Thread: Help with choosing a finishing stone

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

Percieved performance.

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.

Yes, that is a phenomenon that occurs, but you are claiming it occurs all the time, which is false.

If you're point were true, I would be incapable of saying that some unidentifiable stone (probably Japanese but no guarantees) that I got from an junk dealer in Hawaii out performs all of the the Eschers that I own because there is no way to know it's properties before using it. I didn't pay enough for it to warrant being boasted about, it is almost unusably small, shows no indication of being anything special or rare, and is, in general, a mystery stone (of which I have many, this one is not unique or special on that regard, either). But you know what, it does outperform the Eschers, plain and simple (and I'll still make that claim even though it's unfeasable to be used with any regularity, in fact I'm disappointed that it's such a nice stone).

Your analogy to wine prices/satisfaction does not specify whether the people in the tests were seasoned wine tasters, my guess is that they are not (most tests like that seek out "average individuals" explicitly). So to say that a seasoned wine taster will show the same results as an average individual is the fallacy of weak analogy in that the wine taster is more likely to base his judgement on the actual properties of the wine, in comparison to his (extensive) past experiences than any random person would be.

Just because the average person can't do it, doesn't mean that nobody else can.

Gentlemen, there is an adage that says that perception is reality. Of course it is. We accept that something is real when many people perceive it the same way. Russel, I agree that the perception of a group with poor to modest experience in an area is one thing whereas the perception of a group of "experts" is quite another thing, and has a higher value. But what are the qualifications of an "expert" when it comes to honing. I think that since this isn't a science taught in a university we have to drop back to experience. And that's not a bad thing, experience is a great teacher. So if a group of experienced honers say that this stone works like this and that one like that then one should listen. So when it comes to Japanese hones, blaireau listens to O_S since I know that he has a great deal of experience. German Water Hones are a different story. Many members of this forum have these and understand them quite well. The same goes for Belgian hones. Lynn Abrams once told me that he almost always finishes a razor off an Escher stone and so does Tim Zowada. Now these gentlemen know what they're talking about, and my experience is that the Escher stoned are the high end European finishing/polishing stone. They are slow and the grit is very fine, probably upwards of 12,000, and the abrasive gets finer and finer while honing. I'm looking forward to the Japanese hone that O_S will ultimately find for me and see how it compares to the Kosher grade Coticule, a B/G Escher and a Y/G Escher. That should keep me entertained for a few months!

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

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.

That is exactly what my comrade and I have been doing for the past 3 months.
Here's the thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...-pictures.html
It gains very little interest. I stopped caring about that some month ago, since we're having much fun doing the tests and we're learning a few things anyway. But perhaps the lack of interest in a thread that at least tries to make a few objective observations, illustrates the audiophiles analogy. Maybe not.

I don't think honing needs a large progression through many hones.
I also don't think the placebo-effect of sharpness, caused by a high$ hone, lasts longer than one shave.
I like to think that a good hone shouldn't be all that critical about the steel it is honing.

Bart.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Yes, that is a phenomenon that occurs, but you are claiming it occurs all the time, which is false.

It is something that happends all the time and will skew all results, and needs to be factored into all claims. It does not mean that the claims might not be correct, just that annecdotal evidence is meaningless for determining truth.

Your analogy to wine prices/satisfaction does not specify whether the people in the tests were seasoned wine tasters, my guess is that they are not (most tests like that seek out "average individuals" explicitly). So to say that a seasoned wine taster will show the same results as an average individual is the fallacy of weak analogy in that the wine taster is more likely to base his judgement on the actual properties of the wine, in comparison to his (extensive) past experiences than any random person would be.

Just because the average person can't do it, doesn't mean that nobody else can.

And this is exactly the falacy that gets the audiophiles all the time. It is "you might not be able to tell the difference, but my highly trained ears can". If you want to be able to show your ability to differentiate then you need to use tests that are properly blinded.

Originally Posted by Bart

That is exactly what my comrade and I have been doing for the past 3 months.
Here's the thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...-pictures.html
It gains very little interest. I stopped caring about that some month ago, since we're having much fun doing the tests and we're learning a few things anyway. But perhaps the lack of interest in a thread that at least tries to make a few objective observations, illustrates the audiophiles analogy. Maybe not.

