - don't forget to add water as you go. This will "calm" the plate down by removing diamond high-spots, etc.

2. Some edge damage, nicks etc - start with a 1000 grit stone. The King 1000/6000 is excellent - it's fast (faster than the Norton equivalent), hard enough to last quite a few sessions without needing relapping, easy to lap and cheap. Its cuts really fast with a thick, creamy slurry produced by the artificial nagura. Finish off by washing off the slurry and using plain water. Beats a coticule into a cocked-hat for bevel setting.

3. No damage, just bevel resetting: King 1000 (cheap), Naniwa SS 1000 (reasonable price, softer than the King, needs much more lapping). A lot of people would start with a 600 grit hone - I have omitted these for two reasons: (a) I'm assuming there is no minor edge damage, and (b) both the above hones are really fast. The King is the fastest. Some people recommend the Norton 220/1000 - I don't. The 220 side is next to useless, and the 1000 side is quite slow.

4. Bevel is Ok, but some refinement needed: Shapton 2000 GS (expensive) Naniwa 3000 SS (reasonable price, but soft so needs more lapping than others), Naniwa 5000 SS (reasonable price, but soft so needs more lapping than others), Belgian Blue (slow but a lovely stone and good polisher - some people shave of the faster, finer ones), Soft Coticule with slurry (choose a soft coticule for fast cutting - the soft type do not make good finishing hones).

5. More levels of refinement: King 6000 (fast, hard, good with slurry and with water, more like 5000 in some examples), Naniwa 5000 SS (reasonable price, but soft so needs more lapping than others).

6. Shave-time: as Arrowhead says, a 6000 followed by a (pasted) strop can take a razor to shave-ready, depending on how you like your shave. A welsh dragon tongues hone is also good. I personally would go to at least 8000/10,000 grit plus a pasted strop - the Naniwa SS 8000 is fairly reasonably priced, the MST and most new thuringian hones are great (start with a creamy slurry and finish with water) and a medium to hard yellow coticule is very good indeed. The harder the coticule, the better finishing or polishing hone it will be. It can still be used with slurry.

7. A bit more refinement: Naniwa 10,000 GS (see other naniwa notes), Naniwa 12,000 SS (see other naniwa notes), chinese 12000 (cheap but slow - improves edge left by some coticules), Shapton 16,000 GS (excellent, but pricey), hard yellow coticule.

8. The last word (?): Shapton 30,000, charnley forest hone, vintage escher-type thuringian, exotic japanese naturals. All mega-money, though!

For what you propose to do, the King combo is ideal, It is a bit of a jump from one side to the other, but by using the 1000 side with a heavy slurry and finishing with water and a lot more light laps, then repeating the process on the 6000 side and using a pasted strop it might just get you there. I would add an intermdiate stone, 2000, 3000, or 4000 grit, and a finisher of about 8000/10,000 grit, then use a pasted strop.

Some last observations:

make sure the hone is perfectly lapped. So many problems are caused by badly maintained hones;
develop a light touch - if you have trouble, use lather - it "cushions" the blade a bit and will make your finishing laps lighter,
diamond paste is OK, but can be harsh - especially at 0.25 micron level - best bet is to always finish on chrome oxide after diamond, even though CrO2 is rated at 0.5 micron (and its cheaper!);
if you really dont intend doing any bevel-setting or edge maintenance, just get a small barber hone, a thuringian, a naniwa 10,000 or 12,000 or a medium to hard coticule (quite expensive at the moment), or try a chinese 12000 - it is probably less than 1000 grit, but will keep an already good edge in great condition and a lot of people say it does away with the need for pasting,
the one-hone-coticule idea works but is hellishly slow and depends on the coticule - I've had half a dozen, and all are different. I can't wait an hour+ to hone one razor - I want to do 3 - 5 in that space of time, but that's just me - I do it for a living.

If you want any other help or advice, ask here or pm me and I'll do my best.

Regards,
Neil.
 
I was going to add that the King stones need frequent lapping, but Neil's covered that.
The following is a question for Neil: I had a rummage through my collection of stones, and came up with a couple which I inherited from a friend, and I wonder if you could provide a positive ID for me? No. 1 (on top) is a soft grey stone which looks like a slate, but with striations in the surface which I haven't seen elsewhere. Size 5 1/2" x 1 5/8". No. 2 is a hard dark olive green stone with a uniform surface and no speckles or inclusions which I can see; 8" x 1 5/8" This is the one that I suspect may be a Thuringian or something of that ilk. I've roughly flattened both just to get an idea of what I have on my hands: No. 1 was a breeze, No. 2 took ages. Dragging a thumbnail across them suggests both will be fine, slow cutters, instinct tells me that No. 2 may be a good finishing stone. Poor quality dry picture first, wet in the following post.
 

