Thread: Education

Damn! There goes my HAD flaring up again.

There's also the rare Butterscotch, Washita.

Originally Posted by Cattleman02

I currently have the 1k-12k shapton pro stones started out sharpening knives and got interested in SRs but not sure if they are very good for SRs

I used the Shapton Ha no Kuromaku (Pro) stones for years on a lot of razors.
They cut very deeply, not like diamonds but not far off. A heavy hand will make a mess of some razors depending on their steel. Some say the 1k is closer to an 800 grit. I reckon that's because they cut so deep.

Great for restoration due to the cutting speed but I always tended towards fininishing on Jnats. Having said that 12k to pasted chrome oxide & then iron oxide strops would save a lot of money on naturals.
The 12 k gives a laser sharp edge -- in the right hands and comfortable enough for me after pasted strops..

Originally Posted by outback

There's also the rare Butterscotch, Washita.

I also have what I believe is one of those glued in a box but it is cracked in half.

Are you sure that butterscotch isn't just oil soaked.....

Hello all, if you're going to recommend Arkansas stones to anyone then may I ask you to include a description or links to a process of preparing the surface of the hone for razor use. I have spent many hours trying to hone straight razors with various Arkie stones and was very frustrated with the results. I have all manner of those stones from various Washita stones, blacks, white translucent and a gray translucent.
What I never did was lap any of the surfaces on 320 grit valve grinding/lapping compound and burnish it with a steel.
Mine were all super slick and never, never improved the razor's edge.
I was saving them to use as foundation stones for my next outhouse.

You should send them to me Randy. I'll take good care of them.

Seriously though:
I have posted about this before. I'll see if I can findi it but i use sic to lap the rough and wet/dry for the burnished side, differing grit for different stones. As an example, the No1 I lapped on 80 grit for the rough side and 320 w/d on the burnushed side. That doesn't seem that far apart but the sic side is like a sidewalk and the w/d side is like a countertop. Wet/dry makes for a much smoother surface prep. With the hard transluscent I preped to 400 sic and 600 w/d.

Also, none of this is carved in stone (see what I did there?) nor is it permanent because the tendency of the stone is to revert to smooth rather than to rough so you can experiment and see what works best. I usually write on the side in pencil with arrows telling what I used so I can either change it if need be or do the same if it is working well that way.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

You should send them to me Randy. I'll take good care of them.

Seriously though:
I have posted about this before. I'll see if I can findi it but i use sic to lap the rough and wet/dry for the burnished side, differing grit for different stones. As an example, the No1 I lapped on 80 grit for the rough side and 320 w/d on the burnushed side. That doesn't seem that far apart but the sic side is like a sidewalk and the w/d side is like a countertop. Wet/dry makes for a much smoother surface prep. With the hard transluscent I preped to 400 sic and 600 w/d.

Also, none of this is carved in stone (see what I did there?) nor is it permanent because the tendency of the stone is to revert to smooth rather than to rough so you can experiment and see what works best. I usually write on the side in pencil with arrows telling what I used so I can either change it if need be or do the same if it is working well that way.

So 80 grit is 80 grit silicon carbide sandpaper? wet/dry is aluminum oxide or silicon carbide sandpaper?

Personally, I can only recommend starting with synthetic hones for a new guy. There is too much variation in the natural Arkie stones and the prep to get them suitable for straight razors.

Just my 2?

Oh yeah, I guess I didn't include the actual method. I use a hard glazed floor tile and sic powder. I bought mine on ebay from rockbottomlapidary1 but there are plenty of other sellers.
Sprinkle a small amount on the tile and mist with a spray bottle. Work the stone in a figure eight, back and forth, circles, just keep it moving and try to cover the whole tile to avoid it dishing. The Arkansas stones are so hard they will crush down the powder so if you are flattening also it will necessitate adding more powder as you go. Same process for the w/d side except clean the tile as clean as possible, spray the paper side and stick it to the tile. Range of motion is usually less because of the limits of the paper size but try to keep it streched out flat and smooth as much as possible but cover the sheet.