Thread: New hones have arrived!

Originally Posted by Marshal

There's only one problem: too many rocks, not enough razors to hone! Lol.

There's only one solution: get more razors to hone!

Those look like nice stones! I've gotten to the point that I really prefer working with natural stones, I'll be interested in hearing your opinion on this after you've been using these for a while. Good luck and have fun!

Originally Posted by Frankenstein

There's only one solution: get more razors to hone!

It's a never ending cycle. I'm trying to talk some of my friends into shaving with straights so I can get them to buy the razors for me!

I spent all morning prepping the crap out of these things. The first step was to roll those bevels on the side I was going to polish. I like a round bevel. The second step was to take a scratch tool and scrawl some identifiers on the hones and their respective slurry stones because I know for a fact I would be constantly confusing the DT with the WS. So I scrawled the approximated advertised grit rating (even though I know it doesn't apply to naturals) and the name of the hones on the side (Welsh slat affectionately dubbed the Welsh Thuringian). The end result, same order left to right as they were in the first post with the Guangxi hone thrown in at the right (I'm sure we all recognize the yellow/white brick at the far right!):





Only thing that aggravated me was a piece of trash or something got between the Welsh Slate and the final stone I used to polish them. I was NOT about to go back to 320 to work it out and start again. Hopefully the scratch in the surface won't be detrimental to my honing efforts. Every last one of these stones is hard, the LM being the hardest. That surprised me, I was expecting the Welsh slate to be the hardest of the bunch. Just polishing them up I couldn't feel a difference between the Dragon's Tongue and Welsh Slate. They're both black, similar hardness, and make the same color slurry. If it wasn't for little dark splotches in the WS I would swear they were the same stone. We'll see what happens I guess. Getting ready to take the Morley across them. Will probably sacrifice the hard earned edge of my Germania Cutlery Works too, so I can hone one on the WS And one on the LM and see what they shave like.

I really like my set! They seem to like like VERY light pressure and quite a few laps especially the black hone. Do 20 laps, test and repeat until it improves then you will sort of have a baseline for future razors

Originally Posted by rodb

I really like my set! They seem to like like VERY light pressure and quite a few laps especially the black hone. Do 20 laps, test and repeat until it improves then you will sort of have a baseline for future razors

JUST finished a quick baseline test. Will post in more detail later, but VERY happy with results. Don't regret this purchase in the least. Agreed that they like very light pressure. I let the weight of the blade do the work. Anyway, I have to go help a friend move some stuff. Will be back later with my findings.

OK, so what I did was I chose 2 razors, a Morley & Sons Clover Stamp and a Germania Cutlery Works razor. I ran them both across the Norton 8k 15 times, the Morley in an X pattern. Then I set the GCW aside so I would have a control to compare striation marks against. The Morley became my test razor. Most of the examination was done under a 60x loupe. Shave tests were mostly arm hair at skin level. I have a wicked case of honer's mange and the hair hasn't grown high enough to tree top any of it yet.

So, I ran it 50 times across the Dragon's tongue, just water no slurry, to see how it compared to the Norton 8k. Gotta say I was impressed. 50 strokes perpendicular to the edge was all it took to get the 8K stria from the Norton worn away - I anticipated it would take more. That said, I don't think it was an improvement over the Norton 8K. At best it performed the same, and that isn't a bad thing in the least in my book. Feedback from the stone was very smooth - almost felt as though I had used oil instead of water. I found this to be the case with all 3 of the stones, the blade slid across the surface so smooth it was almost like sharpening the razor on black ice. Shaved arm hair about as well as the GCW off the Norton 8k.

Onward to the Lynn Melynllyn. I didn't take the Morley back to the 8K. I already had a control razor to compare stria against, and I wanted to know how the progression went from stone to stone. Nothing but water on the hone, 50 laps in an X pattern so I could tell the DT stria from the LM stria. Stria at this point was noticeably smaller than the DT left behind. Also smaller than the Norton stria on the GCW. The mirrorlike sheen was gone, I suspect because some stria was still left over from the DT. The arm hair test showed noticeable improvement.

