Thread: Apache Black Gila

But like I said, he should just resurface it, drag a junk blade across it many times to make sure there are no abrasive gremlins left over or loose bits, and this time stay away from the dmt and probably the running tap as well. Start quite light on pressure and if it starts to push back, lighten it even more and stop when the undercut is really aggressive across. Both times I resurfaced it, I got leftover crap from it on a scaleless dead blade and then it never gave an issue again.

Originally Posted by kcb5150

But like I said, he should just resurface it, drag a junk blade across it many times to make sure there are no abrasive gremlins left over or loose bits, and this time stay away from the dmt and probably the running tap as well. Start quite light on pressure and if it starts to push back, lighten it even more and stop when the undercut is really aggressive across. Both times I resurfaced it, I got leftover crap from it on a scaleless dead blade and then it never gave an issue again.

That's probably a similar effect to what I'm doing with my high grit stones. You might mention it in the YouTube video like I did about cleaning with the stones.

I posted this in the Youtube conversation in regards to using the stone directly after scrubbing with a DMT, but thought I'd share it here too:

Originally Posted by Cris Anderson

The surface condition the DMT leaves it in isn't conducive to productivity in this stone. The diamond doesn't cut this stone via typical 'abrasion'. It cuts by fracturing it, and when it hits the edge of a fissure it blows out, leaving tiny 'chips' for want of a better word. I learned this from using a 2x72 grinder to round the edges. It doesn't 'grind'...it just blows out. By refining the surface with a high grit stone, you eliminate the chips, and the stone works beautifully. I can almost guarantee you that what was blowing out your edge was those chips caught in the natural fissures this stone has. Those fissures alone aren't toxic...but when you add small chips left from the DMT conditioning (even running water won't dislodge them without scrubbing), you get blown edges.

Just some things to think about. There seems to be a very simple recipe to make this stone work from its as delivered condition. Flatten it with 220 SiC, refine it with a short diamond plate progression, clean it with either a junk razor or high grit nagura (I use my Apache Red or Strata nagura), then use indefinitely with that surface. I've honed 20-30 razors on mine so far since I cleared it up...all with beautiful results, and no gritty sensation. I simply spray the surface, wipe it with my hand vigorously (this dislodges any contaminants from storage...I live in Arizona, land of the living dust), spray again, clean with a Strata nagura, spray (or use directly with the tiny amount of slurry from the Strata stone) again, and use. When the blade starts skipping (for me its usually 5-10 laps)...add a drop or so of glycerin, and run it until the blade is undercutting heavily, and sticking pretty forcefully. The end result is a shave ready edge that I haven't been able to beat with anything else.

Hope that helps someone out!

I told him if there is something really nasty lurking on that surface to either lap through it since inclusions seem to be fleeting like very shallow pools. Or, if worse came to worse, if the back looks ok, lap that. There's no law against using the other side. IDK if he even has it anymore or has returned it already... I'm surprised the other people who were testing it didn't consider that... Test mules are proving grounds, treat them as such. It's a tool even when it is retail prepped. That thing needs to be brutalized into submission by the most abrasive hand methods and then sort of hand held into usable surface and then just leave it be.. That's why the slurry always thing is puzzling. If I were an all diesel engine guy and someone gave me a petrol car to test, I wouldn't chuck diesel into the tank because that's how I always roll.. Very very bad things will happen. I can make quite a list of finishers that aren't slurry stones.

Originally Posted by kcb5150

I told him if there is something really nasty lurking on that surface to either lap through it since inclusions seem to be fleeting like very shallow pools. Or, if worse came to worse, if the back looks ok, lap that. There's no law against using the other side. IDK if he even has it anymore or has returned it already... I'm surprised the other people who were testing it didn't consider that... Test mules are proving grounds, treat them as such. It's a tool even when it is retail prepped. That thing needs to be brutalized into submission by the most abrasive hand methods and then sort of hand held into usable surface and then just leave it be.. That's why the slurry always thing is puzzling. If I were an all diesel engine guy and someone gave me a petrol car to test, I wouldn't chuck diesel into the tank because that's how I always roll.. Very very bad things will happen. I can make quite a list of finishers that aren't slurry stones.

We talked about it a bit on Facebook after the fact. I think he understands that. My understanding of it was that he was approaching it from a 'thorough review' perspective.

