Thread: Great grandfather's old barber hone

Sweet baby Jesus that hone is whipped! Safe to say the dished side is likely a lost cause for razors. Tim basically outlined what the hones are made of and how they work above. Typically they seem to be a kiln fired ceramic with ~600 grit cutting material. The surface prep is the reason they appear to be so fine, the cutting material just barely sticks up above the binder. Usually I advise against lapping them, but it looks like you don't have much a choice. I rescued a pair of b. hones by lapping them with my lapping stone, then working them through sand paper (320, 600, 1000, 2000) up to 2k grit. Polished them further on an old Norton 4K/8K hone, then ran a chisel over them 100 laps or so to burnish the hones. The key is to wear the cutting material down as flat and smooth as you possibly can with the surface of the binding material.