I just ordered one of these stones, and was wondering if a Norton lapping stone is adequate for lapping this natural stone? Anyone here own one of the La Roccia stones?
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I just ordered one of these stones, and was wondering if a Norton lapping stone is adequate for lapping this natural stone? Anyone here own one of the La Roccia stones?
I use whet and dry or my diamond hone.I own a Norton lapping stone but rarely use it because it is really rough.I was gifted two Imperia stones recently and was pleasantly suprised at the level they can finish at.good luck -CAM-
I lapped mine on 1/4 inch glass and several different wet/dry grits
Norton lapping stones are for their soft synthetic waterstones not naturals.
Wet and dry sand paper on a granite tile from Lowes/home depot. or use loose grain silicon carbide powder on the aforementioned tile in the place of sandpaper..... or use a diamond hone .
silicon carbide powder works as well if not better than the sand paper.
Much better, IMO.
Can anyone point me to prior discussion on speculation of what the stones actually are?
Anyone with any clue on fineness vs. something like a y/g escher or other stone that is well known and consistent?
not myself ,however I have a vid I made using an Imperia as a finisher and I am making another tonight I hope .I found it slower than a 10k king waterstone personally yet very keen imo.
My La Roccia arived, and I purchased some 320 wet dry 3M sandpaper. I spent about two hours getting the surface nice and smooth. I see some very very fine narrow groves here and there, but for the most part, the stone is very smooth. Would those narrow groves negatively affect the stones ability to produce an edge? Do I need to remove any hint of imperfection for the surface before I use this stone?
I don't have that hone, but those small scratches will not harm the function of the hone. I call them negative honing surfaces. They are below the plane of the cutting surface and will not have any impact on your edges.
Slate stones should be used with slurry, using the same material for the slurry stone, regularly. The act of building the slurry helps to minimize lapping and ensures a fresh surface. Higher polish is neither needed nor desirable. Higher polish will do little to get a finer finish, and will certainly slow the speed of the stone down noticeably. If you use only to finish with clear water, you are missing out on 60% of what the stone can do.
Just MHO
Cheers
These are very few, fine scratches, mostly at the ends of the stone, running for a half inch or so along the length. There are one or two spots near the center where the scratch seems to be in a swirl or a loop, but they are not noticeable without very close inspection. From what I'm hearing, nothing to be concerned about.
The hone comes with a slurry stone, but getting a slurry with it is fairly difficult. Polishing the stone as bigeasy1 pointed out makes building a slurry that much more difficult. In the end I took the unconventional approach of using the 320 grit paper to build the slurry on the slurry stone, and then used that to start the slurry on the hone. Seemed to work fairly well, but I'm not sure if I introduced any contaminate from the 320 grit paper. I used this as a finisher on my Dovo, after an 8K. Starting with a milky slurry, using 50 passes, strop, followed by 50 more passes. Re-wetting the stone after ever 10 passes. I'll be shaving with this in the morning, but I do see a definite difference in the hanging hair test. Most notably, in the past, the razor always rung when I sliced through a single hair. Sort of a TING sound. Now when the razor passes through hair, it's a much more quiet TICK sort of a sound. Anyone know what I mean? Not very scientific, but very noticeable. The shave in the morning will tell.
There is always a possibility of introducing contamination from the paper. I turn my slurry stone on the corner of the edge, make circles down one side of the stone, and back up the other. With less of the slurry stone hitting, it will start the slurry faster. Once the slurry starts, it will help to build more. This is a slower stone to slurry than many, probably a little harder than most? First time using an edge, there is a chance of larger pieces breaking loose, so watch for that. If it happens, just wipe the stone and start over. Or you might use that 320 paper to round an edge some, then rinse the slurry stone, and start from there. With slurry, there is no need to hone to 8k before this stone. It will polish from 4k or less very quickly. Once a good polish is achieved, go to clear water. When you think it is very close, go to lighter pressure and continue a few more strokes.
That lower sound on the HHT is usually an indication that the hair severed more easily. Wetter longer or sharper edge. Unlike synthetic stones, will take a few uses to really learn its capabilities. Have fun.
