Thread: @cudarunner honing.

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

Ian, as I've said before, "It's what we, the Mentors, do."

And we Thank you for what you do for us!!

Out of curiosity, what was this razor finished on?

Originally Posted by eKretz

Out of curiosity, what was this razor finished on?

I've been an advocate of the Naniwa 12K as a finisher for quite some time as it's a real workhorse.

In fact I paid for and sent one to a good friend as he was being stubborn and didn't want to try it. Guess what, it's a regular part of his arsenal and he swears by it. He refused to accept it as a gift and paid me for my cost.

However a friend purchased and sent me a new hone to try. He said it didn't produce a sharper edge than the Naniwa but a smoother edge. It was a gift. :

I don't use pasted strops, while the have a use IF the bevel was properly set and then taken through the various hone, there is no magic in them that will fix a blade that wasn't properly honed, Plus I like the feel of the razor right off of the stone.

Back to the new hone. It's a very inexpensive Cnat. My friend had purchased it at FleaBay and I too found it. It was described as a 12K, but you can't grade naturals, you can only guess.

Ok, so I did my normal procession and I use slurry at ever step including on a finisher and then follow with clear water. I finished on the Naniwa with clear water of 20 nice light X-Strokes, then did 20 circles on slurry on the Cnat, followed by 40 X-Strokes on slurry, and finished with 20 very light X-Strokes on clear water.

25 laps on Illinois 827 linen followed by 50 laps on Neil Miller Linen, then 50 laps on the Illinois Russian leather and 100 on SRD English Bridle, then a full shave (that's my version of a 'test' shave) then 50 laps on the Miller linen and 100 on the Bridle, sanitizes, very well dried, oiled with Ballistol, packed and shipped home.

It worked well on this blade, I'm going to keep playing with the Cnat and see how it works on others.

I don't think that I could recommend it unless you've used the Naniwa 12K before it, but there again, I"m just starting to play with it.

Thanks for the response, much longer than I expected, lol. So basically you prefinished on the Naniwa 12k then finished on the PHIG. And did a holy moly amount of laps on straight leather, lol. Sounds like you got a good PHIG.

Originally Posted by eKretz

Thanks for the response, much longer than I expected, lol. So basically you prefinished on the Naniwa 12k then finished on the PHIG. And did a holy moly amount of laps on straight leather, lol. Sounds like you got a good PHIG.

To add a little more detail, I went with synthetic hones for a good reason and that is 'Repeatability' naturals have so much variance/one friend has Thousands invested trying to find the Holy Grail of Natural Hones. By the way I set the bevel on a Norton 4K with slurry, then went to clear water and the same on the Norton 8K.

To confirm, yes I pre-finished on the Naniwa 12K, but if I didn't have the Cnat, that would have been a finished edge and one that would be an outstanding shave.

I don't know if (I got a good PHIG) perhaps so or perhaps this particular razor reacted well to it. I just finished another Friodur using the same method and liked the shave. Only the owner will be able to be the final judge of my work.

Oh, as far as (And did a holy moly amount of laps on straight leather) my normal routine for daily shaving is 25 laps on the linen and 60+ on the leather. It's not uncommon for my good friend pinklather to send a razor home with over 200 laps on leather.

Damn that's a lot of stropping!

I used to only strop 10 / 40 linen and leather that was using blades pro honed by glen. so he already stropped the thing ,, I started a maintenance routine that he instructed me on, and then told him ,"ya my blade is staying sharp , but it was a little harsh coming off my naniwa 12k"well glen(god bless him for putting up with me) said I might be using the wrong pressure or I need more leather. well I started doin 150 leather after the stone and now its smooth again,, so now my pre shave strop is 80 leather post shave 20 linen and 20 leather stropping smoothes it out I,m not sure you can strop too much if your doing it right ,, now its still not as smooth as when I get it back from him ,, but heres to hoping!!! tc

I think Cuda is trying to kill me at this point. Been shaving for almost 7 months with straights, and every time I get one from @cudarunner I almost cut myself to death. Cuda... you're TOO good!!! Damn, man... I thought my shavettes were sharp! That new Friodur you sent me is amazing. And I'm saying that being on my 7-8th straight... truly amazing. I can't believe you grabbed that for the price you did, and thanks again for the hook up.

Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic

I think Cuda is trying to kill me at this point. Been shaving for almost 7 months with straights, and every time I get one from @cudarunner I almost cut myself to death. Cuda... you're TOO good!!! Damn, man... I thought my shavettes were sharp! That new Friodur you sent me is amazing. And I'm saying that being on my 7-8th straight... truly amazing. I can't believe you grabbed that for the price you did, and thanks again for the hook up.

Sorry Major, just had to chuckle, While I'm please that you like the edges, I have to give a lot of credit to those who made the steel : As far as any cuts, remember that you had been using a 7/8 for a couple of months or so and then went to a 6/8 and drew blood but once you made the angle adjustments and the lighter weight then you were fine, now that you've been using the 6/8 and gave this new 7/8 ago, you may have forgotten to make the angle adjustments etc. I think that you will be fine.

While I'm very proud of the edges, I think I'm almost more proud of being able to rebuild that 6/8 and make the pinning look nice. The 6/8 Friodur also didn't have any friction washers so I installed them after I'd cleaned and polished the scales and the pivot area.

And yes you got some nice prices on all three of your Friodurs and nice shaves from all of them and your Ralf Aust 6/8 is a nice shaver also. I can't wait to see how your R/A 5/8 comes out.

Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic

I think Cuda is trying to kill me at this point. Been shaving for almost 7 months with straights, and every time I get one from @cudarunner I almost cut myself to death. Cuda... you're TOO good!!! Damn, man... I thought my shavettes were sharp! That new Friodur you sent me is amazing. And I'm saying that being on my 7-8th straight... truly amazing. I can't believe you grabbed that for the price you did, and thanks again for the hook up.

Does this mean I am going to be bleeding soon?