Quote Originally Posted by DaveW View Post
Definitely no reason to check SG on a hone that you're happy with. The standards are probably there centuries old because the original sellers would sell soft stones as hard to get a higher price, etc, same as folks would shave silver off of quarters.
Raises another question that I'm curious about. Softer versus harder in a finisher. I've come across a few Escher yellow/greens that, in addition to the y/g end label, had a label on the opposite end printed "guaranteed soft." Obviously a selling point if they went to the trouble of printing a label to advertise the fact. It seems that the y/g was faster than the other colors without sacrificing fineness. No question that hard novaculite stones have the rep of being slow while fine. I guess in a novaculite softer would correspond to coarser ?