Thread: stones set

Hi,

For now I have :

Naniwa 1k/6k, Chinese 12K, Cox0.5 pasted balsa strop, clean strop. And lot of newspapers .

This is enought for honing and everyday maintain or here is something missing element ?

Thanks

I know it's hard to know, specially when you don't have anything else to compare it with. That's how HAD gets you. But you are the best judge for that. If its giving you good shaves, you have learned to get the most out of your stones!

I don't own a Chinese 12k (natural), but I have shaved with a blade finished with it, and it was a very good shave! However, I think there are other finishers that are better than the Chinese 12k. But having said that, maybe you can put something in between the 1k and the 6k, or go higher to a 10k, before the Chinese 12k? It's hard to say without having shaved with your blades. Double O

Originally Posted by Double0757

I know it's hard to know, specially when you don't have anything else to compare it with. That's how HAD gets you. But you are the best judge for that. If its giving you good shaves, you have learned to get the most out of your stones!

I don't own a Chinese 12k (natural), but I have shaved with a blade finished with it, and it was a very good shave! However, I think there are other finishers that are better than the Chinese 12k. But having said that, maybe you can put something in between the 1k and the 6k, or go higher to a 10k, before the Chinese 12k? It's hard to say without having shaved with your blades. Double O

Thanks, I'm new in this hobby, what you mean as "best finisher" ? I thinking about shapton 16K, but Cox0,5 - is these 16K, so there is no meaning.

Welcome to SRP. If it were me i would keep the theme going and replace the chinese 12k, with a Naniwa 12k, its a workhorse finisher that yields good results time after time, the chinese 12k is also a good stone if you get a good one but its very slow and its results can be all over the place.

Originally Posted by arunas999

Thanks, I'm new in this hobby, what you mean as "best finisher" ? I thinking about shapton 16K, but Cox0,5 - is these 16K, so there is no meaning.

"Better" finishers than the Chinesse 12k, like mention before, Naniwa 12k, Shapton glass 16k, Shapton glass 10k, Chossera 10k and others more. Higher numbers don't mean better all the time. There is more to the stone than just numbers, like binders and mediums.

Better naturals, Zulu Grey, Turingian (turi), Coticule (selected finisher), many J-Nats (Japanese Naturals) and many more. Not that the Chinese 12k is not a good finisher, but its quality from stone to stone are more variable than than other naturals, and you wouldn't know which one you have until you try others or you are an experience honer (or shaver for that matter) to know that the stone it's not doing its job as a finisher. If you are starting to maintain razors, the best for you is a synthetic stone (finisher as above) in combination with your CrOx paste.

The CrOx is a polisher that would maintain a well sharpen razor for some time before you need the stones again to sharpen it. Use it sparsely and not often to keep your razors. The CrOx we use is .5 micron, which I think is like a 20k on stones, but because of the stropping motion, it doesn't cut steel as efficient as a 20k stone, so, it polishes more than it cuts (sharpen). It still sharpens, but IMO, not as much as a stone.

My first finisher was the 16k Shapton glass In combination with CrOx. I found that the edge out of the 16k, for me, was sharp but a little harsh for my face. After using the pasted strop with CrOx, it smoothed the razor for a close and comfortable shave. I could go indefinitely with this combo for many years, as long as I don't let the edge deteriorate too much or damage the edge with a nail or bad stroping or something similar. Double O

Originally Posted by Double0757

"Better" finishers than the Chinesse 12k, like mention before, Naniwa 12k, Shapton glass 16k, Shapton glass 10k, Chossera 10k and others more. Higher numbers don't mean better all the time. There is more to the stone than just numbers, like binders and mediums.

Better naturals, Zulu Grey, Turingian (turi), Coticule (selected finisher), many J-Nats (Japanese Naturals) and many more. Not that the Chinese 12k is not a good finisher, but its quality from stone to stone are more variable than than other naturals, and you wouldn't know which one you have until you try others or you are an experience honer (or shaver for that matter) to know that the stone it's not doing its job as a finisher. If you are starting to maintain razors, the best for you is a synthetic stone (finisher as above) in combination with your CrOx paste.

The CrOx is a polisher that would maintain a well sharpen razor for some time before you need the stones again to sharpen it. Use it sparsely and not often to keep your razors. The CrOx we use is .5 micron, which I think is like a 20k on stones, but because of the stropping motion, it doesn't cut steel as efficient as a 20k stone, so, it polishes more than it cuts (sharpen). It still sharpens, but IMO, not as much as a stone.

