Thread: Bought a Charnley Forest

Yes, I pretty much gave it my trans ark/apache black gila treatment. It wasn't terribly hard to lap fwiw.

I need to experiment with it a lot more and try out many approaches. I have no razor grade cf edge to go by from another as a benchmark, so I can only go by how the edge reacts to my beard and it shaves well, though not on the same level as my yellow trans ark. I have a feeling it may be me though because I've read there is little middle ground with these? You either get a hit or it's more of a tool stone with not much play in the middle? I will say this, the skin feel after the shave was very favorable. I still want to set the other side up coarsely and see how it fares for knives/chip removal

Yeah. I love the skin feel off a CF.That is what hooked me. I have heard the same thing about hit or miss on these but don't know. Either I got lucky or it is how they were treated before bringing them up to that level. I think it may be a middle ground here too. I think there are softer stones which just are more tool grade then there are the hard to really hard. With the hard and really hard I would think it could be how the finish is done to bring out it's max potential. I will say a hard razor grade is very slow. That may be why my best one was sold by a knife guy. It was too slow for knives. I do think running a bunch of knives over a stone will only help it though. As long as you don't scratch it.

When I look at yours it looks more of a matte finish for lack of a better term. The top of mine looks more satin finish where the sides and bottom look more matte finish. It could just be the photos though.

This is the surface I have been working with.

The top looks good to me. I think it was just the photos before. What did you use to burnish with? Did you use only water or oil of some sort? Just curious. I am wondering if burnishing with an oil gets it smoother then once cleaned the oil is gone but the results stay. This is just me thinking out loud I do not know.
I did the BBW slurry on my labeled CF and it left a scratch. I got it out but took some work and a dab of wd40, which I then cleaned off with simple green and soap and water.

I went up to 3000 w/d followed by a coticule, followed by a really fine piece of vermont slate. Then I made a mix of dish soap and water and did several hundred halfstrokes all over the thing

Bought another cf. Been wanting one lately but they have been getting very expensive again. Lucked into this huge one. Need to prep it but it seems finer, denser, and more pingy than my others were.

This one is razor grade. It delivered an excellent shave and atg everywhere was no issue. Most encouraging was the fact that it was the first run and I used a wiss that has hard finicky steel and it still delivered. I can definitely get more performance from it. From my buying experiences I would say avoid kahki colored ones, avoid overly red ones, and buy rectangles to up your chances of suitability for razors.

Now play with different versions of oils. Water is a bit thin, straight sewing machine oil is a bit thick, Smiths honing oil (not really an oil) is good, but sewing machine oil cut 50/50 with kroil is the cats meow for mine.

Yours looks like my first and best one. 9 x 2".
Glycerin water mix giving great results on this one and my barber size. Haven't tried on the big labeled one yet.