Thread: Favorite finishing stones (and slurry)

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

If you want a stone that is so fine that paste is unnecessary, look into the Suehiro 20k. I got one several years ago. After buying it, I have not bought another stone. Done. It’s easy to use, super fine, and delivers consistent results. Some people love to play around with hones. If you do, this is not for you. This is auto transmission. I hone because I need to. And I like a very keen edge. No slurry needed. No magic or voodoo.

Thanks for the tip!

Originally Posted by DZEC

Coming back to the Vermio. It is not porous so you can use oil or water. I prefer glycerine and water, but I have also heard of folks using honing oil. A quick wash with dish soap and you are back to the original stone.

That sounds like a nice stone. Thanks!

I have a few nicer finishers but picking no one would be like picking a favourite child.
The most important hone in my line up is my bevel setter. Naniwa 1K.

I second what Rez says. Sure, I got a bunch of finishers. But the Green Brick is the main stone!

Mine would be a Blue/Green Escher, no slurry on the final laps

Originally Posted by DZEC

I use a Vermio to finish after a coticule. Much less expensive than most Jnat finishers or high grit synthetics and pretty easy to use. Griffiths sells them with a slurry stone although I don’t actually use the slurry stone much.

The Greek Vermio stone is one of my best finishers. It produces a very keen, yet smooth edge. I got mine from Matt at Griffith Shaving, but they are currently out of stock. They are a very dense, very fine stone. I also have a Welsh Yellow Lake slate, a Zulu Grey, and an very fine Imperia La Roccia that will produce similar edges. The ILR has a love them/hate them reputation among SRP members. I love mine, even though I do not know the origin of the stone. Each of the stones will produce a better edge than my Naniwa 12K.

I cannot get edges anywhere near that level of keenness and smoothness with my Coticule, my modern-mined Thuringian, my Chinese Guangxi, or my Tsushima Ocean Blue. However, since natural stones do vary in performance, results with your stones may be either better or worse than mine.

I have a hard black Arkansas (Dan's) that will produce a great edge, but only with more patience than I normally exhibit, so I rarely use it.

The Vermio stones can be used with oil or water, with a slurry or without. My favorite way of using them for final finishing is to use shaving lather or a mixture of liquid hand soap and water on the stone and then dilute slowly to plain water.

My favorite finishing stone (s) with slurry is an easy question for me but ask again next year and it may be different. Right now though it is a thuringian (light green from Hatzicho or yellow green Hohenzollern stone) with slurry from slurry stone from Hatzicho and a jnat with many different slurry stones (nagura).

The jnats have provided a SLIGHTLY keener edge retaining the smoothness but the thuringian stones are MUCH less effort for me at this time anyway.

A translucent or surgical black Arkansas stone is also an amazing edge but if you don’t have patience and like working with slurry I wouldn’t look in their direction.

My favorite is this one, I have a few others but this is the one I always reach for, very fast and very predicable

I've fallen down the finisher rabbit hole in the past(also the present and probably future), and in my experience, I've found that each individual razor I own seems to have it's own idea of what its favorite finisher is. As far as my favorite finisher, I've found that the strop has much more control over the final finish on the edge than any of the stones I've used. Maybe one day I'll find that hone that gives me that perfect edge across the board for my face.

Originally Posted by RayClem

The Greek Vermio stone is one of my best finishers. It produces a very keen, yet smooth edge. I got mine from Matt at Griffith Shaving, but they are currently out of stock. They are a very dense, very fine stone. I also have a Welsh Yellow Lake slate, a Zulu Grey, and an very fine Imperia La Roccia that will produce similar edges. The ILR has a love them/hate them reputation among SRP members. I love mine, even though I do not know the origin of the stone. Each of the stones will produce a better edge than my Naniwa 12K.

I cannot get edges anywhere near that level of keenness and smoothness with my Coticule, my modern-mined Thuringian, my Chinese Guangxi, or my Tsushima Ocean Blue. However, since natural stones do vary in performance, results with your stones may be either better or worse than mine.

I have a hard black Arkansas (Dan's) that will produce a great edge, but only with more patience than I normally exhibit, so I rarely use it.

The Vermio stones can be used with oil or water, with a slurry or without. My favorite way of using them for final finishing is to use shaving lather or a mixture of liquid hand soap and water on the stone and then dilute slowly to plain water.

You guys have me more and more intrigued by the Vermio. Dinnermint aka John sent me his months ago to play with and possibly buy. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't done much with it yet. Having said that, I have four re-scales in my honing cup just waiting, so I'm gonna try finishing on them.

My usual approach these days is to tweak a blade as far as it will go on the Nani 12, strop the #$*t out of it, and test-shave. I almost always follow that up with a "thin-to-thick" session on one of my arkies, usually the 8x3 SB. This gives me keen, smooth, precise edges almost every time.

Oh, and ditto what the others said about a bevel-set. Probably 96% or more of a fine edge is work done on the green brick or other 1k bevel-setter. I have never gotten a good edge off of any razor that wasn't on-point after that stone. Hell, I have even shaved off of mine with pretty good results!

I'm looking forward to messing around with that Vermio! Do you guys usually hit that after a Nani 12 or similar synth?