Well, I didn't want to move on until all the stria from the DT were gone, so I did another 50 laps. The polished edge came back to the hone once the DT stria were successfully worn away. Based on the way it took off the hair on my arm, this could well be the sharpest edge I have produced to date.

I probably could've done a few more strokes on the LM as a few stria were still present from the DT here and there. But this wasn't an actual attempt to hone the blade so much as a quick check, so I went ahead and moved on to the Welsh Thuringian (I like that better than Welsh Slate, so I'm rolling with it). I did 50 strokes perpendicular to the blade. At this point, as expected there was still stria from the LM. Since it still needed more work I did another 50 laps. Could still see stria from the LM in some places, but much of it was gone. At this point the blade is scary sharp. I would actually be hesitant to shave my face with it because I don't think I've ever had such a sharp implement in my hand. The end result would likely be a lot of razor burn if I managed to get through with no nicks.

Tomorrow I'll actually put effort into honing the razor and see what I get from them. I think I'll take the Morley through the whole range and finish on the WT. The GCW I'll finish on the LM so I can feel the difference between the two. Shave half the face with one, the other half with the other. See which cheek has more razor burn!

Well, as per usual I couldn't leave things alone! So let's see if I can get these pictures in the correct order. Took them using my Loupe (60x) and my Cell phone camera, one heck of a juggling act, so forgive the iffy quality. For starters the Gold Dollar razor on a Guangxi hone. from Norton 8k 50 laps medium slurry, 50 light, probably 100 water and 100 shave lather. No, it is not a coincidence that I finished the Chinese razor on a Chinese hone:







Next, the Lynn Melynllyn on a Germania Cutlery works. Froma Norton 8k, 50 medium slurry, 50 light slurry, 50 water, and 50 shave lather:







In retrospect I wish I had a picture of one off the Norton 8k for comparison. Both of these to me look to be in the same league, and both are an improvement over the N8k. At a glance I would give the edge to the LM. It doesn't show in the pictures, but the stria look ever so slightly better to me - and with a little less work to get there. Tomorrow's shave test will be the deciding factor in my mind. Both razors are stropped and ready to roll. I'm working with the Morley on the Dragon's tongue as we speak. Will return with a few pictures when I finish that phase.

Ok, I wanted to put these stones through their paces with this run. So I ran the Morley across my Norton 1K to be sure I was starting from a fresh edge. Then I slurried up the Dragon's Tongue nice and heavy and got to work. My count may be off (Lots of involved) But I think I did 100 passes each Heavy, medium, and light slurry. And I spent a LOT of time on the pure water phase because I was scrutinizing the edge in minutia - more than normal. At any rate, here's a few pics at the medium slurry stage:







I actually took a break here. It was late and honing was starting to put me to sleep. Picked it up again this morning, here's the edge off the Dragon's Tongue when I was finally satisfied that it wasn't improving and I could move onward:







I was fairly happy with this. The edge felt good enough it could've probably been stropped and shaved with. In retrospect perhaps I should have tried that. Maybe a project for another weekend? Well, since there's a 7 pic limit per post I will continue in another...

The next phase was the Lynn Melynllynn. Used a light slurry to speed up removal of the Dragon's Tongue Stria. Probably could've stopped at 50 passes, but went ahead and did 100 and moved on to pure water. Again, I spent a LOT of time on this phase to be sure the edge was not going to get any better:







Onward to the Welsh Thuringian:







The edge was already pretty good off the Lynn Melynllyn, so I didn't bother working up a slurry on this stone, though it was tempting. I did about 100 passes, pure water, no pressure. After that, the last 50 passes I worked up a good lather and lathered up the hone like I would a barber's hone. I'll see what the shave is like here in an hour or so. Going to take a break and clean up the mess I made while honing first!

Result are in. Both sides of my face are shorn, 2 passed WTG and XTG. Close, clean, and comfortable! Slight nod to the WT, but I would happily put both razors in the rotation as they sit. I shaved a small patch on my right cheek with the Gold Dollar I finished on my Guangxi hone for comparison, If I were to rate them: Morley on WT would be first, GCW on LM a very close 2nd, Gold Dollar on Guangxi hone a surprisingly close 3rd.