My first finisher was the 16k Shapton glass In combination with CrOx. I found that the edge out of the 16k, for me, was sharp but a little harsh for my face. After using the pasted strop with CrOx, it smoothed the razor for a close and comfortable shave. I could go indefinitely with this combo for many years, as long as I don't let the edge deteriorate too much or damage the edge with a nail or bad stroping or something similar. Double O

Thanks !!! So.... I set the bevel with naniwa 1k, after that I did some polisching on naniwa 6K, and then spend 1 hour wiht no-pressure x-strokes on chinese - at least 200 strokes) . After this long-lasting Zen expirience razor (Klas Tornblom 5/8 sweden) did not passes HHT, it shaves, but shaving is very uncorfortable !!! So.... any ideas ?

Today I planning one more meditation session (This chinese stone has no ability to cut the steel, but it seems to have ability to induce trance like state of mind. You know, it so smooth ).

Also today i did ordered naniwa 10 K. And I planing to use this progression : naniwa 1K, naniwa 6K, naniwa 10K, Cox 0.5, newspaper, strop. What You think ?

Comments from any member is very welcome !!!

Imagine the steel as a piece of wood. You want to sand the piece of wood into a very fine edge, you start with a corse sand paper, 60 grit or 80 grit, until you get the shape you want (1k bevel set). The markers you use to determine when the bevel is set are the most difficult to master when you don't have a mentor to guide you thru it.

The thumb nail test, the arm (or leg) root cut hair test and the loop visual check is what have worked for me to determine a good bevel set. A consistent drag along the edge on the nail, cut hair at the root evenly along the hole length of the edge and an even looking bevel on the 60x microscope is what I'm looking for. As you do more and more razors you get a better idea on how the test should come out for a good shaving outcome.

Back to the wood, as you remove a good amount of material you would use pressure on the wood. As you get close to the shape, you start using less pressure, so as to have less deep scratches before you move to the next grid. The next grit, 100 or 120, would remove the scratches of the 80 grit and leave smaller scratches for the next grit, until you get a very smooth surface to finish (strop). The shape of the wood (edge of the razor) is determine on the first few grits of sanding. The smoothness of the wood (smoothness of the shave) is determine by how polished you get it with the finer sand paper (finishers).

If you jump from, lets say, 80 grit to 150, the scratches of the 80 grit would take longer to remove on the 150 than if you would used a 100 or a 120 before the 150, if you can get them remove at all. I would have to use less pressure on the 80 grit to have much shallower scratches for the 150 grit to be able to remove them.

By going from the 1k to the 6k, you are making it harder on yourself. The finesse you would required on the 1k would be more of an experience honer than for a beginner. Then the amount of time on the 6k would have to be more than if you had a 3k in the middle. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it seems to me you are making it harder on yourself. You could try and see, experimenting is part of the fun with this hobby. You could use slury on the 6k to speed the process on the edge. It would be like throwing loose carbides of the same grit on the sand paper to have more carbides than the sand paper can hold by itself. By diluting the slury slowly you would also be able to do a finer job for the next stone. Pressure is the hardest thing to master. Too little and it doesn't do the job, too much and the shave would be harsher.

1k,6k,10k and CrOx .5 is a better progression than what you have at this moment. I would add the 3k as soon as you can. It will make life easier for you, I think! To me, the jump from 1k to 6k is like 80 grit to 150 grit on sand paper, yes it could be done but with much finesse from the woodworker. I would only do it if I run out of 120 sand paper. The jump from 6k to 10k is not as dramatic as the 1k to 6k, even thou the numbers jump is close to the same. Even 6k to 12k can be done. Is like going from 400 grit to 800 grit. The number jump looks big but the scratch pattern from the 400 can be removed with the 800. In the contrary, if you go from 80 to 200, that would be to much for the 200 to remove the deeper scratches from the 80 grit sand paper.

Hope this helps and hope you can take me up on the offer I PM you! Double O

Great answer, posts like this brings changes to my paterns of thinking about honing.

So.... my razor is semi-shave ready. He do not passes HHT when I use hair from my head, but passes it when I use hair from my abdomen

I just spend additional 30 min. with C12 and only with small circles on "clean" areas of the stone (no cracks and etc.). In summary I spend with c12 about 3 hours and did .... countless amount of strokes and it seems that I seted the bevel with C12 . This was thruly "1 stone honing"

I know this result is far away from "professionaly honed", but it worth to be shave-tested. So now I'm just waiting for 3 day-beard....

So... before shave I did hyper stropping session - about 400 laps. Also did beard prep with hot towel. Shave was comfortable and result ..... new born baby skin . But all it's not as perfect as I want. On some places I did 4-5 passes to obtaint clean skin. So the sharpness is not enough and my shaving skills is poor for now.