Originally Posted by
Euclid440
Learn to hone on synthetic stones, once you have mastered honing, then experiment with Natural finish stones.
Adding a Natural stone, especially a slurring slate, is adding way too many variables to learning to hone.
Add to that an unreliable and completely unquantifiable “Test” and you are really extending your learning curve.
Minimize you variables and use proven, consistent and repeatable methods or you will be chasing your tail.
Learn to set a bevel and perfect a fool proof, 100 percent reliable test of when a bevel is set, like a visual test, by looking straight down on the bevel with magnification, looking for when the bevels are not meeting, then simply remove the previous stria with each progression, without damaging the edge.
You don’t even know what the grit of this stone is and if it is capable of improving the edge.
8K is all you need, once you have mastered that then look for something higher, most probably your Natural is not even 8K.
I have been honing for over 40 years and I could not tell the difference in the sound of an 8 or 12K edge cutting a hair. I defy anyone to, in a blind test… more importantly… it does not matter.
It means nothing, even if you could.