Poor boy's stones

I enjoy reading this part of the forum. The stones you guys use are beautiful and out of my league! I am new to honing and feel like I have been doing a decent job with a King 1000/6000. However, I recently ordered a razor from whippeddog and noticed that he sells 1/4 of a stone that is available at Woodcraft. Since I wanted a whole stone and have a woodcraft nearby, I picked one up. Before use I flattened it on my Norton flattening stone and soaked it for a couple of hours. Here is my confusion. The Woodcraft stone (which is reported to be 12000) feels more coarse than my King on the 6k side. Am I confused or just wrong maybe? Can I hone razors with what I have here? If one of you guys has a minute to help out a newb, I would be grateful.

The stone from Woodcraft is on the left...
Attachment 228256

Don't know what to tell ya as I have the same stones from Woodcraft and my 12k is as smooth as glass both visually and when honing. Nice stones for the price.

The woodcraft stone is not 12k. It is a natural hone and has no grit designation. It also is too hard to be lapped with the synthetic lapping hone made by Norton, which now probably is even less flat than before you started. You will need to flatten the Norton and woodcraft either with w/d sandpaper or loose silicon carbide grit.

After you get this sorted out you should be be ready to go for your razors.

That is a natural Chinese stone. It may or may not be up to 12k, most probably not. Natural stones cannot be grit rated because they are natural, and there was no quality control when they were made, over hundreds/thousands of years and just a single grit can alter performance or render useless for razors.

You would have much better luck lapping the stone on 80 wet and dry paper working up to 1,000 grit, or loose Silicone Oxide lapping grit. Those stones are very hard and can take some time to lap, loose S/O is much faster and efficient.

You might have some luck smoothing your stone, once flat with higher grit wet & dry papers starting with 320 or 400. Burnishing those stones, like you would with a hard Ark, once smooth, with hard carbon steel chisels, large kitchen knife or cleaver will work very well to smooth the face further for razor use.

Bottom line is some of those stones work ok, some don’t, and worst case is you have a nice kitchen knife stone. Best case is yours is a finisher, it will be a slow finisher, especially off a 6k edge may take hundreds of laps to refine an edge. But some can finish and produce a shaveable edge.

In your previous post you said you had a,10k water stone that would probably produce better results, which brand of stone is it? Synthetics are much easier to learn to hone on as, at least one variable is eliminated, the known grit of the stone.

I think perhaps I may see the problem. The Woodcraft stone I have is pretty soft. The Norton flattening stone make quick work of its assigned task. I understand now why there can be such variability in natural stones. Thanks for the info guys, I will try synthetic next time. I should have just bought the Norton 6000/8000 I was looking at...
Euclid440 I did have a stone off Amazon that was labeled 10000 grit. However it seems more like 1000k so I sent it back.

One of the things with a natural hone is the finish on the lapping is everything. If you lapped it with the Norton lapping stone it will be way too coarse. You need to take it to the wet dry and smooth it down. It needs to be a minimum of 325, you could try to go to 1K but I would bet the paper plugs up way too quick. Re-lap it and you will have a different hone.

I will give that a try now. I have some 400 wet/dry.

This is why most here will tell newbies to, read, read, read, and/or ask BEFORE making purchases to help prevent costly mistakes that can cost the newbie more in the long run.

A very basic set would usually end up being a King 1000 and a Norton 4/8 K. This would usually cost a around $120.00. You can get a decent shave off the 8K. Good luck and smooth shaves to you. Ask questions.


Mike

The Nortons are fantastic stones, but you'll be doubling up with the N4K and K6K as there pretty much the same grit. And I hate wasting money! The 6K can still function well for knives.

You have already said your getting on with the 6K king, I did as well for a long time till I upgraded from it. The feedback from the stone is nice.

The choice really is yours to make. Do you want an easy 4/8 and make the 6K redundant, Or do you want to keep the 1/6 and add in something new.

