Thread: God, It's Hard!

roughkype, thank you very much for the detailed advice. I'll follow it through. Just one thing though, I've got a Turkish Oil Stone and an Arkansas Stone(I guess it's the hard one but seems less fine than my TOS, it's pinkish) so do I still have to get diamond or 1k stones? 50/220 grit is also available in knife shops in Istanbul.

Originally Posted by fatcatmehmet

roughkype, thank you very much for the detailed advice. I'll follow it through. Just one thing though, I've got a Turkish Oil Stone and an Arkansas Stone(I guess it's the hard one but seems less fine than my TOS, it's pinkish) so do I still have to get diamond or 1k stones? 50/220 grit is also available in knife shops in Istanbul.

You're welcome, I'm glad it helps.

I don't know anything about the Turkish Oil Stone or Arkansas stones, except that the Arkansas stones are slow cutters and it can be hard to know what their grit size is.

The thing about the DMT brand diamond hones is you KNOW they're flat, so you know it's safe to lap your other hones with them. Perfect flatness isn't that important with the hones, but you do need to keep them clean of the metal particles. Also, most folks say that you remove as much as 1/8" (about 3 mm) from the 4k side of the Norton stone before it starts to behave. I have not done that with mine, and it's working OK for me.

If I didn't already have a 1k stone and a 325 DMT, I'd order that two sided one for myself. The fact that it's 8" long is also nice; you'll get a longer stroke when honing on the 1200 side, and it'll be easy to take care of your Norton. Since you have to spend so much for shipping, you might as well include this.

Finally, this is a pretty standard hone set for the users at SRP, so if you post with questions we can answer based on experience with the same hones.

I just searched the honing threads for the word "Turkey", and found not only a little info on your stone but also that there are a couple of other Turkish members here: kemerd who lives in Vienna, and ferroburak who lives in Ankara.

There was one estimate of up to 12000 grit for the Turkish oil stone, which would make it a good finisher. I hope yours is that fine.

Talk to you later, then.

There are very cheap aluminium oxide 180/230 grit stones for $2 around here. Would these do the trick for lapping and chamfering?

I'm really confused about Turkish Oil Stone now. Is it really that fine? I was planning to get another over 10000 range stone for finishing.

Merehaba FatCat

Just curious, where in Turkey do you live?

My family and I lived there for 2 years and we'd love to go back.

Hi Fatcatmehmet,

The 180/230 grit might be a little coarse for flattening your other stones, and you don't know if they're flat. That's important--good hones are, as you're discovering, very expensive. If you try to lap them with a stone that is not flat, you'll wear them unevenly. You'll either lap a dish into the center, or thin too much off the ends. I really recommend against saving money on your lapping hone. The DMT ones are very flat, guaranteed.

There are different systems used to refer to grit. 1200 on the FEPA scale is the same as 4000 on the JIS scale, or the same as about a 3 micron particle size. But natural stones can vary a lot. It's hard to say what your TOS really is. You could post the question in the honing thread, and see what people think of it.

The commonest AFFORDABLE finisher people use is a Chinese natural water stone, with a grit around 12000 (JIS scale, the same as your Norton). People abbreviate it as the C12K or the PHIG (People's Hone of Indeterminate Grit). Here's a vendor's link to that stone. I didn't see one like it at the site you're ordering your Norton from. There are also very fine Japanese natural stones, and antique German and English polishing stones, which can be VERY expensive. You might also consider a coticule in a couple more years.

You should post your question in the honing forum--tell what hones you're ordering now, and ask what people recommend for a finishing hone. The folks reading in that forum may not be reading in this one.

Good luck and best wishes.