I don't think honing needs a large progression through many hones.
I also don't think the placebo-effect of sharpness, caused by a high$ hone, lasts longer than one shave.
I like to think that a good hone shouldn't be all that critical about the steel it is honing.

Bart.

Well a razor certainly needs to be sufficiently sharp to work, regardless of any placebo effect.

As for proper double blind experiment it would be pretty hard to do. You would need identical razors, and randomly assign each razor to any given shave, and make sure no one involved with gathering the data knew which one was which.

The other factor is that there might well be things that matter.

Audiophiles are an entirely different subject.

We're talking about stones that are used by people in varying fields of interest with entirely different goals in mind, but still come to the same conclusions about how those stones interact with various types of steel.

If the top woodworkers in the world, the most renouned knife sharpeners, professional chefs, and "experienced" straight razor honers all agree that stones from a given geographic area and geological layer have X or Y abrasive qualities, it's pretty safe to assume that they are not making it up, or being decieved by fanciful whims and wishful thinking.

Besides that, you can't make these kinds of claims without having tried the items in question for yourself. Not to be elitist or anything, but it's common sense that I could never judge whether an experienced coffee taster can trully discern the specific plantation in the specific country and region of growth of the coffee he is tasting, not to mention the factors of amount of roast that the beans had and how long they ago they may have been roasted in combination with how fine the grind was and the time that the coffee took to brew (if we're talking espresso). I could just never make that distinction until I amass a comparable repertoir.

And vice versa; that same coffee connoisseur would likely scoff at me for telling him that I think a certain blade in question is between RC 61 and 63 in hardness, made of low alloy carbon steel of minimum X percentage of carbon, and that Y stone would likely be more suited than Z stone because the abrasive qualities of Y will lessen the chance of microchipping while slowly working up to an edge that will be slightly rounded because of the slight slurry that will form during the honing process.


Furthermore, what do any of us have to gain by playing into this conspiracy?

Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle

As for proper double blind experiment it would be pretty hard to do. You would need identical razors, and randomly assign each razor to any given shave, and make sure no one involved with gathering the data knew which one was which.

We have purchased 8 new and identical "Double Arrow" Razors. I have removed the smiles on all 8 of them, because honing a smiling blade is more likely to suffer from slight honing inconsistencies.
Then we divided those 8 in two groups of 4. We choose 4 different honing paradigms. I randomize the first group, hone them, and hand them to Chris, together with the used hones. He then hones the group of razors that I will test-shave with. We compare, without knowing which razor was honed with which paradigm, 2 razors per test shave: n°1 with n°2, next n°3 with n°4, n°1 with n°3, n°2 with n°4, n°2 with n°3, n°1 with n°4. And then again. Over a period of 12 shaves, each razor is used 6 times. We use a standardized assessment sheet, judging several performance points. Only after finishing the complete test run, we reveal to each other the used honing paradigms.
Does that sound blind enough to you?
Our findings on the two first experiment runs have been surprisingly consistent. (the third experiment is still going on)

Bart, an excellent experimental design! Please give us the results as soon as you can.

Originally Posted by Bart

Our findings on the two first experiment runs have been surprisingly consistent. (the third experiment is still going on)

Bart, would you mind directing me to those results?
And are you and Chris proficient at shave quality consistency? I have the ability to seemingly go through the same shaving prep and process each morning with the same equipment and yet get different results each time!

Originally Posted by blaireau

Bart, an excellent experimental design! Please give us the results as soon as you can.

The details being in the original thread, the conclusions so far are:
1. For finishing with water only, there is very, very little difference between coticules, both in speed as in the resulting edge.
2. A Belgian blue with slurry is a good and meaningful mediator between a DMT1200 and a coticule with water.

Perhaps pretty obvious, but we felt like starting with basic things, and take it from there to more controversial methods.

3. Not entirely confirmed, because the tests are still running: [DMT1200 + 50 laps on blue with slurry + 100 laps on coticule with water] versus [DMT1200 + 50 laps on blue with slurry + a secondary microbevel (2 layers of tape added to the spine) of 20 laps on coticule with water]. The latter is noticeably keener than the former. There's no real difference that I can discern between the coticule-produced microbevels and one produced with the same method on my Nakayama.

Best regards,
Bart.