Thread: Natural equivalent to a 12k Synthetic

Originally Posted by jgjgjg

Gents, I'm forthrightly looking to add to my rockpile for no compellingly good reason. I got HAD bad...

The man's doctor told him he has too much money and not enough frustration...

JG - unless your experience on the stones vastly exceeds the experience of your 'join date', your AD's will do nothing for your edges. Its a state where your enthusiam (a good thing) obscures/overwhelms your objective - skill on stones, better shaving edges.

Growing the rock garden when new - lets you have exposure to lots of rocks (wonderful experience) but competency on few or none of them.

Its usually the case that nothing anyone can say will change that. You sorta have to come to that conclusion on your own.

If I could toss in a thought to the cauldron of excitement, it would be that there's no rock that will get you further down the road (especially not naturals) than honing a couple hundred more blades.

For now, enjoy the excitement. When the fog clears, you have some rocks to play with and the knowledge that its not the rock, its the rockhound.

I think the OP is going to have to buy at least 50 or 60 rocks to get an answer. Another 100 or so to confirm his suspicions. Isn't this the primary symtom of HAD ? Buy 2 stones call me in the morning :<0)

As you probably gathered there is no 100% answer. I will give you few types of hones which have the potential to be in your target group. Original YL/ LMs, CFs, LIs, Eshers, Thuris, some cotis, surgical and translucent Arks and WOAs.
However if you have not enough practice in honing you would be better with something like Naniva SS 10 000 or 12000.

Some natural hones could be "adjusted" to a certain grit by using slurry. Best example are coticules where a wide range between very low grit can be created by using thick slurry and more pressure and on the other hand very fine grades up to 14 k or even more with just using water without slurry and the weight of the razor itself.
The same you got with thuringians, but not in that wide range. Using blue Thuris with pressure honing and thick slurry will bring them down to a grit range below 10 k, using them with water only will take them as high as 14 k +.
But of course it needs a lot of experience to adjust the grit to the fineness you would like to achieve. Also the steel of a razor plays an important role honing on natural stones!

I consider my PHIG stone to be approximatelly 12K and I am very happy with it.

Not many natural stones will go over 12K level.
You can use a Thuringian, this will be the most consistent near that fineness.

Japanese stones will be higher than 12K but they vary a lot.

Coticules are 90% of the time not near 12K.

Whole lotta high grit numbers being tossed out there for natural stones with not one shred of proof..

Next thing you know every Newb will add 2k to your numbers and be calling it gospel..


The fact of the matter still is that Grit numbers are only accurate within each synthetic series of Hones, a 8k Naniwa SS doesn't even relate to a 8k Shapton.. I fact if you want to get real technical there is a difference between a 5k Naniwa SS and a 5k Naniwa Chosera...

The only fact is that a 12k Naniwa SS is a higher grit range then a 8k Naniwa SS other then that it is all conjecture and opinion.. When you start giving grit numbers to Naturals then you have stepped over to Myth...

Originally Posted by hatzicho

Some natural hones could be "adjusted" to a certain grit by using slurry. Best example are coticules where a wide range between very low grit can be created by using thick slurry and more pressure and on the other hand very fine grades up to 14 k or even more with just using water without slurry and the weight of the razor itself.
The same you got with thuringians, but not in that wide range. Using blue Thuris with pressure honing and thick slurry will bring them down to a grit range below 10 k, using them with water only will take them as high as 14 k +.
But of course it needs a lot of experience to adjust the grit to the fineness you would like to achieve. Also the steel of a razor plays an important role honing on natural stones!

That's an very important thing when it comes to naturals, some naturals just wont work with certain razors.
With synthetics you cant go wrong, then I feel they are a little like Volvos, they work but they're not that fun!

Originally Posted by pinklather

The man's doctor told him he has too much money and not enough frustration...

JG - unless your experience on the stones vastly exceeds the experience of your 'join date', your AD's will do nothing for your edges. Its a state where your enthusiam (a good thing) obscures/overwhelms your objective - skill on stones, better shaving edges.

Growing the rock garden when new - lets you have exposure to lots of rocks (wonderful experience) but competency on few or none of them.

Its usually the case that nothing anyone can say will change that. You sorta have to come to that conclusion on your own.

If I could toss in a thought to the cauldron of excitement, it would be that there's no rock that will get you further down the road (especially not naturals) than honing a couple hundred more blades.

For now, enjoy the excitement. When the fog clears, you have some rocks to play with and the knowledge that its not the rock, its the rockhound.

You're a real buzzkill!!!


I appreciate it!

And I know you're correct. The rockpile is currently big enough that if I were to croak over tomorrow, two of the four kids would have a complete set of hones from 'ultra-coarse' to 'ultra-fine'. The other two would each get a durn-fine finisher.

By the way....I found a small and not too expensive 'tiger striped' coticule on ebay this weekend. That'll scratch the itch.

And to bring the skill up to snuff, I'll be honing my razor every second shave. Not that it will need it. But I want to specifically practice razor honing and stropping.

You need more razors then!