Thread: almost shave-ready, but ready to go!

Good start and good luck.

You might want to ask A guy named Old School about your hone he knows the japaneese stones and how they relate to razors.

One stone is rarely enough even if it is enough! ;-)
You may want to consider a yellow coticule for polishing and maintaining your blades. It is a step up from the 6K. With a slurry, you have about an 8K stone. Honing with water only, you have about a 10K stone. The 8K/10K range is an approximation that will vary with stones but is a fairly good general rule for coticules.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Good start and good luck.

You might want to ask A guy named Old School about your hone he knows the japaneese stones and how they relate to razors.

Nice, thanks!

And many thanks for the advice! I guess razors from antique stores vary in condition. Ideally, I'd like to get any one I may pick up into shave-ready condition. In other words, MORE HONES!

--I'm not sure if the Mifune avatar is from Seven Samurai, though. My thoughts are that it's Sanjuro or one of the less serious flicks. .---

I'm a fan of natural stones. It really depends on how the stone cuts, it may be very good, or may turn somewhat less useful. I find that rarely is a stone unuseable, you just need to find what it's good for.
I'd say that if it behaves like a 6k stone, that's an medium coarseness and it may be good for bridging the bevel setting stage (1k-2k) with the finishing state (8k and up), or it may be very good for removing microchips. May be the edge off it is pretty good for shaving as is.
You'll have to find out.

Yup, who knows what it's going to turn out

Whatever it is - don't despair, you'll find some use. Btw, I hear some Germans on their site shared that they routinely shave off Blue Belgian or similars. Someone (Bruno?) shaved off under 2K once, and said it wasn't too bad. My grandfather also used scary coarse stones...

Cheers
Ivo