Thread: Poor newbie's hone set

Youve gotten some good advise. I my opinion, id send the razor to someone for a profesional honing. Cost is minimal but it could take a weeks time.
Id buy a strop. The poorman strop at whippeddog works fine. And when you cut it up it wont kill your pocket book.
Get some cr0x for the back of the cloth-like material of the strop.
Read a lot on how this is done and watch vids to learn. Practice daily with a butter knife on the strop.
Use the newly honed razor and strop after use and before if you want. Id say dont go putting the razor on the stone just yet as it take one inch on the stone in the wrong fasion to damage the edge. Learn stropping and use the cr0x for a little while till you understand stropping and angles before putting razor to stone. You bought a great stone and it will last your life time.

Good luck and enjoy.

Originally Posted by Barbu

Thank you. Hope it works out. Who knows there might be a cheap Naniwa in the classifieds soon I would like to know if I should go over with 1000 or 1500 wet/dry after the 600 or it's enough?.

I lap my Naniwa hones with a DMT 325 plate. The diamond grit rating on that is 325. If the grit ratings for the diamond plate and W/D sand paper are the same then you should be OK with just the 600 grit W/D paper.

Bob

Originally Posted by Gasman

. You bought a great stone and it will last your life time.

I'm really glad you said that because it looks awfully thin! About the strop, thought I'd get the kit since it comes with balsa loaded with compounds. I saw it recommended for begginers to minimize the risk of round up my edge. Thanks

Just tried stropping on newspaper.. Picked the finest, flattest one I could find and used a page that was completely covered in ink. It works pretty good! Good enough to bring back a shaving edge I believe. I might wait a little while before buying a real strop. Ima go try it

Originally Posted by Barbu

I appreciate your feedback gentlemen! Really surprised of your opinions on the C12k, though! The Naniwa 12k is one of those things that seem ridiculously priced priced to me. About 170$ cad for grit in a block.. though currently on sale at paul's finest. I have the feeling I would get a hell of a buyer's remorse if I pulled the trigger on that. What did our ancestors use? I'm sure the common man didn't have expensive stones like that, or did they?

There are a few reasons for the feed back on the C12K. First and foremost that it isn't 12K, naturals can't really be grit rated. Second, natural stones vary from one to the next. Some Cnats make a very good shaving edge. Some are only good for mid level work. If you don't really know how to hone, you won't know how to assess your Cnat. And having a Cnat of unknown honing capacity makes it impossible to help because we simply won't know if your rock is one of the good ones, or one of the mid-level only stones.

If you get a good one they can be a really nice hone. I'd place my Cnat right up there with my Welsh Slates, Arkansas stones, and even my small Shoubudani. And I'd rather use any of those as a finisher than my Kuromaku 12K. Their edges just feel nicer.

I'm a little hesitant to suggest Bluesun hones because I don't have first hand experience with them, but if you look into them nicknbleeding gave Bluesun hones from Amazon a pretty good review. His thread should still be on the front page of the hones forum. I'd say get the 8K combination one and find something else for 1K bevel setting. Maybe a naniwa traditional.

6x2 dan's soft and black stone combination and a small 220 grit diamond card to activate the soft side when you want to.

It would be as fine of a finisher as you're likely to find (with another side that can set bevels but with a light touch prep them for the fine side), and I see them listed for about $56, and figure the diamond card might be another $10.

Originally Posted by Marshal

I'd say get the 8K combination one and find something else for 1K bevel setting. Maybe a naniwa traditional.

So would you say my 1k/6k is no good at all? Thought I could get away with 1k/6k and then spend more time on the 12k Naniwa I ordered, skipping the 8k.(Followed by chromium and leather ofc) Here's a pic of the box.

Not familiar with your stone, but I would think the 1k side would work to set a bevel. However going from a 6k to a 12k finisher is a big jump. I would think it would take a long time to refine the edge enough. My preference is 1k (Shapton), 4k, 8k (Norton 4/8 combination), finisher. Personally I do not have a 12k but use a coticule, thuringian, or barbers hone. A long time ago I purchased a 4 sided leather paddle strop and pasted it with 3, 1, 0.5 diamond paste with the 4th side CrOx to smooth it out. Works very well for touch ups, or to mellow an edge from the stones.

Originally Posted by Barbu

So would you say my 1k/6k is no good at all? Thought I could get away with 1k/6k and then spend more time on the 12k Naniwa I ordered, skipping the 8k.(Followed by chromium and leather ofc) Here's a pic of the box.

You'll be able to work that stone, and the gap should be fine.

Here's what I'd do with it in an attempt to get a good shave out of a 6k synthetic that is of the older style:
* set the bevel
* slurry the 6k side and work the bevel for a few minutes (you should have everything wiped off in terms of prior stria) within a few minutes
* clear the stone off (hopefully it doesn't self slurry) and hone with increasingly lighter pressure

strop, then about ten strokes on the 6k, strop again, then ten strokes (light), then 5, then strop. You should have a good edge.

What you're doing with that routine is starting to set up an edge that the leather has worked and then not remove it entirely. It works, but it can be a bit tricky to perfect.

Once you have the razor shaving like you'd like, then once in a great while, you can do 5 or 10 light strokes on the 6k side and then strop and shave, repeat the next day only if needed.

That's essentially how the old 1200FF gritted barber hones were used. If you used them too heavily, then the edge became like a tiny serrated knife and the shave was uncomfortable. If you just used them to keep the bevel from growing and the edge thin, they work quite well.

(of course, crox on a strop can give you a hand, too - but you don't want to go to it too early).

Originally Posted by Barbu

So would you say my 1k/6k is no good at all? Thought I could get away with 1k/6k and then spend more time on the 12k Naniwa I ordered, skipping the 8k.(Followed by chromium and leather ofc) Here's a pic of the box.

Can't rightly say as I've no experience with that hone, nor have I read anything about it.

If it suffers what many low cost hones or other hones that we generally don't use for razors do, the 1K will be aggressive and leave a jagged edge, or the binder will be soft and allow for auto slurrying. It also won't be as fine as it should/could be. 1K acting more like a 600 or 800 grit hone, 6K behaving more like a 4K or 5K stone.

IF that 6K is in the 5K-6K ball park you should be able to work with that. Generally speaking you want to double the grit rating (or half the grit size) when moving up hones. With my Shapton set I go 1/2/5/12K and going from 5K to 12K literally takes 10-20 light strokes. This may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but if that hone is decent quality you should have no problem transitioning to your naniwa 12K.

I wasn't aware you had anything for the lower grits and was simply offering up a known effective lower cost option.

Edit: Reviews I read about it on Amazon aren't promising. A lot of folks say that the 1K wears fast, to me that is a red flag. I think it's natural for the lower grit portion of a combination stone to wear faster than it's finer component, but I also read about chunks breaking off while honing and other things that sound less than optimal for any type of honing, but especially detrimental to razor honing where you're going to need an edge that is not only sharp but pleasant to run over the surface of your skin.