Thread: Cheap chinese hones, to buy or not to buy ?

Originally Posted by Humanalien

Ok, i have tried them all already :P They are now shaving, but far from decent...
The Solingen Halfman I like a lot and is the best at this time, I had a very good shave on the way down, but a rather "irritating" shave on the way up.
I'm going to put them all away again accept the Hamburg-ring and going to start over.

So if my tape is grinding of I'm propably using to much pressure instead of "torqueing" the razor?

I tested the cheap chinese hones after an estimated fifty razors honing experience and i got the same result as you. It shaved acceptable with the grain and not so against the grain. This didn't improve with my second pass with these stones. On the other hand, the result could be fixed with some 200 stokes on my good translucent arkansas. It's hard to tell, how much of the result is due to the hone, most likely you will get an acceptable shave with some experience and further refinement on a CrOx strop.

When i started honing, i finished on a cheap chinese 10K stone using water. I shaved with it, but i didn't like it very much. Refining it on a welch "15K" slate the result was good or very good, depending on the razor. I revisited this chinese 10K stone twice, using it with lather and then oil. The result was better, but i'm still clueless, whether it is meant to be an oilstone or a waterstone. My best bet is that you can choose how to use it depending on your needs . And since all these chinese stones are very much the same traditional bonded stones produced by very few factorys and sold under a lot of different OEM names the same should be true for all of these TAIDEA and other chinese hones. What i didn't see so far on the chinese market are cheap copies of resin bonded stones. Or cheap knock-off products to high priced japanese magnesia-bonded stones. It's safe to assume that the manufacturing costs for such higher quality hones are too high for the chinese producers at the moment.

I remember viewing a YouTube video by Caleb McCullough where he told the story of calling someone in china from TAIDEA who recommended to use oil for razor honing with these stones.

Maybe i revisit the TAIDEA stones just for fun and to present a more detailed impression of these stones. I'm now at an estimated experience of eighty razors, i still consider myself a beginner. On the other hand i honed all razors except of three to shave good or very good. And the three bad razors are more like "razor shaped objects", warped and bend to hell and back.

This is for future purchases

Knivesandtools.be - keukenmessen messen zaklampen en verrekijkers

The site has regular offers and sells naniwa stones at some of the best European prices. Currently they have the 12K for €55.

Naniwa Specialty Stone, SP-491, korrel 12000 | Voordelig kopen bij knivesandtools.be


The 12K is a really good stone. It is a great finisher, but it's also pretty aggressive. Aggressive enough to correct a poor bevel from cheap stones with enough laps.

With some practice you should be able to improve your edges massively just with this one stone.

Go 1, 3, 8 with those cheap stones then build a very light slurry on the 12K and give it a good few laps and inspect the edge. It should be worlds apart in terms of finish from where the 8K left it, And the shave should also be much better.

On blades that are already shaving, Ink the edge, Give it a couple of passes on the 12K to check where the ink is removed to see if you need tape. If the ink on the very edge is still there you need tape. Then when you have the correct taping do 10-20 light passes, strop and check the edge. If it's not improved do another set of laps till it is where you want it.

I revisited the TAIDEA set today.

The setup:

TAIDEA 1K / 3K combinatation stone, TAIDEA 5K, TAIDEA 8K - all stones flattened with a 150 grid diamond plate, edges chamfered.

The razor:

Gold Dollar 208 (shaved good before, I usually hone up to 12K and finish on a natural stone)

The method:

bevel setting (1K) - eight stokes with 10 circles on each pass, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5, 3/3, 2/2, 1/1 stokes, then twenty alternating strokes with light force to clean up.

3K - four strokes with 10 circles on each pass, fourty alternating strokes, then twenty alternating light stokes to clean up.

5K - same as 5K

8K - 20 alternating strokes, then another 20 very light strokes

The view through the loupe (60x loupe, 2$ model from Ebay):

The 1K is terrible, one microchip in the middle that was not there before, the stone felt like gravel, it tore up tape like crazy. For the complete pass on the 1K one tape, and the tape residue glued toghether in small chunks. Lots of cleaning before the final clean up strokes. It sucks up water quickly and you need to spray fresh water on it like every 20 passes or so. Compared to my Naniwa SS 800 combination stone: not recommended.

The 3K feels slightly better, the stria pattern a little finer, still drinks a lot of water and tears up tape. No further microchips. Compared to any other 3K i have: barely does the job. Not worth the normal price on Aliexpress.

The 5K feels OK. Does not require that much water and doesn't harm the tape much. Stria pattern OK, not 5K in my mind but OK. Compared to the Naniwa 5K SS combination stone: it will do the job, not worth the normal price for the stone i see on Aliexpress.