Personally I'd find the choice hard to make. The 8K is very hard to beat. It's fast and sits in all progressions even if you are going over 8K into more polish. And it's guaranteed for consistency.

The advantage to the BBW is it's pretty, and cheap. It's also a spring board into coticules.

Both stones will last an equal amount of time, and both stones will give a good final edge with perhaps a nod the the BBW for been able to deliver a smoother shave. It's almost an impossible choice to make.

Yup, that is what you need, or you will be making very large grit jumps.

Not saying it can’t be done, just hard for a new honer, you have to say on each stone until you remove all the previous stria, most are too impatient for that. And make sure the bevel is fully and completely set on the 1k.

A 1/4/8k progression is a good and easy to do progression, add some razor quality Chrome Oxide and you are good for life.

I am a little surprised at your perception that your Chinese hone is soft. I have handled at least a dozen if them and never have encountered one I would call soft.

I'm not disagreeing with your assessment, I just find it to be unusual.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

I am a little surprised at your perception that your Chinese hone is soft. I have handled at least a dozen if them and never have encountered one I would call soft.

I'm not disagreeing with your assessment, I just find it to be unusual.

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I can support that findings, i have one which is very hard a bit more glassy like...the other one is much softer...the slurry stone can be rubbed easiliy over the harder one to create slurry

Hit up your local flea markets often it's rare that I picked up things such as Escher stones for as little as $10

The Norton lapping stone isn't too soft to lap pretty much any natural stone - it's Silicon Carbide - far harder than any natural abrasive except diamond. However, it will go out of flat fairly rapidly, so isn't real useful for lapping harder stones if you don't have a method to keep it reliably flat during the process. If having trouble lapping a hard stone with one, start a little slurry on the Norton lapping stone first - it will tear right through anything just like loose grit SiC. Personally I would far rather use a diamond plate (most useful on slightly softer stones IMO) or loose grit SiC though.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

I am a little surprised at your perception that your Chinese hone is soft. I have handled at least a dozen if them and never have encountered one I would call soft.

I'm not disagreeing with your assessment, I just find it to be unusual.

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I am new at polishing to this level so maybe I am just wrong. I based my assessment on two things... 1. When using my Norton flattening stone the material on the waterstone came off quickly and in large amounts. 2. After honing with any given stone I use a jeweler's loop and a bright light to assess the edge. My 6000 king leaves the edge with almost no discernible marks, then I moved to the waterstone and it left striated marks on the mirrored surface. I had to go back to the 6000 to take them out.

This leaves me with two thoughts: 1. The natural waterstone seems courser than 6000 grit AND 2. Since my 6k King will impart a mirror finish it seems finer than 6k.

Well, forgot to mention this earlier, but natural stones of the harder variety need to be smoothed out to a certain threshold to give the best edges. If you tried to hone a razor on the C12k immediately after lapping it with the Norton SiC lapping stone, you weren't giving the stone a fair shake. You'll want to either try polishing it up with another stone or possibly some wet/dry up to a finer grit.

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Originally Posted by eKretz

Well, forgot to mention this earlier, but natural stones of the harder variety need to be smoothed out to a certain threshold to give the best edges. If you tried to hone a razor on the C12k immediately after lapping it with the Norton SiC lapping stone, you weren't giving the stone a fair shake. You'll want to either try polishing it up with another stone or possibly some wet/dry up to a finer grit.

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I forgot to mention that I lapped it on some 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper I had laying around. I used it dry on a piece of flat steel I have. Should I use something finer than 400 grit?

I would at least go up to 1000, and always use water!

This is a photo of my PHIG. Notice the mirror like surface:

Attachment 228454

Mine was hard as all unholy h*** and took several hours to lap flat. Then it took a lot of trial and error figuring out how to prep the surface. I finally got tired of fighting it, ran it through wet/dry up to 2000 grit, and ran my Norton 4k and 8k over it several hundred laps each. I'll go ahead and say it, this is probably overkill - you can probably stop at 1k or 2k sand paper. But the results can't be argued, it does work.

