Mike take my Name out of this . It is Only Kelly my friend . He did same to me too.heheh
Printable View
Interesting Sham. After you hone for a while on that new hone put the hone on the microscope and see if you find any metal particles larger than the honing swarf.
__________________________________________________
Jimmy
I agree with you about the lower magnification. I have a 100X - 250X bench scope, a 60X USB unit for my laptop and several loupes.
The one that is most convenient for me while honing is a combination 20X - 40X illuminated loupe that I got from widgetsupply.com. Decent price too. You can definitely see a wire edge and any of those little feathers that peel off the edge while honing with the 40X.
Here is a photo of two of my loupes.............
Jimmy
Buy the 20x - 40x. You will be glad you did. widgetsupply.com
I don't know where you live but widget is in Oregon.
I just checked. The 20x - 40x illuminated is on sale for $7.97
They really work. Every member should have one.
It's so sharp, the razors stored NEXT to it shave better. Sham, you are the MAN! :beer2:
Seriously though: as alluded to earlier, I would guess it's some kind of quartz matrix-type stone with a slurry. Probably with enough crystalline size variability to give you the saw-edge look??
As to the sound(I will just pull an idea out of my arse here): Since the edge is serrated in appearance, the leading edge of the blade hit the hairs first, deforms slightly, then the "valley" finishes the cut.
The leading edge, since deformed, springs back into place with a micron sized *ping* like you get when you pluck a full hollow razor. This produces the crunching sound you refer to, when it happens across the edge (as hundreds of hairs are removed simultaneously) during the shave.
How's THAT for wild conjecture. Booyah!
Uhmmm if the razor, shave well i think you have found a stone working in a different way than we are used to, with the stone working more for abrasion than for mechanical abrasion, just to explain myself because i'm not so good in english, i think the stone works like the finishing stones for katana outlining the structure of steel ( hamon ), rather than simply polishing it
I've have a Narutaki stone that work in the same way, at first glance i think it was not so good, because the edge have the sawtooth pattern after the polishing phase, but the shave after sharpening the razor was absolutely fantastic, i would say among the best i ever had
So i think you have found a jewel stone, that's my strange conjecture
Regards
Luca
i have tested couple more razor 's on this hone. will do a little more and then i can say my final thoughts .
didn't have enough time recently to play with it.
So far i think it is stone not the blades.