Thread: Hones/Procedure

I agree that a good natural is hard to beat. Maybe even impossible. In fact my synthetics are used more for kitchen knives than razors these days. However, bad/hard to work with naturals do exist. My coticule is a good example of this.

I lapped it flat, then polished to 1K and tried diluticot. Terrible shave, little better than shaving off my Norton 4K. Repeated a few times, same result. Polished the stone to 8k, or as close as I could get. Not much better. Burnished with 2,000 laps from a razor that was in need of touch up. Eliminated slurry and used it as a finisher off my synthetic hones to be sure the razor had a good shaving edge before touching the coticule. Still the shaves with water were terrible, but moving closer to the right direction about a 6K edge I'd wager. Tried with pure mineral oil - edge was a dud, 6K at best. Cut mineral oil 50/50 with mineral spirit: Eureka! An edge that shaves (but still barely passable).

What finally pushed mine into a place where I would call it a good finishing stone was coating the stone with Chrome Oxide, then buffing it with a cotton wheel. Now it makes a beautiful shaving edge. But there will be no diluticots or slurry work with this stone because the surface cannot be disturbed, and water still does not provide an acceptable shave. It must be used with 50/50 mineral oil and spirits, with very light pressure - less than weight of blade. Could you imagine a new fellow with no experience trying to dial in such a difficult stone to work with? How many hours of failed diluticots, unicots, honing up to a certain point with synthetics only to have his 'finisher' degrade his edge? How long would it take to figure out the issue was with the stone, not his own hands without the experience and tools necessary to determine where the problem lies?

Synthetic hones may not create as nice a shave, but they also don't come with the chance of getting a stone with this issue. Once lapped smooth and polished to maybe 1000 or 2000, they were ready to work. The only problem left to resolve was the skill of the person looking me in the mirror every morning.

I love my Naturals. I would say my Welsh slates, now polished just as much as my coticule, create an edge that tops my coticule in every metric. Keener, sharper, more comfortable...they're hard to match, I can't imagine anything beating them. But I don't recommend them to beginners, because there's no guarantee the next person will get stones that match the performance of mine. And they came with their own learning curve, though admittedly much smaller than my coticule.