Thread: Natural Bevel

A bladesmith named Wayne Goddard uses sand stone from time to time for really rough grinding, but not because it is a good stone, he uses it for recreating the primitive knifemaking process. probably too aggressive for razors.

One of the Dutch members posted in a thread some time back, about setting bevels with a coticule. I used a very thick slurry and more than average pressure to turn the coticule into a fast enough cutter to do bevel-setting work. I haven't tried it myself, but I have read other testimonies about the coticule being quite a hefty cutter if used in that fashion.
I wonder if the increased pressure wouldn't deflect the edge of a full hollow razor (and thus altering the bevel angle a bit), and I know out of personal experience that a thick slurry tends to abrade the very edge of the bevel, but perhaps that could be remedied by a subsequent amount of light passes with a thin slurry.
I'm sorry that I don't remember the gentleman's name. Maybe he will still chime in here.

I'm guessing LX_Emergency.

Yes. And I have done the same thing. With a thick slurry, the coticule can be a fast cutter, for a given definition of 'fast'.

I'll never be a DMT or a Norton 220 grit, but it'll do in a pinch.

I remember my father used some sort of sandstone of pumice for knives. There's plenty sandstone around on mother earth. Probably hard to find as artificial stones seem to be preferred by many.

I think the knife brand Laguiole (French) sell natural hones for their knives. I have also once seen natural hones advertised on French ebay coming from the Pyrenees, a mountainous range between France and Spain.

And there's of course the Japanese who use them for sharpening swords/knives etc. You can drop So a mail. He is very helpful and knowledgeable about Jap. hones and stones.

I visited this German online store a few days back, dick.biz. They carry natural Japanese stones that go down quite far: Ohmura (150-300), Amakusa (400-600), Binsu (800 - 1200) and Aoto (1000 - 2000), plus a few higher grit stones as well. They also have the Slovakian Rozsutec, which they don't give a grit indication for, but I'm guessing is pretty coarse based on that they mention axe sharpening and scythe sharpening with it is mentioned here at SRP.

They might all be frightfully slow, I guess, but there does seem to be some possible candidates for a natural bevel-setting stone.

if you really need to set a bevel, I would highly recommend a DMT Course or Extra Course diamond plate for the task. I use my Course plate for setting bevels and also use it to flatten my Norton 4k/8k hone.

I've been setting my bevels with 1200 grit. This being in very sharp knife territory I'm pretty sure you could find some decent arkansas stones.

Originally Posted by netsurfr

if you really need to set a bevel, I would highly recommend a DMT Course or Extra Course diamond plate for the task. I use my Course plate for setting bevels and also use it to flatten my Norton 4k/8k hone.

Extra coarse?!

I use a 1200 DMT ("extra fine") to set bevels. As long as I'm not trying to remove chips, this is plenty fast for me.

Originally Posted by SteveS

Extra coarse?!

I use a 1200 DMT ("extra fine") to set bevels. As long as I'm not trying to remove chips, this is plenty fast for me.

Yes, I find the DMT1200 is more than enough for setting bevels. Any coarser, I find removes too much unnecessary metal.