Hone your own?

I had the idea that if I was going to shave traditionally, I'd keep it all traditional - I've got a coticule and a thuringian.
I don't plan to go the whole hog of restoring, but I like a bit of DIY so that's all I'll need (hopefully!).
Yesterday I honed a NOS razor and reset the bevel on a well-worn razor, huxley's right - the coticule gives a lovely sensation and feedback, I was really happy with the result.
 
So far I have kept mine shave ready with a C12k and a nice custom paddle strop from
Paul Harris (Harris hunter 7) on British Blades, just the leather with no paste.

Maybe at some point it will need more aggressive honing, I have a Dragons Tongue
on order from Inigo Jones just in case.

However I fear the onset of HAD, so I'll leave it at those two and get out while I can ;)
 
Arrowhead said:
Yes, it was you that I had in mind, Huxley. The stone was flat, you can take my word for that; whether that's always the case I can't say, but if not the guarantee entitles you to send it back until you get one which is.
Click to expand...

Just a follow-up on Spydercos after reading a posting by Robert Williams, a well-respected american razor-maker. He uses the Spyderco UF as a multipurpose hone by spraying different grades of diamond spray onto it, and gets killer edges. He agrees that the hone might not be perfectly flat '... within 0.001 precision..." but that it is flat. A side-benefit of using diamond sprays on it, apart from making the hone any grit rating you want, is that as you hone the stone gets lapped by the spray too, until it becomes perfectly smooth. He says that with a coarse diamond spray on it the metal just melts away.

Diamond spray is a bit on the expensive side, but you only need a light spritz of it on the hone, remembering to keep spraying with water now and then so that it is well lubricated.

Of course, I couldn't resist trying it out for myself and - he's right. What a great little hone! There are some people saying that the creator of it always had in mind a 'modern barbers hone' and that is just what it is, just much more adaptable and a great size, to boot.

Regards,
Neil
 
Proinsias said:
It's the only razor hone I've got but the Chinese 12k, for about £12 with a slurry stone, delivered lapped, works for me as a touch up stone. I'm also told it is very hard and will likely never need to be lapped again for normal to light use - even as part of a honing progression. Neil recommends them as part of an 'on the cheap' honing set up.

Just checked and it's now £15 from the same guy.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Chinese-Water-Hone-Waterstone-straight-razor-/130347556778?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Collectables_Barber_Shop_Collectables_LE&hash=item1e5951dfaa" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Chinese-Water ... 1e5951dfaa</a><!-- m -->
Click to expand...


if i got a second hand razor that needed honeing would this ebay hone be good ?
or would i need to get it hone buy a pro them use this as a top up
 
To recondition a properly blunt razor, you need a set of stones, and the progression would look something like 600 grit diamond plate (only for very bad cases); 1000; 3000 and 6000 waterstones, and a finishing stone of your choice. Alternatively, a Belgian Blue and a Coticule works for some people, or if you have time on your hands, a set of novaculites: Washita; soft, hard and hard black or translucent Arkansas (or a Turkey); and a finisher.
 
Well, it depends I'm afraid. You could try a BBW and Coticule combination stone, which should sort out any razor not requiring major reshaping - in theory. I've never had much success with the BBW, but Coticules are nice to use, and lots of people finish on them. Such a stone in a decent size will be expensive, mind. The Ardennes Coticule site is well worth a visit:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://uk.ardennes-coticule.com/index.asp?id=384" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://uk.ardennes-coticule.com/index.asp?id=384</a><!-- m -->

The waterstone route is cost effective, and since they're synthetics, there's little variation to worry about. Naniwa seems to be the most popular brand at the moment. I quite like Arkansas oilstones, but I've been using them for a long time. I wouldn't like to shell out for my little collection at today's prices, and they are slow.

Have a look at the honing sticky, and Neil will probably drop by this thread some time soon and give you the pukka gen - I'm just the resident carpenter.
 
Yes they are quite good stones. the 1 to 6 is a big jump in grit sze so you will have to spend a lot of time on the 6K to get out the scratches from the 1K. I think it might be to big a jump to the chinese 12K as i have heard it is a really slow cutter so a lot of laps even more than the on the 6. But this might not be true i have never used a chinese 12k and a lot of people have more exsperiance than me will be along to comment.
The setup i have and use is a king 1/6K norton 4/8K nawina 12K
 
King are 'ok' but prone to wear, and dish so require more frequent lapping.

Personally i am a fan of naniwa superstones, very easy to work with and require little looking after. Just the occasional use of a nagura stone to clean it up.

Coticule is not an ideal beginners stone, it takes time to learn the c12k is a good finishing hone, just be prepared to do a lot of laps on the thing say 100-200 easily.

I still use and love my 16k shapton glass stone, very fast very easy to work with. As for using a diamond spritz hmm i've seen diamond leave very scratchy edges. Im more of a cromox/ceox guy.

As for honing nowadays, i have it pretty much sussed and just play about with different combinations.
 
The King stones I have used all require a bit of lapping, but not more so than equivalent grade stones in the same price/performance range. The 1000 requires more frequent lapping than the 6000 for sure, but its quick and easy to do - besides, equivalent Nortons, etc, require quite the same amount of maintenance. Ever tried a 400k synthetic? - you have to lap the damned thing before you even finish honing on it if you have much work to do.

Naniwas, along with shapton glass stones are, as most people must have gathered by now due to the many posts on the subject, dimensionally unstable to a degree - most serious honers will lap them before a session as they swell/shrink in different parts of the hone overnight. Don't believe me? Just leave the darkened swarf on and give a few laps the next day - you'll soon see high and low spots, doesn't matter how little you have used the hone. I would go as far as to suggest that just wetting the stone will start that differential movement, and furthermore it is not in the same area each time.

It might only be out to a tiny degree, but by the time you get to 16k and 30k and are we are talking about small micron sizes anyway, so it matters more at the high end of the range.

As for coticules taking some time to learn - they are no harder than any other hone - its just a bit of rock, right? There is absolutely no reason a novice shouldn't get a good edge of one as easily as with any other hone. It's true that you can adapt coticules to do a bit more work (if you have the tendency to masochism or a lot of time on your hands) and that you can use techniques like inducing a microbevel with a layer of tape to make the edge appear sharper - but you can do that with most other stones too providing they can cut and not just polish. Learning the eccentricities of any hone takes a while once you have mastered the basics - that's only common-sense.

The chinese 12k isn't as slow as you may be led to believe - start off with a slurry and you can cut the laps down by half. Just remember to finish on plain water.

The purpose of a diamond spritz on a spyderco is to make the stone into a 'superhone' as RW suggested and I implied - an aggressive cut can be had with coarse diamond spritz, then you work that out with a less coarse solution and finally finish with no diamond at all. All on one hone. Like a coticule on steroids.

Of course all diamonds leave a scratchy edge - that is their nature - they cut, they don't smooth..., but we are not talking about shaving with the edge left by a diamond compound but with an edge that has been refined further by other means, the most common being finishing with chrome oxide.

Sorry to disagree with virtually everything you have said Huxley, but I think a novice has to have both sides of the coin presented before he can make an informed choice.

Regards,
Neil
 
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