Thread: natural duel stone a llyn melynllyn and dragons tongue

Thanks, that's like mine. So it's pretty old just as I thought.

Originally Posted by mrsell63

Leon

Here is my big old wooden box. It is also several decades old with no labels.


Attachment 89812

I did my first razor with this stone. A W&B 5/8 hollow ground with a barber notch that I got from an antique store a couple years ago. Used Norton 4/8 for the first honing and then went to the DT for 50 laps on water. Then stropped and had an okay shave (by my poor standards). Then today I lapped both sides of the stone on 220 grit wet dry. It was flat to start so the pencil marks came right off. I made a slurry on the LM. Honed on the slurry for 20 laps and there was a very soft feel with a little more "draw" than norton 8k. I diluted with a few drops then 20 more laps, then repeated. after this I rinsed the razor and hone and did about 35 laps on water. Then I did a few more sets of 10 laps each, checking with a loupe until the blade seemed fully polished and sharp. Was popping hairs with no noise on the toe and heel and maybe not as sharp in the middle. I shaved right off the stone, no stropping. Too bad though, it was pulling and not cutting hair. Many variables here and I'm not sure what I did wrong, but it seems I need to start over here.

Michael

My stones arrived friday night. 2 hones; both 25mm deep, 60mm wide and 203 long. Super fast shipping (they went out from the UK on tuesday and were hear Friday).

I lapped them yesterday, both to 2500k. I want to see what a polished hone does to the edge first. Then I'll take one hone back to a DMT 325 surface and test it against the 2500k.

Also, one is marked for water, and the other marked for oil. I realized that these grains are incredibly tight, but it's my obsessive self that won't let a water hone be used with oil.

I'll post pics later today when I get back from running errands about town.

Till then,

zephyr, i'm seeing similar things under my digital microscope, (though my pictures aren't as clear). With no slurry, I get scratches that look a lot like chosera 10k scratches, though a little less uniform (the LM cuts slower and not as aggressively, so the chosera-style scratch pattern isn't going to be there). They are surprisingly uniform for a natural stone, though.

The shave was surprisingly good off of plain leather, but I did have razorburn by the evening (that's just the way my skin goes, no razorburn with the shave, and then 12 hours later the skin is red and little razorburn pimples the next day).

So while the stone does leave a super keen edge (the LM that is), it is a bit harsh I think because its keenness exceeds its fineness.

I can very quickly keep the keenness and save the fineness by running a razor on an antique japanese stone after it (quickly meaning not many passes are required), otherwise i'm not sure I could get an edge any finer without irritation unless I go to using oil (and I don't want to make that move with this stone yet, as it might be an interesting stone to use for woodworking).

It is still a very good stone for the price, and I could easily live with diluted slurry and the sharpness at that level (but I don't have to).

The antique natural japanese hone is still king of the hill.

20-25 laps on slurry and 10-15 on plain water seem to dial out the harshness for me

Here's my two.

In the first pic, the oil is on the bottom, water on the top.

Second pic, the oil has been rubbed off, but you can see the difference in the colour of the two hones.

What's your experience with oil in LM? Do you use oil with slurry? Doesn't that make a mess? Or you only add oil to the stone after the slurry?

I'm tempted to try olive oil, but only after the slurry phase, what do you think?

Leon,

I haven't tested the oil yet. The stone I was doing my testing on belonged to JDTO, and I didn't want to put oil on the surface. If there is a chance that we can eek out a bit more from an oil stone I would go about it as follows:

Slurry on the water stone, dilute to water. Then water only strokes. Then over to the oil stone and a couple finishing strokes on it.

We'll see how it works. My purchase came with two stones, and I don't like selling things "just in case I need them", so I thought I'd turn the second stone into an oil stone once it was lapped.

DaveW, have you tried finishing with a light slurry instead of water? Some have earlier in this thread mentioned that it keeps the keeness and removes the harshness that way.
I have had no problem with harshness, but that might be my skin, but I will try it if anything just to see if it makes any difference to me.

The main surprise I got from taking the pics was the DT on slurry, it's quite a bit rougher than the Naniwa 8K, I would guesstimate it to be around the 5-6K area, but it smoothens out pretty fast when diluted.

Tested two of the Heljestrands today, one finished on LM and one on a vintage Thuri. The one finished on LM was honed on Chosera 1K, Shapton 2-10 (I think, it was Blix that honed it), the one on the Thuri Chosera 1K, Naniwa SS 3/8K and Dragons Tongue.

I shaved one half of my face with each razor, two passes, first WTG, second XTG/ATG.
The two razors performed pretty similar, both when it comes to sharpness and smoothness, no signs of harshness from neither razors.
If I was going to do a blind test of these two razors I would not be able to tell them apart (Bugger I just spent $80 on the Thuri )