Attachments

  • dry1.JPG
    360 bytes · Views: 481
Hello Andy,

Thats a bit of a poser! Going by colour alone, the first one looks a lot like a belgian blue. It is often slate-like, but with a purplish tinge - making a slurry on it differentiates it from slate - slate slurry is grey, belgian blue is decidely blue/purple. The odd colour striations could mean that it was used with oil, in which case some more determined lapping will remove the darker bands. If you look at a BBW with a loupe, you can often see clusterings of reddish marks and sometimes dots of yellow (the yellow is rare though). It is a hard stone - you shouldn't be able to mark it much with a fingernail. It was a much maligned stone at one point in its history - it wasn't even considered a hone and because it was prevalent in the coticule mines it was used as a backing for the more fragile yellow coticules.

The other looks like a charnley forest: there are two main types, a greyish/olive one with no figuration and a moss green one, often with stripes of red and darker mottling. The grey one is often (but not always) a finer cutter than the highly figured one - some of the darker colourings have hard inclusions in them whereas the grey is usually quite free of inclusions. It is an extremely hard stone - you will not be able to mark it with a fingernail. It takes forever to lap, even on a diamond plate, and if the plate is not kept well watered it can abrade the plate. rubbed with a bit of stone of the same variety, it gives a fine, faintly milky slurry.

The pictures confuse the issue for me. The second one could conceivably be a thuringian, but if it is it would be markedly softer than the charnley and would raise a creamy slurry quite easily - they are also easy to lap. Vintage thuringians usually came boxed with a space for the slurry stone, whereas charnley hones were often used by carpenters who made their own boxes with no provision for a slurry stone. The charnley hones also tended to be longer than thuringians for a practical reason - they are quite slow, so a longer stone meant less laps. If you thoroughly wet your hone and examine it under a high-power loupe and find even a hair-thin reddish line, it is almost definately a charnley.

Regards,
Neil
 
Amateur stone p0rn. For the serious stuff pick any thread you like here:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.straightrazorplace.com/forums/hones-stones-rocks-plates/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.straightrazorplace.com/forum ... ks-plates/</a><!-- m -->
 
I would always go for a yellow coticule as you will be able to maintain your razors easily

If you want honing done for you, it can be done in Nottingham (details can be supplied) for the princely sum of £6.50 if you pay postage
 
Coticules are great, no doubt about that, but the price might be a stumbling block for the OP. An 8" x 2" standard yellow from Ardennes Coticule will set him back 115 euros, and the selected in the same size 159 euros. I can't remember the postage as I last ordered from them several years ago, but it was something like 19 euros. Combined prices with todays exchange rate quoted by xe.com are £124.50 and £161.50

That makes the King 1000/6000 + nagura, a thuringian water hone + rubbing stone and a chinese 12000 look like a bargain for under £90! This setup is also quicker than a single coticule if nicks/bevel setting are taken into consideration, is more versatile and gives equally good if not better results - the chinese hone even removes the need for CrO2 powder!

"Selected" and "Standard" refer to how the stone is graded and is meant to signify cosmetic condition only - standard may have markings, inclusion lines, etc, while selected are uniform in colour - the sharpening characteristics of the stone are supposedly the same, however some inclusions may be detrimental so it is safer to go for the selected. If the OP does opt for a coticule I recommend that he sends an email to the mine owner - Rob Cellis - at Ardennes Coticule. He is a very nice, very knowledgable man, and if you tell him that you want a good quality stone for razor-sharpening purposes he will personally select one for you. Only one company is still mining this hone - Rob owns it.

Best Regards,
Neil.
 
Thank you very much for all the responses, and especially to yourself Neil.

The coticule would have been my first choice but the price is a little off putting - though a small one may still be in the running.

I think I'll probably pick up the king combo fairly soon with a nagura stone and look to pick up a Chinese 12k or something similar next. Next on the list would be an intermediate between the 1k and 6k but hopefully I won't need to drop below the 6k mark in the near future, and if I really do need I can apparently get someone to do it for me for £6.50. :)

Thanks again
 
I cracked when I seen a Chinese 12k lapped and with a slurry stone for 12.50 inc p&p on ebay yesterday, I'm sure they weren't that cheap last time I checked. So that's one stone on the way.

The King combo will be on the way soon with a nagura slurry stone, I've heard it's great for knives too which is a bonus.

The Thuringian would be next on the list but just I before I do can I ask for rough prices or sources for Water of Ayr stones? My web-fu is failing me. They sounds fairly similar to the Thuringian's and it would be nice to hone on something from just down the road.

The only problem is that now I've bought stones I'm going to have to buy more razors so I can play with them :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom