(White?) Tam O' Shanter Finisher

[brightred]

although it was not labelled as a tam o' shanter, i was not the only one interested in the stone when it showed up on ebay. so, it wasn't exactly a steal... however, i was extremely pleased when i opened the parcel. the stone is of a very bright colour, evenly covered with very small dark spots and some faint swirls, solid and quite thick. the back side is unevenly shaped. i think the hone must have been glued into a box.

as it seems to be a very fine stone i decided to use it as a finisher. i honed a swiss "E. Eichenberger, Basel" on it. i have never been very happy with this razor. its steel is extremely tough, very resistant to abrasion and difficult to hone (to me...). i started with a 5k naniwa edge, then on the TOS with thick slurry (atoma 1200), diluting to almost zero, stropped and shaved. to my big surprise the resulting edge was much better than expected. although the shave was neither super close nor extremely smooth it was quite acceptable, especially since the razor has always been a beast to hone.

and a few pictures:


the new TOS between a TOS/WOA dual hone and a small darker TOS


back side of new TOS and dark TOS


new TOS wet, upper left corner dual hone TOS wet


close up of new TOS (through 10x magnifier)

regards,
hans