Cheers,
Sorry, forgot to ask, why do you strop part way through?
These are very soft stones, do not use Silicon Carbide you run the risk of imbedding grit into the stone, Wet & Dry 320 on a cookie sheet and a flat piece of cement floor or better yet, a Diamond plate.
There are a lot of good, inexpensive Diamond plates now and if you are planning on honing, a 50 dollar investment for a quality plate, is cheap for the dividends it will repay.
If you are finishing, use lite slurry and dilute to clear water or you may find yourself going backwards.
Don’t get caught up in hair test, they have nothing to do with the shave.
Slurry is an art form, some slurry will continue to breakdown and finish at a higher grit than the stone, but some don’t and then bang against the edge, dulling it, going backwards.
You have to experiment to find a combination that works best for your particular razor. Always use lite pressure, heavy pressure with slurry will micro-chip an edge, and then you have to hone past that edge to get to good steel.
These are fun stones, but I doubt they are close to 12K, much less 15K. They can finish and produce a shaving edge, in the right hands.
After 50 I stropped and did a HHT to see if I could perceive any difference from finishing with the 8K to finishing with the La Roccia. At 50 passes There was little difference that I could tell from the HHT, but after 100 total, I noticed a definite difference from a ringing TING to slight TICK from the HHT. So the stropping was just to test the blade midway.
The morning shave was noticeably better than my normal shave off the 8K, but no huge difference.There is a spot along my neck where the razor use to skip a bit with most shaves. That same section on my neck shaved very smoothly this morning, and that was the most noticeable difference. For my first go around with this hone, I'm pleased. For less than $40.00 shipped, I got a better edge with not much experience on this hone. I can only assume that with more experience things will improve.
I tired producing a slurry from the corner, but got nervous about scratching up the hone, so abandoned that approach. Glad to hear my instincts were not far off. Are you using the long corner to start the slurry, or the tip of the slurry stone? How much pressure are you applying initially with the slurry stone on the edge?
As for the HHT, although it isn't a judge of 'shave readiness', for me, it's a quick test of how the edge is progressing. It primarily answers the question "Is it getting sharper". As a noob, that's important to me while my technique is improving. The report of the razor passing through a single hair also provides some feedback as to where the edge is. I believe that performing a HHT, using hair from the same place and type can supply some usable information. I'm still a newbie, so my opinions are subject to change.
I agree. I've never had a good shave from a razor after a poor HHT. I have however had a poor shave from a razor after what appeared to be a good HHT.
This was the first time for me that a HHT produced a quieter report from the razor. From the comments above, I am assuming that a toothy edge may produce a slight tug on a single hair, and a louder report at different spots along the length of the razor. Not sure about that, but I'll try and test it out.
I've seen toothy edges give silent HHT 5s and very irritating shaves.
So… you are saying you can tell the difference in keenness of an edge by the sound it makes?
Ok…
Even if that is possible, keenness is just half of honing a razor, it may work for knives, buy you don’t shave with knives.
Anyone can do sharp, you can hone and strop on Diamonds and get an edge that will “pop” hair all day long. But you would be shaving with a serrated edge.
What does the “edge” look like and more importantly, how does it shave.
Maybe you have some special skill, but when other people who do not know better read this kind of post, they believe they should be able to do the same and it is not relative to shaving.
And then they are off, chasing an edge that will “pop” hair.
No special claims or abilities on my part. Only observations that I'm trying to connect with experiences. I mentioned HHT here because of an observation that was different after honing on this stone. Being new to a lot of this, I don't really know whither those observations matter at all. The comments I'm getting back, positive and negative are helping me to validate whither I should tie that observation with this last shave experience. You're fairly convinced that I should throw any HHT observation out with the toilet water. Ask me about HHT in a year, I may join you in that opinion. But for now I'm seeing some repeatable patterns that have some value. Not valuable enough to say a razor is shave ready, but enough to say that the edge is not getting more dull, or the edge is getting more sharp. For a newbie, that's valuable. For someone with more experience, MMV. Viva La Razor!
