Thread: Of Friodurs and Welsh Slates...

Dear All,

i have a friodur 472 in the post to me.
having sold all my hones (what started with one ended in many) a few years back i would like to get just one.

I mean it, just one hone only.

i wont be doing any restoration, just touching up the razor as when required.

i was interested going down the welsh slate route.
there is the dragon tongue (8-10k) , the lynn mellnlyn (10-12k) and the cambrian (15k).

i have read the friodurs keep a brilliant edge but require a bit of work on the hone.

apologies for being so specific but which ONE hone would you recomend to keep my friodur keen, sharp and smooth?

and any advice on honing technique for this razor and or these type of hones?

thanks in advance,

danny

Well, first of course, you will need to make sure that the razor is truly shave ready. Assuming that, you are correct that it can be maintained indefinitely with touch ups.

Based upon what you posted, I assume that you are referring to AJ's stones on ebay. About three years ago those were suddenly all the rage and many here purchased them from him. Grit ratings for natural stones, however, are at best meaningless and can be downright misleading. (Not a knock on AJ, he seems to be a stand up guy.) Most of those stones compare to somewhat lower grit synthetics in terms of the edge we get. Since I have a vintage Llyn Melynllyn I did not try his purple slate but did buy one of his "hard black welsh slate" stones and find that it can deliver a very nice edge. Again, I don't know about his purple slate but the black one gives me an edge that might be a little keener than the LM but perhaps not as smooth. Most people find the Dragon's Tongue to be coarser than advertized and few shave off of it but, rather use it in a progression to another finisher.

Unless you really want to stick with a natural stone, I'd suggest instead the good old 12K Naniwa. It's a good predictable and consistent finisher.

Good luck.


rs,
Tack

Thanks Tack,

Yes the razor is coming professionally honed.
A 12k naniwa will at least do what it says on the tin.
Thanks

I have used two of the purple hones. The one was very nice and belongs to a friend, the other I bought based on my experience with my friends hone. Natural hones are all unique and mine is quite different than his. Mine does deliver a nice smooth shaving edge, but it is very slow. It takes quite a while to finish an 8K edge.

As others have mentioned your biggest challenge is finding the hone which is working as intended. Any of those three stones may be brilliant finishers or may be completely useless as finishers. I have seen some folks test some of those very type of hones and they came up short of expectations but that's how it is in the natural hone world. A reputable source that can vouch with confidence on a hones abilities to perform is paramount otherwise its the void.

If you are talking about the stones from AJ I have found the following:

I use the Grey after my 8K Norton with a bit of honing oil on it and finish with red and green paste.

This has worked well for me with the 1K - 4K - 8K Norton - Grey progression.

I have not got the hang of the others yet because the above works well but have mucked around with them a bit.

get a good barber hone tc

For a natural I would get a thuringian or coticule as with a little slurry they are pretty versatile and will deliver a smooth keen edge

Maybe a Swaty...?

Any stone that works a middle of the road vintage carbon steel razor (which is pretty much any suitable razor finisher) will do fine with the friodur. They are stainless, but I don't think they're as hard as carbon steel razors, and that gives them decent workability on a natural stone.

Just get a decent stone (if it's the slate you like, then give it a try) and use it well and make sure you're using a good strop. If the stone is lacking, green chromium powder will take care of the balance of the work very quickly.

More thought is required for some of the more exotic modern stainlesses driven to high hardness (as in, you have to start looking at carbide hardness compared to abrasive particle hardness), but my experience with a half dozen friodurs and other maker's marked razors made from friodur blanks was that all of them sharpened perfectly fine with the same stones I use for other razors. they are cryogenically hardened which distributes their carbides and eliminates the common problem of having to be able to abrade the carbides (you'll hear old timers tell you that you can't sharpen a stainless knife to a sharp level because they probably dealt with a lot of stainless steels that had very large and hard carbides).