Thread: Making a new honing stone...

Originally Posted by 0livia

Beautiful!
Well the Pyrite would not be a problem cause its much softer than everything else you need for honing.
Have you tested it yet?

Actually Olivia, even though Pyrite may be softer than hardened steel, I had a Nakayama Asagi stone which I had purchased from So Yamas.h.i.t.a (obscenity filter work around). It was a beautiful stone. On close inspection it had noticeable albeit very small pyrite inclusions. These inclusions during honing would at times release from the Asagi stone. Upon close inspection using my stereo microscope at the time, I surmised that the Pyrite was causing some micro-chipping of the razors edges. I was honing carbon steel razors that did not exhibit micro-chipping when other high grit stones were used. So and I ended up surmising that while the softer Pyrite had no ill effects on woodworking tools like plane irons and chisels with th more obtuse bevel angles, etc., the Pyrite was having an impact on the finer edges of straight razors.

All in all So went above and beyond in rectifying the situation by sending me, someone unknown to him, TWO excellent Asagi specimens from Australia to the U.S. (while he had not even yet received the one I returned to him as it was still in transit back to him) to work with and choose the one that I wanted as a replacement. I picked one and Bill_S ended up buying the other one. Apparently Lynn tried Bill_S's Asagi at the recent Razorcon meet and was equally impressed.

Here are some pics of the original returned Asagi and its Pyrite inclusions since I know you like hones. The graduated lines of the reticle are in millimeters:









Chris L

Thank you for posting this, Chris!
Pyrit | 6 - 6,5 on the Mohs scale if that chart is correct.

I was actually wondering, cause MST Müller praises his Thuringians to be free of them.
Just bought one recently which - to my surprise - has them in lots.
Haven't tried to use it yet though.
Will test and see.

Originally Posted by 0livia

Thank you for posting this, Chris!
Pyrit | 6 - 6,5 on the Mohs scale if that chart is correct.

I was actually wondering, cause MST Müller praises his Thuringians to be free of them.
Just bought one recently which - to my surprise - has them in lots.
Haven't tried to use it yet though.
Will test and see.

I'm very interested to hear whether you find the pyrite inclusions in the Thuringian stone have any effect on your edges. Maybe you can start a thread showing pictures of the inclusions under magnification?

Chris L

I'll be happy to do that (on the weekend hopefully),
just my possibilities to enlarge something are a bit limited.

I've had pyrite inclusions in various hone attempts and it has never ended well for the razor

I also had a particular barber hone with what I thought to be pyrite and it was hard on edges.
Unfortunately it was unmarked and I can't be sure who made it.