Thread: Apache Black Gila

I think it is ok to say what is on your mind, but at least be tactful. When you are being blunt for the sake of bluntness, all I think is troll. I tend to tune out what is saying even if there might be some useful information hidden between the vitriolic comments.

Anyway, I have not purchased many natural stones. I have two cnats and a coticule. I have been curious about the Apache stones. The price for the finishers have been the major deterrent so far. But given this thread it does put things in a different perspective. I am still a a pragmatist when it comes to stones. I guess I would really have to a special reason to buy an untested hone. Though the adventure of trying out something new has some appeal.

Forgot to add, I've had this for awhile now and have done a good number of blades on it and it isn't behaving any differently. My old ark gets a little more polished every time I put steel to it. May just be symptomatic of the low lap counts coupled with extreme hardness

Where do we get this Gila stone from ?

Sorry guys, I never received notification of updates on this thread, and have been very, very busy.

kcb, if you want to hone a gold dollar on a lalune, or want to send me one to hone a razor on, I'll take pictures of the scratch pattern for you and post them. No big deal at all.

eleblue05, go to naturalhones.com. That's where all the Apache stones come from, and he still has I think two Gila's up for sale...both relatives of mine and kcb's stone.

So...on this stone...I've found it IS finicky!! And an experienced honer wouldn't really notice it I think. I did all four of my razors I have in the house right now with it this week. A couple were a freakin breeze!! The other two...I fought and fought and fought. I was honing on water and they just wouldn't get sharp. I'd go back to the Shapton Pro 1500 and reset the bevel, go up to the Apache Red, then on to the Gila...and any edge I had would go away. I tried all three Apache Red's (two of which I've had success with previously), thinking maybe it was setting the edge up wrong somehow. No dice. I then switched to a really weird C12k (there's a story behind this one...and I didn't even pay for it lol) I have, and then when I went to the Gila I added a bit of glycerin, and was VERY conscientious on the pressure thing (like I was when I was learning it), and the edge came RIGHT in clean as could be. Went back and set the bevel again with the 1500, used the Red, and then the Gila...concentrating on the right pressure...and it worked like a charm. One thing I learned from that is that for me, glycerin is MANDATORY....probably because the cushion effect keeps me from applying too much pressure. I mean, I could probably get away without it, but it makes an easy process much more difficult. Also, understand that this stone is surfaced first to whatever grit an Apache Strata is, and then lapped with the Strata and .5 micron diamond slurry from HandAmerica. It will reflect cleanly across the entire surface at a 90° angle (like looking into a polished marble/granite wall at a bank lol). I did this to see if the cutting action would ever go away as the surface finish wore in...and it doesn't seem to. It still pulls up swarf, and still does not slurry. I know that is contradictory to what Dave said...but it's my experience so far in trying to test that exact thing.

Water you really need to watch the touch plus I don't like the feedback at all, another mix as the buffer smooths out the feel a lot and just helps you ride the edge on the stone I find. The french finishers are just weird stones, they cut fast, you don't really get a mirror polish but you can crank out edges at least as sharp as a thuringian. Note I only said as sharp or sharper, they always run hotter in feel. I like shaving with them as a change of pace.

There may be diamond embedded in the stone if it continues to cut. When I look at a picture of the stone, I see what looks like possibly:
* quartz
* novaculite

Something in that range of hardness. Those types of abrasives tend to work a swarf with a razor until the striations from the prior step are gone, and then they stop cutting for the most part and polish. The more the prior stria are removed, the more they polish because they just don't dig in to flat metal that much once it gets to a certain hardness (since the abrasive particles and the carbon steel structure are similar hardness around 60 or low 60s).

That makes for something very useful for an experienced honer.

I don't have a clue how long it takes to tone down a novaculite stone with razor honing, because I've always used tools on one instead, but if you used loose diamond on a novaculite stone, even 0.5 micron, it would continue to work steel long after the novaculite was tired, and it would embed in the novaculite and cut the razor. There are some folks (garrett hack is one) well known in the woodworking community who don't like novaculite hones, but they like them if they sprinkle some diamonds on them and "revive" them or some term that they use. I personally like to let a stone break in indefinitely, but we all have our choices.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I like to understand things, and I guess over the years, I've probably spent about $10k on various sharpening mediums, maybe a little more, and I've been through everything from iron oxide to chinese agate. There was a post earlier about doing things just to be a jerk, and sometimes I may seem like that, but it's because I want to dispense with the pleasantries, say things as i see them and wait to be proven wrong (I have no problem with being proven wrong, because i'm not an expert).

That's my frame here, one to warn anyone who is new about things that are relatively new and purported to be semi magical, and two, to find out what really "is", if you know what I mean. If in the end I was wrong every time, but we have a very clear understanding of what things are, that's fine with me.

The fact that the stone may not agree with every razor just bare and in use is more what I expect, and that's also why I said at the outset that the truly easy to use historical stones seem to work on everything short of defective razors. The best japanese barber hones and the y/g thuris come to mind. The gok 20 comes to mind. Most other things are very good hones, but fall a bit short of the stuff that truly commands the big bucks. The y/g's command it because of consistency.