For the record, the stone actually works with slurry...you just can't use a DMT to make it lol. As you've seen yourself, it fractures the edges of the crystalline inclusions, and can cause all sorts of hell by knocking things loose. The best way I've seen to generate slurry for use is a high grit nagura. I've tried the Apache Red, Apache Strata, C12k, and even down to a C2k (with light pressure). All work just fine and clean the stone just fine, without generating any grittiness. They will all generate slurry also...thin, but visible. I have no way of knowing if it's slurry from the Gila, or the stone being used to clean it though.

I know people have done blades on arks using jnat naguras as an experiment. Brutally sharp but harsh unfortunately. I suspect that one was either never set up 100% or was and someone bumped it out of optimum along the way

That's a great video! Thank you for sharing it man, and definite thanks to Keith for making it. His method seems to be very similar to what I have worked out for mine. Clean with a high grit stone to remove any loose debris and setup the surface to hold the water...hone with clean water or the very light slurry generated, then switch to a lubricant (I use glycerin...no magic oil for me ) and finish.

The result for me is pretty freakin great. As Keith said in his video...shaving nirvana, lol.

Alright.

So, with all the recent talk in the YouTube videos of toxicity and stone prep and cost in regards to the Gila...I thought I'd go ahead and start completely from scratch on mine. If you recall, I had such a hard time of it previously (my methods were pretty inefficient...trying ten things at once etc), that I just concentrated on one side. The other side still had cutter marks in it throughout...but particularly at the top right corner and along one side (still on the honing surface of course). I also decided to put the work in to get the main side completely flat also...if you'll recall, it was flat in the middle but the ends dove off a bit.

So, armed with my previous knowledge to increase my efficiency, I decided to see just how long it would take me to erase visible cutter marks and flatten one side, as well as flatten the other side the rest of the way. I went into my storage and grabbed out an old half inch thick piece of broken table glass I've kept for 20yrs without using lol (see?? It pays to hold onto useless stuff!!), set it on my bench, and loaded it with 220 grit SiC. I then went to town. The piece of glass is like 2' long on one side, and I won't lie...I think that helped speed things up quite a bit. Just like honing a razor on a longer stone vs a shorter stone would. Anyhow, I used about 6 spoons of SiC total, to get both sides pretty damn close to perfectly flat. Time spent was 1:07. From there, I cleaned the glass and flipped it over, wet it, and laid down a sheet of 220 grit Rhynowet paper (if you haven't used it...the stuff is AWESOME). It only took one sheet of 220 grit to get even scratch marks from end to end on both sides of the stone. I also used the 220 grit to resurface both my Apache Red, and Apache Strata. Total time on that was 19 minutes. I then broke the 220 grit Apache Red surface on the 220 grit Gila. There was a TON of slurry generated!! About 5 minutes of that and I switched to the Strata and broke that surface against the Gila for another 5 minutes. Then it was back and forth between the three stones for another 5 minutes or so until everything had as refined a surface as they were going to get.

The surface is perfect for honing now (both sides!!), and running razors over it feels smooth as silk. 1 hour and 51 minutes...and I've got three stones in incredible condition. That doesn't seem like too huge an investment to me. Derek's stone (dmoney from the youtube video) is larger than mine I believe, but I believe he's redoing his this week. I'll be sure to ask him to keep track of the time spent. I do have two pits, one on each side inside the yellowish vein. The one on the newly flattened side was full of grit...like dirt. So, I took a diamond needle file and dug it out until it was completely visibly rock. I may still use the same file and chamfer the edges, but as it sits they are both easily avoidable, and my razors run right over the top without any audible or tactile evidence anyway so I'm currently not too worried about it.The surface is actually improved over the previous surface, as it's completely, totally even. I didn't realize how much the low sides (even the edges on the long sides were slightly low) were affecting my honing (concentrating on steering around low spots takes away from concentrating on the edge itself). Having it completely, utterly flat really is a beautiful thing.



Once the kids get to bed tonight, I'll grab up a video and a few pictures to post.

The idea of lapping the back of mine ranks about the same as consuming heavily expired ham. I do have some ultrafine wet dry grits on order. I still want to explore that. I can undo it with 1 sheet of 3m 1000 if I want.