Thread: Experimenting with my Thuringian

Hello good people,

I've been messing around with my natural stones quite a bit lately. I've greatly enjoyed much of the results, but some still leave me wondering . In general I have been bevel setting on my Belgian Blue, honing on coti I have both a newer ardennes coti as well as a smaller ( I believe finer) vintage coti. and finally I finish my razors on a thuri.

All of my results have been serviceable at worst, however one thing that keeps me wondering is that while I can get a wonderful edge out of finishing with about 25-50 x-strokes on pure water thuri, I have found that creating a slurry will sometimes diminish the edge (with as few as 5 strokes).

Another curiosity of mine is the polish on the edge itself. I find that when coming of of this thuri the edge looks to have a matte finish on it. Has anyone found this finish to be common or is it a better sign to have a mirror finish on your bevels?

Cheers,

Julian

Originally Posted by SailorJ

one thing that keeps me wondering is that while I can get a wonderful edge out of finishing with about 25-50 x-strokes on pure water thuri, I have found that creating a slurry will sometimes diminish the edge (with as few as 5 strokes).

Given that you have been using a coticule and a thuringian, I'm rather confused as to why you would be wondering.

The slurry of both of these increases the cutting capacity of each. When you follow your pure water strokes with slurried strokes, it is the equivalent of dropping to a lower grit hone in a synthetic progression.

Don't do that and you'll be fine with your "wonderful edge!"

I far prefer the edge on my Thuris finished with straight water. Some guys say they like a slurry edge but not me. On a JNat yes, but not on a Thuri. A matte or hazy mirror finish is not out of order if you used a slurry before finishing on straight water. 25 - 50 x-strokes on straight water isn't always enough to remove the matte/haziness from the slurry.

I get the haziness as well. I slurry and dilute to just water. Shaves are great. I don't need to see myself in the bevel

Originally Posted by Utopian

Given that you have been using a coticule and a thuringian, I'm rather confused as to why you would be wondering.

The slurry of both of these increases the cutting capacity of each. When you follow your pure water strokes with slurried strokes, it is the equivalent of dropping to a lower grit hone in a synthetic progression.

Don't do that and you'll be fine with your "wonderful edge!"

I should have been more specific, I was referring to finishing separate razors in one of two ways. some with a slurry then diluting it, and others just straight water. The slurry may be equivalent to a lower grit but I was confused about that as many proponents for slurry with a thuringian post here.

A lot of Thuris are soft enough to just slightly self-slurry also, so even some "straight water" finishes will be hazy if you don't constantly rinse the stone every few strokes.

to slurry or not to slurry in part is answered in the how big of a step are you doing. You can do really big steps in grit by using slurry, as it lowers the grit. However if you are going from a lower finisher to slurry it will initially drop your sharpness as you have just dropped in grit.

Originally Posted by eKretz

A lot of Thuris are soft enough to just slightly self-slurry also, so even some "straight water" finishes will be hazy if you don't constantly rinse the stone every few strokes.

I found this out a few months ago when I received my first thuri !! I don't remember the exact strokes but self slurry didn't take much if I remember ...

Nope, on average most of them only take 5 or 10 strokes to start self-slurrying a little bit. The harder ones maybe a little more.

There are a few things I have observed using my thuringians over the time. First point is the color of the thuri. As pointed out in other posts, investigations of different thuringian whetstone layers made in the 1960ths or 70ths showed that there is a difference of the yellow-green thuringians to the the other colors, especially the blue ones, concerning the upper size of the abrasive quartz particles incorporated in the stone matrix. Whereas in the yg layer the upper size of quartz is only about 10 microns it could reach about 50 microns in the blue layers.
Honing on a thuringian without raising a slurry, the difference in the colors -if you have good quality hones- is not very pronounced. On the hone surface it is not so much essential, if the particle size is a bit more or less.
Raising a slurry or if the stone selfslurries a lot, the effect is different. If the quartz particles are set free rom the matrtix, their size becomes more essential. Because thuringian stones are soft, the particles willl not dull and break while honing as it is the case with most harder stones. The quartz will be pushed into the softer stone matrix by a stroke but migth be loosened again with another stroke. And this larger particles can cause scratches in the razor and can degrade the keenness compared to a water only endfinishing.
Next thing is, if you raise a slurry with a DMT, you will knock out more particles from the stone matrix. Better is to raise slurry on a thuri with thuri!
And a last remark - even if the particle size of the quartz in yellow-green stones is less, the hone matrix is more soft and can be more easily slurried so that more quartz particles will be set free. Also the particle number of quarts could be enhanched in the yg-qualities compared to other colors. This could make the yg hones faster - even if the particle size is lower. That's a natural stone!