EDIT
Just thinking how funny that would be.
Slurry AKA
The Blade Whisperer
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.
Well I see a lot of personal preferences being touted here.that said naturals are how I learned to hone with and therefore I prefer them.I've shaved off of my Imperia hones and get repeatable results with my two hands.ymmv .
by the way,the hht , thumbpad test etc are all tools in an arsenal of any honer .before USB Scopes there were Guys taking the time to test each stone to (his ) satisfaction .cheers -CAM-
I honestly appreciate the advice and see the value in it. I'm probably taking myself a lot less seriously than you may be. I will stand by the observation that I noticed differences in cutting through single hairs with one razor pre La Roccia hone and post La Roccia hone. It's that so unimaginable. In the shadow of 40 years of experience I would probably be as unimpressed as you. But in the infancy of a whopping two months honing experience, what may be superseded by years of accumulated knowledge to you, still is valuable to me, as well as others more senior than myself. Like I said earlier, let's have this conversation again in a year and I may totally agree with you. But today you are talking to a noob who will likely believe what he believes until he has seen the proof or dis-proof himself. If the HHT is worthless, I'll figure it out with a little help from my friends. ...and thanks for the help.
So this evening the plan is to take the remaining two razors I use regularly, and put them on this hone as well. They both shave well now, but would like to see how they perform after using this hone. Is there anything I should do to prep this razor like going back to the 8K before I start on the La Roccia. With the insight I've picked up here, I hope to improve on the results I obtained the first go around. Since I've lapped this with 320 grit W/D I'm assuming that it will work more slowly than if I had used 600, as suggested above. Would 100 passes be good, starting with a light slurry, and water after every 10 passes?
It is certainly possible to hear the difference in HHT between edges when testing full hollow ground razors. It is the razor that makes the sound, not the hair. A razor that makes a little ping or ting when cutting through is not as keen as one that silently cuts through in most cases. Not the case every time, but in most cases. As noted earlier by Vic, a razor that passes HHT with flying colors may or may not shave well, but one that fails HHT almost always does not.
Here are my thoughts on these stones. I have both and for the sake of differentiation Ill refer to them as the seller does, the 10-12k and the 12-15k. The seller is off in his grit estimation at least when it comes to my stones. Neither are as fine as claimed. That being said my 12-15k definitely improves upon an 8k edge.
For me the stones re quite fun and a pleasure to hone with. I love the feel and feedback. The fact that the grit ratings are overestimated is somewhat disappointing but it far from renders the stones useless. In fact for me they fit very well in an all natural progression their role is just not what one might initially think it would be given the sellers estimations of grit. The 12-15k could definitely be used just fine as your finisher. That being said the roles they play when I use them are taking the blade post bevel set to my finisher (a guangxi). The speed with which these stones cut compared to say a guangxi or a dragons tongue or welsh purple slate makes them different from these other slates.
You can eaasily set your bevel on the stone you choose for that task, use the ILR 10-12 followed by the ILR 12-15 which could function as your finisher or as it does in my case your final pre finisher followed up by my finisher which is my Guangxi.
If I was looking for an inexpensive natural pure finisher I would choose the Guangxi over this stone.
If I wanted a versatile stone with some decent speed and that could cover a broad range efficiently taking me from bevel set and serve as my finisher as well I would choose the ILR.
If I wanted and natural to fit in my progression that would take me from bevel set to my finisher and do so efficiently I would also consider this stone.
All in all these are fun stones, that are great for the price, that can function as your finisher if need be. The feel and feedback on these stone makes them different from other slates I have used and I like them. I am definitely not sorry I got them.
The recent availability in the last few years of these inexpensive slate hones has been great IMO. It has allowed people to switch to naturals at very reasonable prices. Also the edges that can be achieves of off some of these stones is really astounding IMO as well. While the ILR will prob never serve as my finisher as I really love the edges off of my guangxi, it certainly has the ability to do so if need be and is a fun stone I am glad I acquired.
Paper cutting discussion moved here:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...ng-razors.html
Start with 60 grit loose SiC and watch your troubles lap away like waves on a beach, lol.