The Norton lapping stone is rough. It will leave scratches in just about anything you lap. In my opinion, this will need to be addressed before the hone is used - especially a finishing stone. I've found my 1k is more firgiving, the lapping stone is all it needs. The 4k needs paper to 600 or 1000. It goes without saying I used 320 and 600 on my 1k, and 320, 600, 1k and 2k on my 4k.

If you're using slurry on the PHIG it may well be dropping below your 6k 's polish. Mine does the same, with slurry it drops below 8k. By the time I finish diluting and polishing on pure water the edge is finer. Another trick you can try after using pure water, do a few laps with shave lather. Just takes patience and a lot of passes, this stone is a slow cutter.

There is a distinct possibility yours is a dud, but until you've properly prepped the surface and spent time learning how to squeeze everything out you can, I wouldn't count the stone out just yet.

I'm sure you've done this, but just for redundancy's sake. Round or chamfer the edges of the hone. It'll probably suck with that hone and eat paper, but it'll help frustration later

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Originally Posted by dinnermint

I'm sure you've done this, but just for redundancy's sake. Round or chamfer the edges of the hone. It'll probably suck with that hone and eat paper, but it'll help frustration later

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I recommend using the flattening stone for this - the back side without slots cut into it.

You only need to chamfer the long edges of the hone. Make sure that the chamfering movement is primarily done in a lengthwise stroke with a rounding over movement made during the stroke. If you only do a lateral movement over the edge, you will create a saw-tooth pattern in the edge.

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Originally Posted by rickstwowheels

I enjoy reading this part of the forum. The stones you guys use are beautiful and out of my league! I am new to honing and feel like I have been doing a decent job with a King 1000/6000. However, I recently ordered a razor from whippeddog and noticed that he sells 1/4 of a stone that is available at Woodcraft. Since I wanted a whole stone and have a woodcraft nearby, I picked one up. Before use I flattened it on my Norton flattening stone and soaked it for a couple of hours. Here is my confusion. The Woodcraft stone (which is reported to be 12000) feels more coarse than my King on the 6k side. Am I confused or just wrong maybe? Can I hone razors with what I have here? If one of you guys has a minute to help out a newb, I would be grateful.

The stone from Woodcraft is on the left...
Attachment 228256

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These chinese stones can be hit or miss.

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Originally Posted by rickstwowheels

I enjoy reading this part of the forum. The stones you guys use are beautiful and out of my league! I am new to honing and feel like I have been doing a decent job with a King 1000/6000. However, I recently ordered a razor from whippeddog and noticed that he sells 1/4 of a stone that is available at Woodcraft. Since I wanted a whole stone and have a woodcraft nearby, I picked one up. Before use I flattened it on my Norton flattening stone and soaked it for a couple of hours. Here is my confusion. The Woodcraft stone (which is reported to be 12000) feels more coarse than my King on the 6k side. Am I confused or just wrong maybe? Can I hone razors with what I have here? If one of you guys has a minute to help out a newb, I would be grateful.

The stone from Woodcraft is on the left...
Attachment 228256

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If you are concerned about cost and want an economic solution for all your honing stages, you can find 5x1.5 coticules $60 through Ardennes. You can do anything from bevel-setting to finishing on those and your razor will come out just as good as if it had been ran on shaptons, IMO.

I also own the King 1000 / 6000, but I recently found a better one (aluminum oxide material - uses just water instead of oil) on Amazon for about $39, and it works wonders. Amazon.com: Whetstone - Best Professional Grade 2-Sided Knife Sharpening Stone - #1000 & #6000 Grit - with Non-Slip Bamboo Base and FREE BONUS Knife Angle Guide - (Honing Stone, Waterstone, Wetstone): Kitchen & Dining Anybody else tried this one yet?

