Thread: help me locate stones, thanks

You've done great detective work there. But the stone pictured looks different from the Chinese 12k I have.

I was looking on e-bay and seen a seller selling what seems to be the same stone, he called it a Chinese 12k, but like the one on the website you found, it looks 'blueer' then the normal 12k.

I don't think there the same stone, they at least look different.

Ah. '12k Chinese' denominating different kinds of stone might also explain the differing reviews: some exalting, most of them praising but a few outright vituperating (too coarse, 'polluted with metal', having damaging veins running through).

I feel some more detective work coming up - any clues like packaging, sellers, writing on the stone, ...? Is there a clear distinction between well-defined groups, or do we just know there appears to be more than one kind of Chinese 12k?

Incidentally: does anyone know if these can be obtained from Dutch resellers? Even more off topic: why don't we Dutchies have a club for these questions? I mean even the Nordics have their own - AND one for their excellent Eskilstuna wannahaves too! No, I'm not in the least bit jealous . O, and if we are going to have our own little place, let's incorporate the Flemish too - they seem to have (as always) the 'edge' when it comes to knowledge of the good things in life...

The 12k I saw on e-bay looked totally different to the one for sale by woodcraft and Classic Shaving (where I got mine)

Buy Natural Polishing Water Stone, Water Stones - Woodcraft.com

Razor Strops, Hones, and Accessories

The guy on e-bay has quite a few, and sells them at about 14 Euros, thats a lot less then 40 dollars that the main retailers charge. Also the ebay ones looks very blue as opposed to dark grey.

I would bet they are not the same, and the one on the website you, found looks the same to me.



On ebay the seller calls them 'Natural Polishing Water Stone (12,000 Grit)'

I'VE GOT IT!!!!.. this is the contact info to the chinese distributor of 12k stones:



hope that helped.

Originally Posted by Shavelle

I'VE GOT IT!!!!.. this is the contact info to the chinese distributor of 12k stones:



hope that helped.

I don't get it.

Originally Posted by Oldengaerde

Hi gilead,

This is I think the contact information you were looking for:

More information on their website. Let us know if my lead is correct, and if your bussiness is succesfull!


For those interested, this is how I found them:

Browsing this forum as a newbie, I came across your question and it seemed like a nice little puzzle to divert my attention from razors (my is SRP addictive!) and brush up my kanji-knowledge. First, I tried to find a picture of the packaging of the stones. Then I tried to read and reproduce the characters: "天然水磨石" (tien ran shui mo shi - natural polishing stone) and "廣西" (guang xi - traditional form for 广西 Guanxi). Search on that brought me (eventually) to another picture of the stone, this time showing parts of a leaflet underneath. The words 'company overview' are just visible. Magnification of the bit below this promising caption revealed part of the company name "... Kong Wah Tat (Tai?)... Tools & Hardware Ltd.". Some googling showed Kong probably to belong to Hong Kong, and the Tat/i most likely to be Tat. I didn't get very far with this; apparently, there a quite a number of companies named Wah Tat. I tried with the Chinese too ("華達", "香港" for Wah Tat and Hongkong) , leading me to numerous addresses but without a clear hit. Thinking I might be making this needlessly difficult, I started anew with just the two keywords "wah tat" and "tools & hardware". Bingo! The very first Google hit solved the problem.

Oh my God! Another translator!

Originally Posted by JimR

I don't get it.

just being corny....

Originally Posted by honersimpson

You've done great detective work there. But the stone pictured looks different from the Chinese 12k I have.

I was looking on e-bay and seen a seller selling what seems to be the same stone, he called it a Chinese 12k, but like the one on the website you found, it looks 'blueer' then the normal 12k.

I don't think there the same stone, they at least look different.

The stones in this ad by zib do seem to be same as I found. Let's ask zib to join in and tell us where he got them and what he thinks of their honing qualities.

And this is what zib answers (thanks again Rich!):

Originally Posted by Rich

Hi,

I received your message. The stones I speak of are the ones sold at Woodcraft here in the states and are from the Guangxi province of China. A great finishing stone. I didn't read the thread completely, but it seemed to be talking about Distributors. I don't know of two stones from that province, just the one. They may have multiple distributors, China's a big place. I'm no expert. I have one, I use it to finish my razors on. It' s a great finisher, A must have as far as I'm concerned. The slurry stone speeds up the process of sharpening. You should always use a slurry stone that's the same as the main stone. I would discourage using different grades/types of stones as slurries as this will alter your results.I hope this sheds some light, let me know if I can help more...

Rich

It seems that at least the Woodcraft ones (and, since previously described as corresponding to Woodcraft, the Classic Shaving's too) are the exact same ones as those googled. Remain only the eBay 12k's. I'm starting to believe these must be same too.

On Ebay the seller is Open Razor. His stuff is usually pretty good. I saw 3 different ads of his for the same stone. 2 of the pic's were a sky blue in color and 1 was dark like the original from woodcraft.
The descriptions are just about identical. I think he is selling the real thing.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...2BSI%26otn%3D4