Thread: comparison of hones

well i bought my set of hones now and i should be in peace now but am not.
i just cant stop browsing the internet for information on stones(did i really buy what i want).
probably signs of the RAD.

however the more i looked the more my head buzzed. there is just no complete(or close to) table or info page for properties and experiences its all scattered throughout the internet for example i couldn't find the grit size of the Belgium whetstones blue and yellow but found that the yellow one(coticule) was compared to the thuringen whetstone but only by feeling. on a german page(MST-mueller.de) the thuringen was discrirbed as ultra fine which could mean 8000 to 12000(1.2-0.13 micron)according to there own international grit table. then on the dick.biz page i did find a belgium benge stone which looks like a coticule which has a grit size of 6000-8000. that all said it then says on MST-mueller.de that the thuringen is harder and finer then any other natural whetstone. But if anybody was asked which stone is better you would probably get answers of taste although they got such different proberties(hard,soft,fine,finer) not to speak of involving the chinese 12K or the ninawa10K or shapton30K or even just a norton 4k or 8k etc. . i mean even the gritsize does not seam of any relevance any more although any grit size over 1200 is a japanese grit sizes so they should all be in according relation.

well a very long story short wouldn't it be nice if we could form such kind of complete table honing stones?
a table which could put all that in a relation. that would probably be of good value in the SRP wiki space and could be extended to other razor related materials.

There is a sadly incomplete table here, but feel free to enter any data you may have to improve it

Hones - comparison table - Straight Razor Place Wiki

The properties of natural hones differ more widely than those of synthetic hones, and we may never be able to create such an accurate chart that includes all sorts and varieties of eschers, belgians, scottish hones, etc, but there's no harm in trying!

If you go to the SRP Wiki and read some of Bart's stuff on honing with the Belgian coticule here you will get an idea of how they work with razors. If you look for more of Bart's posts in the honing section he knows his coticules and talks about their characteristics quite a bit. They are a versatile stone.

I have been experimenting with my Eschers and I am finding out that they can be versatile as well. As far as grit size experts only give approximate numbers. As Lee said, with natural stones there are variables. IME the Escher/Thuringans are finer then coticules but like the coticule with slurry the cutting speed increases. As far as being satisfied .... if you have the HAD it never ends while your on the green side.

well their is hardly anything in wiki pedia hone collection but its basically what i mean.
Hey jimmyHAD thats what iam talking about people with experience like yourself could put the essence of their knowledge into one table. in your post you gave me already two places to look just for belgium hones, so even with just one kind of hone the information is alresdy scattered. it becomes quite dificult to just inform yourself to maybe get a general idea so one can choose easier.
so you could put a bit more information about the escher in that table and its relation to the thuringen since there is some confusion already. sorry that sounds bloody pushy i know
i mean the Acronyms_and_Abbreviations page is better assembled then the hone stone page and that doesnt feel right does it?

Well the thing is that I have no idea what the grit sizes are. I have inquired just as you are doing both by posting a thread asking about the differences in Escher color labeled hones and in PMs to known experts. It may be as Alan Watts defined Zen, "Those who know don't say, and those who say don't know".

This fellow at this website here thinks he knows but some of what he says goes against the hands on experience of myself and other forum members who have honed razors with these stones. Follow the links and you can see one guy's opinion on specific grit sizes. He may be close , AFAIK it is all approximate.

thanks i had a look on that page, cleared away the escher-thuringen confusion i had and gave a few answers for grit sizes.
but i can see why escher-or thuringen fans(by experience) disagree.
And i guess the definition of zen is spot on and yes i did talk a lot .
well i didn't mean for anybody to spend an awful lot of time on that nor to explain excessively to somebody who might not be interested...not me
i would think the same motivation to put together the ultimate razor page on wiki applies here, know i don't know if anyone of the knowing people wrote something for the razor wiki page or if they kept quiet in which case it wouldn't be as valuable.
however if nobody will i might give it a shot and maybe somebody will correct some of my errors or if other editors errors and that will do the trick.
Or after all that wonderful reasoning somebody else will start.

so there we go i have started to kind of update the wiki hone comparison page. obviously mostly descriptions found on many different pages and some comments as given in some forums.
well i hope i will not be beheaded if it is not good enough and i will refine it over the next weeks.
and i can again just ask for help on that one.
my head is once more buzzing and more and more stone types keep popping up the longer i look.

Bart was compiling some data on different honing experiences from different users, but I don't know how far along he has gotten with it, or if it ever went anywhere. If you send him a pm about it, he might send you an excel sheet that you can fill out and add to the collection. Every little bit helps.

Well I do not want to rain your parade, but the finer stones are more or less a matter of speculation.
There is almost no possibility to publish something of real evidence about the finer grits.
Maybe you want to read here

That the messurement isnt that accurate or guess work is a well known problem and on top of that you got the toleranz on grits which means that a FEPA 1200 grit allows for +/- 0.5 micron difference which could mean a world in terms of finishing and polishing. However i would think that the table shouldn't emphazise on grit size in terms of quality. But the grit size tells you which stone of the brand you need for repairing/finishing/polishing(whichever brand you choose the higher the grit number or the lower the micron number the finer the stone). Even if they are not directly compareable to other brands. And that is where help is needed, EXPERIENCE, i have none. If somebody has experienced that the naniwa super stones wears faster then the king waterstones then that is the sort of information for that table.
Or that a shapton30k leaves a super sharp edge but a clouded polish.
The grit size merely tells you if you could concider a stone for the job you have in mind. And you could then use the table to determine if the stone is realy suitable or you could choose straight from the table in the first place.
And obviously the confusion is big and the amount of discussions you find in forums throughout the internet shows that a table which combines experience and knowledge isnt such a bad idea.
So even if you'd left the grit size out, such a table would still make a lot of sense.