Thread: Update on bargain bin Charnley

Hello all,
just a little update on the second stone in this topic (the CF)
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...ng-please.html
i picked it up for a real bargain price, but as you can see in the pictures it was in need of quite a bit of love.
Well after several packs of Wet&Dry paper and some good ole fashioned elbow grease...................

I have a very drab green 10" charnley. I thought it was coarse at first but it probably just needs surfaced better. My vintage trans Norton is much nicer but I think my charnley would shave fine.

I bet yours will work just as well. I really like mine with oil/smiths solution.

So far i have used it with straight water and diluted smiths, im trying to find which of my razors like it, some seem to prefer the itty bitty Thuringi.
I remember a while back reading that some one prefers finish A with German steel, and finish B with Sheffield steel ect, im starting to get an understanding of this.
Some seem to just love Belgian stone too.
I only have 6 razors hehehe, i will get the best from each at some point

I hope it came to you already lapped, those things can be a lot of work! Great looking stone and it is true some steels like them and some not so much.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

I hope it came to you already lapped, those things can be a lot of work! Great looking stone and it is true some steels like them and some not so much.

It did not, there are a few pictures of how it arrived in the linked topic but i will drop them in here


It only cost me £9 ($14 ish) so it was worth putting in the work to get it in shape. But yeah, lapping it by hand with wet n dry was a bit more of a job than i expected

Mine lapped fairly easy. I think it is a tad soft for novaculite. It still glasses over nicely and doesn't absorb oil or water.

I am curious to try a harder sample and see if a more refined scratch pattern is evident. Mine is still harder than basically any non novaculite, it just lapped easier than a trans arkie.

I'm not sure any of them are as hard as arkansas stones if that's what you're thinking for comparison.

They're still novaculite, though, so as long as the razor isn't some ridiculous hardness (like mid to high 60s) and as long as it's not soft (like 57 rC), you should get a good edge with every razor you put on it.

I noticed with mine (i used it for tools) that it wasn't as tough as an arkansas stone and you could nick it with plane irons and chisels if you were too careless. Not badly, but it left a mark.