Always be on the look out for Barber Hones! I have 3 that work well. A Swaty 3 line, A John Primble that I love & a Keen Kutter. All were picked up at Flea Markets & garage sales for around $5.00. A very light touch on the Primble is a great finish before stropping. & it only needs a few laps to do it's magic.

Slawman

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Originally Posted by ShaveWares

If you are concerned about cost and want an economic solution for all your honing stages, you can find 5x1.5 coticules $60 through Ardennes. You can do anything from bevel-setting to finishing on those and your razor will come out just as good as if it had been ran on shaptons, IMO.

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Not trying to be a stick in the mud, but I think a lot of people have experience with coticules that doesn't mirror that.

I could easily sharpen a razor with the stones shown in the first picture, and after two trips to the linen, nobody would know what stone did what.

The red side of the synthetic to set the bevel, then the tan side, then the chinese hone on slurry (they probably have particles similar to what we would think of as 4k), and then on water.

If someone wants to get an inexpensive honing setup, I couldn't think of anything cheaper than a thin slice of hard arkansas (not true hard, but what's sold as hard these days, which still has some bite) and one of the smaller size phigs from woodcraft for about $25. And a small vial of silicon carbide.

It would take the same time to hone a razor (But could do *serious* bevel work if needed) as any other setup, just the phig on clear requires a little more disciplined pressure to get work done.

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Originally Posted by DaveW

Not trying to be a stick in the mud, but I think a lot of people have experience with coticules that doesn't mirror that.

I could easily sharpen a razor with the stones shown in the first picture, and after two trips to the linen, nobody would know what stone did what.

The red side of the synthetic to set the bevel, then the tan side, then the chinese hone on slurry (they probably have particles similar to what we would think of as 4k), and then on water.

If someone wants to get an inexpensive honing setup, I couldn't think of anything cheaper than a thin slice of hard arkansas (not true hard, but what's sold as hard these days, which still has some bite) and one of the smaller size phigs from woodcraft for about $25. And a small vial of silicon carbide.

It would take the same time to hone a razor (But could do *serious* bevel work if needed) as any other setup, just the phig on clear requires a little more disciplined pressure to get work done.

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Its all in your technique (and stone), but from my experience I have gotten those type of edges off of my hard La Grosse Jaune 10 bout. I also incorporate my BBW's into the progression which can get the edge sharper and finish on my hard LGJ coti with soapy water.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveW

Not trying to be a stick in the mud, but I think a lot of people have experience with coticules that doesn't mirror that.

I could easily sharpen a razor with the stones shown in the first picture, and after two trips to the linen, nobody would know what stone did what.

The red side of the synthetic to set the bevel, then the tan side, then the chinese hone on slurry (they probably have particles similar to what we would think of as 4k), and then on water.

If someone wants to get an inexpensive honing setup, I couldn't think of anything cheaper than a thin slice of hard arkansas (not true hard, but what's sold as hard these days, which still has some bite) and one of the smaller size phigs from woodcraft for about $25. And a small vial of silicon carbide.

It would take the same time to hone a razor (But could do *serious* bevel work if needed) as any other setup, just the phig on clear requires a little more disciplined pressure to get work done.

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IMO FWIW the King 1000/6000 and PHIG are probably slightly better. Teeny bit more pricey, 30 & free shipping for the king, 35 & free shipping for full size PHIG vs about 25 + shipping for a 6x2 Hard Arkie from Dan's and 15 + shipping for the 1/4 PHIG. By the time you factor in shipping, you're looking at about 50 bucks for an arkie and quarter PHIG, vs 65 for an King and full size PHIG.

My experience leads me to think it would be much faster to use the King VS a hard Arkie (correct me if I'm wrong here). And you'd have larger working surface. I much prefer an 8x3 bench stone to a 6x2 and/or palm sized one. I guess whether that matters is up to the individual using the hone.