The 8K feels OK. Needs even less water than the 5K and no harm to tape. Loupe shows a stria pattern not compareable to Naniwa SS 8K, but does the job. Not worth the normal price on Aliexpress.

Final inspection through the loupe OK, bevel set completly, one microchip in the middle still visible (meh, this is my Go-To test razor, it will be gone the next time). No burr reflection or anything visible.

The stropping (the cheapest strop on Ebay, something like 3$):

Twenty strokes on linen, eighty on the leather side. Compared to any natural leather strop for 15$ up - complete junk. But hey, what could possibly go wrong at this stage?

The test shave:

Surprisigly good WTG, acceptable ATG, not the closest shave, but a good starting point to learn how to shave. One small nick, user related. I learned how to hone the razors faster than i learned how to shave properly and safely...

Originally Posted by Iceni

...
The site has regular offers and sells naniwa stones at some of the best European prices. Currently they have the 12K for €55.

Naniwa Specialty Stone, SP-491, korrel 12000 | Voordelig kopen bij knivesandtools.be

The 12K is a really good stone. It is a great finisher, but it's also pretty aggressive. Aggressive enough to correct a poor bevel from cheap stones with enough laps.
...

I would second that recommendation, the TAIDEA setup will work and it teaches you how to hone a razor. But if you start learning to shave with a sharp and comfortable razor it is much more fun!

Alriiiiight, I have tried all the tips I got, and what a difference!
The razors aren't HHT sharp comming of the 8k, but they do pop some armhairs midway.
AND, I have tried to hone three different razors and the result is consistent it seems. Now waiting for that beard to grow to test them out!
Thanks for all the great comments, my biggest fault was to much pressure + whitout the torqueing(or how that is spelled).
Now being much more gentle, tough more effective.

hein31 - since you have Naniwa hones to compare them to, what grit rating would you say the Taidea hones are equivalent to? Almost sounds like the 3K behaves like a 1K, 5 like a 3K, and 8 like a 5K.

Pressure & torque are certainly key. You want to make sure all stria from previous tiers of honing are gone, and that pressure used is as light as you can get by the time you're doing your finishing strokes.

How to people feel about the Welsh slate Tri-hones being sold in the UK? They seem to fit in after the 8k stage.

Do you mean these hones?

NATURAL WELSH SLATE 3 HONE SET SHARPENING STONE CHISEL PLANE IDEAL GIFT | eBay

I've got that set from AJ, they're the Welsh slates I've referenced in other posts. I actually wish there was a more coarse option in there, all 3 can be used as finishers and the only one with any sort of middle-grit capacity is the Dragon's Tongue (Black one, far left). Usual warnings that come with natural hones - take grit ratings with a grain of salt, naturally formed materials have varying performance from rock to rock, your rock may not work like mine etc.

But all of mine are capable of putting a fine finished edge on a razor. I'm quite happy with them, even though mine did costa small tick more than those in the link...I think the ones I purchased were a slightly larger profile. At any rate, if you're patient enough to work with naturals, and you can figure out how to work the slurry, you can do a surprising amount of work with just those. I've set a bevel on the Norton 1K and honed it up to shaving sharp with just the Dragon's tongue for example.

Yes. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Marshal

Do you mean these hones?

NATURAL WELSH SLATE 3 HONE SET SHARPENING STONE CHISEL PLANE IDEAL GIFT | eBay

I've got that set from AJ, they're the Welsh slates I've referenced in other posts. I actually wish there was a more coarse option in there, all 3 can be used as finishers and the only one with any sort of middle-grit capacity is the Dragon's Tongue (Black one, far left). Usual warnings that come with natural hones - take grit ratings with a grain of salt, naturally formed materials have varying performance from rock to rock, your rock may not work like mine etc.

But all of mine are capable of putting a fine finished edge on a razor. I'm quite happy with them, even though mine did costa small tick more than those in the link...I think the ones I purchased were a slightly larger profile. At any rate, if you're patient enough to work with naturals, and you can figure out how to work the slurry, you can do a surprising amount of work with just those. I've set a bevel on the Norton 1K and honed it up to shaving sharp with just the Dragon's tongue for example.

Don't show me such things ! I almost bought them...

At best, they are 6-8k equivalent.

Put the money ($50 with shipping) towards a Naniwa 12K Super Stone.

You will be glad you did. Bet the vast majority, of them are sitting in the back of drawers. Mine are…

Not many 12k Naniwa’s gathering dust…