Thread: help with welsh slate hone

Just purchased a Welsh slate the was sold as a "Welsh Thuri". i am new to naturals so i checked around with different people to see if such a stone would be easy to use. well, NOT for me apparently. took a shave ready razor and did 100 laps (as the previous owner had done)with water. terrible shave. definitely not an improvement. yesterday to make sure it had been really a shave ready razor i started again. tried with water, smiths honing solution, burnished the stone even. no improvement or removal of scratches.
so, before i get rid of it (not sure i can honestly sell it as a finisher), what other methods can i try to get it to work?

What grit size equivalent did you get? I have an entire set that works really well. Lowest grit being the Dragon's Tongue. Assuming you have a finishing quality one and did 100 laps with a shave-ready razor my guess is you overhoned that razor and created a wire edge.

supposed to be 15k. can i expect it to leave visible scratches (as compared to my 8k naniwa?)

It can leave scratches. Most naturals will leave some random scratches. Doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I have very little experience with the Welsh slates but when I was using them I prefered to use them with glycerine. You should try that. Maybe you'll like that better.

You know I'd offer you a refund if i didn't believe it was user error. I respect this community enough I would not offer something for finishing razors that couldn't. This isn't eBay.

That piece has been cut from the same stock as Gary Haywood's and Druid's and is entirely capable of finishing a razor in my opinion.

I was doing more laps from an sub 8k level.

I would tone down the lap count and try again.

Maybe 20, test 20, test.


You know I retract that, if you try and can't figure it out you can send it back to me for a refund minus shipping.

I stand behind what I sell here regardless of what the buyer does or does not with it.

I doubt those stones are close to the advertised grit rating, but try a thin slurry and light pressure. I Iike, a wet stone with 3-4 drops of Smith’s or Ballistol.

I have also been using a very thin soap solution, (1 drop to a cup of water) of Castile Soap, (Dr. Bonners) for slurry on natural stones, do not use on synthetic stones. It breaks up the slurry and adds just a bit of slickness without all the chemicals.

Also, make sure that the scratches you are seeing are from the finish stone and not 1k stria that was not removed and becomes visible once all the other stria are polished away.

I experimented with those stones years ago, and have a few, but really there are much better options available, a 12k Super Stone for one…

Re-hone the razor on your 8k Naniwa. Then strop and test shave. After that, do about 20 strokes on your Welsh hone and strop and shave test again to determine whether the edge is improved or not.

Repeat more strokes, 20-30 at a time, until you are satisfied or confidently unsatisfied.

Do you have access to any sort of magnification in order to evaluate the bevels and edge?

Thanks SOLITARYSOLDIER i'm sorry if it sounded like you had misrepresented the stone as i trust your judgement(also why i didn't say where i got it). i was sure it must be my error and have run out of things to try as i am new to naturals.

I have both a loupe and a 200x usb scope, though the scope hasn't been as useful to me as the loupe, guess i don't know what i'm looking for.

My 15K Welsh hone is more or less on a par with an Escher.

I have the 3 stone set off aj and the purple slate is around 5-6k, the dragons tongue is roughly 8k and the black "15k" is about 8k too.
I've based this off the scratch patterns in between my naniwa ss set and how they feel during the shave.

I still use the stones as mid range stones before my jnat charnley or coti. I just enjoy honing on natural stones.


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