I've dropped off the hone forum a little bit because as time goes on, I am no longer acquiring razors, and I would imagine that my honing (or use of any abrasive that's as hard as steel) is dropping to something every maybe 300 shaves? I'm fixated on the vintage linens and about how much they reward experience, and stones thus matter a little less to me because once that edge is established on a razor, the linen maintains it forever if you use one correctly, and any stone does nothing other than to move the bevel down, because you'd hate to remove the linen edge.

We are all fixated with the stones when we're new, though, and I'm not by any means saying I'm done buying. I've bought probably a dozen more stones in the last year, because I can't resist them even if I'm not using them much. I can find other places to use them.

Took a quick video so you guys could see how reflective it is. If you look to either side of where the cell phone light is at certain parts of the video, you can actually see the reflection of the photo box lights that are 3' above it, clear as a bell. I actually didn't think the stone would cut at all at this level of polish....but it does. If you guys like, I can probably get a video of a razor on the stone, so you can see that no slurry is being generated...showing that the stone's not breaking down and refreshing its 'grit'. I think the crystalline structure is simply abrasive by nature...and very, very fine to continue cutting at that level of polish.

Anyhow, here's the video:



I'm curious to hear what you all think?

Originally Posted by DaveW

There may be diamond embedded in the stone if it continues to cut. When I look at a picture of the stone, I see what looks like possibly:
* quartz
* novaculite

Something in that range of hardness. Those types of abrasives tend to work a swarf with a razor until the striations from the prior step are gone, and then they stop cutting for the most part and polish. The more the prior stria are removed, the more they polish because they just don't dig in to flat metal that much once it gets to a certain hardness (since the abrasive particles and the carbon steel structure are similar hardness around 60 or low 60s).

That makes for something very useful for an experienced honer.

I don't have a clue how long it takes to tone down a novaculite stone with razor honing, because I've always used tools on one instead, but if you used loose diamond on a novaculite stone, even 0.5 micron, it would continue to work steel long after the novaculite was tired, and it would embed in the novaculite and cut the razor. There are some folks (garrett hack is one) well known in the woodworking community who don't like novaculite hones, but they like them if they sprinkle some diamonds on them and "revive" them or some term that they use. I personally like to let a stone break in indefinitely, but we all have our choices.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I like to understand things, and I guess over the years, I've probably spent about $10k on various sharpening mediums, maybe a little more, and I've been through everything from iron oxide to chinese agate. There was a post earlier about doing things just to be a jerk, and sometimes I may seem like that, but it's because I want to dispense with the pleasantries, say things as i see them and wait to be proven wrong (I have no problem with being proven wrong, because i'm not an expert).

That's my frame here, one to warn anyone who is new about things that are relatively new and purported to be semi magical, and two, to find out what really "is", if you know what I mean. If in the end I was wrong every time, but we have a very clear understanding of what things are, that's fine with me.

The fact that the stone may not agree with every razor just bare and in use is more what I expect, and that's also why I said at the outset that the truly easy to use historical stones seem to work on everything short of defective razors. The best japanese barber hones and the y/g thuris come to mind. The gok 20 comes to mind. Most other things are very good hones, but fall a bit short of the stuff that truly commands the big bucks. The y/g's command it because of consistency.

I've dropped off the hone forum a little bit because as time goes on, I am no longer acquiring razors, and I would imagine that my honing (or use of any abrasive that's as hard as steel) is dropping to something every maybe 300 shaves? I'm fixated on the vintage linens and about how much they reward experience, and stones thus matter a little less to me because once that edge is established on a razor, the linen maintains it forever if you use one correctly, and any stone does nothing other than to move the bevel down, because you'd hate to remove the linen edge.

We are all fixated with the stones when we're new, though, and I'm not by any means saying I'm done buying. I've bought probably a dozen more stones in the last year, because I can't resist them even if I'm not using them much. I can find other places to use them.

I like this post.

I think we're also attracted to these things because they're oddly beautiful, even the plain ones. The new C12k I have feels like butter under a blade, cuts amazingly quickly (I mean, it's a C12k...ANYTHING faster than a crawl is amazing for them lol), and has a cool monotone sparkly slate look that I enjoy looking at. Almost like honing on graphite.

On the Gila...I was pretty religious about scrubbing the stone under hot water with soap to remove any residual diamond...for the sake of testing. I guess there could still be some locked in, but even then, I can't imaging whatever residual .5 micron diamond was left making or breaking the way the stone cuts...particularly since the stone worked similarly without the diamond...just at a lower level of polish.

I also want to be clear...the stone cut my 63-64HRC W2 razors just as well on water as it did the Kikuboshi and Gold Dollars. The difference was that I had to be much more careful of MY end of things. Pressure became much more important, because there was no buffer. It still worked though, and worked very well and quickly. It was simply more picky and very quickly magnified faults in my technique.

It may have natural alumina in it.

Pressure sensitivity probably has more to do with the overhardness of the razors.

Oh also, on the stone's structure. It's not novaculite...or even close, and while it may have a higher quartz content (if it does it's in a different form than anything I've ever seen), it's not quartz either. It seems more like an extruded igneous formation...similar to rhyolite or basalt, but with a ceramic feel to it that is different from those. Maybe that's quartz in the igneous matrix? Whatever it is, it's definitely not a quartz(ite?) or chert based rock. As additional support of that, the natural rock it comes from doesn't resemble either of those types of mineral either. It's more of a basalt like small boulder formation than a bedrock or quartz type formation.