Thread: Help with choosing a finishing stone

Originally Posted by Lt.Arclight

Respectfully, I totally disagree. When you place a razor against your face and during the shave it cuts the whiskers, yet turns skin into hamburger because of its lack of smoothness-its NOT psychological.

But that is not what you are talking about here. You are talking confort.

Take a strop pasted with .25 diamond paste and go to town-chances are a sharp,yet harsh edge will result.Can you shave with a edge directly off an 8K Norton-absolutely, some may even find it comfortable. This is were advanced honing really counts-there are many roads to acheiving a keen comfortable edge. Does it take a mega buck Japanese hone? How can you judge it , if you haven't shaved with THAT razor?

Your face is full of nerve endings that WILL TELL YOU if you did a good job. Its not in your "mind"

Confort, disconfort, and pain. These things are subjective, and highly effected by psychological effects. That is the nature of the placebo effect. If you spend money, any money and do something that you are told will make you feel better, you will likely experiance that it does feel better.

Not this is certainly not a paranormal claim, I would be interested in seeing double blind testing with razors honed in different fashions, but all highly sharp.

O_S, in your inemical, inscrutable oriental way, you don't assume your well known and appreciated expertise. Let me just say that my knowledge of these superb Japanese stones fits in a thimble while yours stretch an ocean to the bursting point! I thank my lucky stars that you are in our brotherhood. Please continue to enlighten us, Shihan-san.

Wow, we're a passionate bunch!

But seriously, many individuals across a whole range of "sharpened steel" based hobbies (woodworking, cooking, knife collecting, etc.) all agree that certain steel properties require certain stone properties to get the best edge possible. Microchipping is the biggest reason given as proof; extremely hard, and thus brittle, steel will form microchips along the edge if it is honed on a stone that is itself too hard or too aggressive. But that same stone would be perfectly fine for steel that's a little softer, there's no illusion there.

Shapton GassStones were designed with A2 tool steel in mind because it's a really tough, abrasion resistant, tool steel that is used by Lie Nielsen among other woodworking tool makers. The properties of that steel were not being fully utilized by any other artificial hone on the market, so Shapton made some to suit it. (as an example of certain hones favoring certain steels and vice versa)

And yeah, many times enthusiasm can cause a guy with a brand new hone to rave about it like it's the best in the world when there's no way to know whether that's even remotely true, but outside of the Nakayama that I bought from O_S, nearly all of my stones have been picked up dirt cheap on ebay, at flea markets, or antique stores (more than one Escher for less than $10, not to mention the Coticules, those things are everywhere). I have no reason to favor any one of them over the others, save for their actual performance.

As for the steels properties changing as per the hone used, there's just no proof of that happening, the conditions that cause the steel matrix to change are far outside of proper honing practices.

So true, we are passionate about honing because we are passionate about SHAVING. I don't think there is an equation applicable to $ spent on hones in relation to the amount of comfort/or satisfaction we are getting out of our razors.

Some have spent little-have learned to use what they have and are happy. There are those that have an insatiable hunger for new aquisitions of the hone variety and aren't happy-Human nature at work-I guess.

I think the true purpose of this discussion and sub forum for that matter is LEARNING other methods to achieve the "perfect edge"-either utilizing the hones we have or possibly gaining information to determine if the money we are thinking about spending is/or isn't going to improve our shaving experience.

The fact is we have many choices, some can afford more-some less.Natural hones, synthetic hones or having someone else sharpen your razors. There are some that are easily satisfied and others that are NEVER satisfied. Its more art than science and that's why its worth discussing.

It's very true, all of us are passionate. Russel, you have saved me a lot of money for which I thank you. I have now decided not to buy the NOS Y/G Escher with original stamps. I will instead save this money and add to it if necessary to buy the Nakayama Karasu that O_S is seeking for me. Shihan-san, please take however much time as you need but find me the Stone of the Samurai. My son was trained in ****o-Ryu traditional Japanese Karate, After ten years of hard work he achieved the rank of Sho-Dan. He is dead now, was born 28 years ago a week from today. Please forgive his father mourning him today. I just watched "The Last Samurai" and it brought back memories. I still have his Ei, Bo, Boken and Shinai. Life is so mysterious, perhaps the stone will bring me enlightment, God knows not much else has...

O_S, he died on April 26, 2000, he was 19 years 6 months and 12 days old. Perhaps the stone per se will not bring me any enlightenment but the peace and pleasure that I derive from honing and lapping soothes my soul. Thank you for your thoughts, I guess that last night I had one too many Rum & Cokes. Well, I just feel at home here at the SRP, I feel that I am accompanied by friends here and those feelings plus a good dose of alcohol is very healing and sometimes leads to an outpouring of the heart. IN VINO VERITAS as my ancestors would say, IN WINE TRUTH.

Thank you Shihan-san. Persco, please pardon my tangental comment to your post. I meant no harm.

I stopped reading this about half way through and must return, but all the in and out and round-n-round discussion made me think of the long ago proposed test to determine how long it would take to provide enough energy to get a pot of water to boil by just shouting "boil" into the vessel.

Can we convince enough molecules at the edge of the blade to organize them themselves into nice orderly lines which create that crisp, sharp, dress right edge by just repeating in our best command voice, "razor, sharp!" I'd even allow the use of some single malt chemicals to help the experiment.

OMG, not single malt chemicals! Honing with those in the blood stream might result in finger loss or worse!

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

And yeah, many times enthusiasm can cause a guy with a brand new hone to rave about it like it's the best in the world when there's no way to know whether that's even remotely true, but outside of the Nakayama that I bought from O_S, nearly all of my stones have been picked up dirt cheap on ebay, at flea markets, or antique stores (more than one Escher for less than $10, not to mention the Coticules, those things are everywhere). I have no reason to favor any one of them over the others, save for their actual performance.

Percieved performance.

The problem is that while I am sure some of the things people do make a real difference, I am also sure some of them do not, but create a percieved difference. Butall human perception is faulty, and heavily influenced by what we want to believe.

So the only way to test it is with proper double blinded experiments, as it is not a question of what is the sharpest edge, but the most shaveable.

As shown in my reference of the tests using wine but telling people it cost different ammounts, they used MRI's to show that their experiances with the same wine where different depending on what they believed it cost.

The same thing happens to everyone all the time.

And money is not the only thing that matters. The hone you found in a fleamarket that is old and is no longer made or mined is also exclusive, and as such makes a strong narative.

The point about the cost is not that what someone paid for it effects their experiance, it is what someone believes about the quality of something will effect their experiance of that quality.