Thread: Newbie rockhound in Ohio looking for advice

I am a newbie rockhound looking for a bevel setter in ohio that I can use on SR to set the bevel with. First question is are their any rocks around the Columbus ohio area that I can use for this purpose? We have a lot of granite. If I find some flat rocks how do I go about preparing them to hone a razor? I have heard you can use a belt sander to smooth them out with, and then do you polish them or what. I surely don't want to ruin a good razor. Third question is, I thought about getting a 10 inch tile saw to cut the rock with, thanks for any feedback.

Have you set a bevel yet ? I would try that first. Rezdog is a rock hound I think you might ask him. As I recall what your trying to do is hit and miss at best. Cut it and lap it like you would any hone with a DMT or Atoma.

+1 to what 10pups said. Learning to bevel set on a synthetic was hard enough. I'm still not expert. My foray into naturals is another ballgame. A fun one, but if you haven't done the progression on synthetics I just think they're so many variables to naturals it'll give you fits.

To put it bluntly...

Natural bevel setters suck.

I don't want to ruin your rock hunting adventure. Maybe you will find the holy grail of hones but the odds are not good. What bevel setters have you already used? I ask because you need a standard with which to compare to any candidate hones you cut.

I wish you happy hunting!

There's a thread called "I found it over there" that you'll probably enjoy; just do a search. Good luck and have fun.

I don't want to kill your enthusiasm because what you are looking to do is good times!!

But if I may, allow me to express how I would go about it were I starting over:

From the offset, you should have a set of synthetics. Honemasters use them. Japanese knife experts use them - you should use them. Especially when starting! You need the consistency when starting especially. Its hard enough to hone never mind trying to figure out grit and the idiosyncrasies of a natural stone.

As you progress with your synthetics, you'll become aware of what you want from a grit or stage in your progression... and what a grit will do for you. This knowledge is invaluable to understanding your natural stone that will have quality's all its own.

Once you begin to understand your synthetics, start your natural hone collection. The best part of this is, you can buy one/make one stone at a time, learn it (and yes you'll need to play with it and learn it), and move on to what you'll need next.

Natural stones are awesome!! And they'll not only last a life time, they are great candidates for passing onto the next generation. But they take work and experience. This will be a pleasure if you have a set of synthetics to compliment them.

Well that's my two cents. I started natural and wanted to stay that way. But learning naturals and how to hone a razor was a nightmare for me. When I got a set of synthetics, the world opened up and I learned not only how to hone my straights, but the strengths and weaknesses of my naturals!

Good luck!!

They sell units made to cut and polish rocks which contain a trim saw and grinding and polishing wheels and there are stand alone lapidary saws.

You can't just get a rock and turn it into a hone. very few rocks make good hones unless you want to sharpen a battle ax or similar.

If you have any old quarries that's the first place to look. otherwise, the old fashioned way is read what makes a good hone, identify the rock, go to a library and pull the Geologic Maps and overlay them on Topographic maps and go out and look for rock outcrops. That's how you do it.

I do quite a bit of rockhounding. I'd say look at what is there. I've never heard of a granite hone before. I think thebigspendur had it pretty much right. Basically you are looking for sandstone, shale, slate and novaculite for making hones. There are very few natural bevel setters. There are a few more natural finishers and there are a lot of natural intermediate hones. I have found a few good finishers, nothing in quantity, because even when you do find one there is no saying that the perfect conditions that made that one extend anywhere. I have never found a bevel setter, but I keep looking, and keep using my Norton. I think in North America there have been so very few people looking that there is no telling how many hones are out there. There is of course a whole getting a rock to be a hone process that mostly involves a lot of time. 10pups is right you can PM me and we can have this discussion at length and there are a couple threads around here as well. Also once you find a good one you do need to be able to use it and it is easier starting with synthetics. Your join date it quite recent and I have no idea what you have accomplished before getting here.

Thank you for the great advise, I have been on the road for the past 4 day and this is the first chance I had to reply, I am using a King 1k/6k and a 12k Chinese stone to finish with, I also use a dmt course that I lap with, I am still learning to hone a bevel and not doing to bad with it, with all the advise it sounds like I should be using what I have until I get a little more experience honing, I just bought a used dovo with black scales and was going to get it ready to shave, I am using the King for bevel setting and I can cut hair off my arm with the 1k but not half way up, I have a 10x loop but cant see the bevel very well. I go through the 6k and then the 12k and have tried using slurry and lather to finish with but the razor is not quite there. I get a shave that pulls a little and skips over the beard in places. Sounds like I need a little more honing experience.

6K to 12K is a big sep up. It takes a little experience to make big steps but is totally doable. Glen and Lynn were doing a 1K to finish on one stone thread a while back. So you really can do it but sometimes it's not about the tools but the hands using them. I have played with it a little bit and just find it less frustrating to put another hone in the middle.