Quote Originally Posted by Marshal View Post
I could've just had a bad experience, because I did precisely that and my stone was a bear to learn. I asked for a hard stone (my preference) that would be used for finishing straights. This stone is soft and quite difficult to do that with. Perhaps this is because I ordered around Christmas rush, and I'm certain they were having a hard enough time filling orders much less being particular about what kind of rock was shipped out.

Or perhaps I still have yet to fully master the rock. It's a regular grade coticule, 175x50 mm. I've not used it in a while, I think I will pull it out and touch up my coticule razor.

My suggestion if you can is find someone selling a known good stone. That way they can also relay what method they used to get a good edge.
I decided to order one from Ardennes, a 150x40 mm. i did put that I was going to use it to finish straight razors, so hopefully they ship a stone that doesn't have as muck of a learning curve to it. But I gues a few of my razors will making more trips than usual to the stones till I get this rock tamed. Now for the hardest part, waiting for it to arrive! And also doing a lot of reading on how to prep it, and ways to get the best edge possible.