Thread: Using Marble as a finishing stone

I have found from my experience that it is relatively easy to get to the 75th percentile in any skill or competition.

Above that level it takes money and or time.

In a forum such as this many, of course not all are at the 98% plus level so the things that concern them are much different and arguably not worth it for the average person.

I'm going to offend people here but...whatever. Aficionadosism is by in large very self indulgent and overly concerned with saying that one can discern the most miniscule of details which, even though one may say that they can, very often, in reality, they cannot.
I am a tea lover but I always try to be honest with myself in this regard but it is so easy to become absorbed with one's self it is difficult to really be.

I'm offended. I don't know what I'm offended about and I don't even know if it's real, but okay!

Ah grasshopper...

Confucius say: many man smoke but Fu man chu

Okay, so I haven't gotten a loupe to look at scratch patterns, striations etc but what I have been doing is continuing to try out the granite table top with the razors in my rotation. So far I have found that it improves every single one I've tried it on, some of them greatly. The next thing I'm thinking of trying to satisfy my curiosity is a smooth finished glazed ceramic tile. I'll let you know how that works out.

What was your finishing stone, before the granite.?

Originally Posted by outback

What was your finishing stone, before the granite.?

Well I have a couple of barber homes. One of them is two-sided,... Well I guess they both have two sides but I mean one is different on one side then the other. Anyway I also have a 12K sharpton but I was never very satisfied with that one. It seems like it improves some things and not others. I have to disclaim by saying I'm by no means a homemeister. Like most everything else with this until I discovered SRP I just sort of learned it on my own. I guess that's not really fair though because my dad had a sharpening business for a while and I watched him do it but he never really apprenticed me like he did in the locksmith business. He was a funny character. talk about ADHD. He couldn't seem to really settle on one thing. While he had his businesses going at one point he was doing a combination of things and his van said Saw, mower and key shop. Anyway I know that was a rabbit trail but suffice it to say that That was one thing he never really actively trained me in.

I guess that wasn't really a complete answer. Normally how I finish is with the 4K/8K pyramid after setting the bevel and fixing the Apex. Then I usually take it straight to the leather. With most of them they don't really need much more than that for me. That being said, the granite table top sure does sweeten that edge That little bit more. Maybe it's because it's so smooth and hard that It aligns the blade more than it hones anything. Again... Not a honemeister

Okay, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since this thread was active but perhaps we can consider that as times gone by with hopefully much learned since then. I spent some time honing tonight and this thread crossed my mind. Some of you may have seen that I have lately had some contrition and this thread is part of it. Anyway, I ran a Henry Sears Queen 7/8 through a synthetic progression chasing a microchip: 1k, 4k, 6k, 8k, 12k then burnished ark. It was while I was meditatively doing the gajillion laps on the ark that I remembered this thread and I remembered Mike asking me about scratch pattern comparison under magnification which, at the time, had not even occured to me. Anyway, since then I have been using a glass with an added secondary lens and a light which is not fancy but magnifies okay. So just to quantify it (i.e. the quandary about honing on a polished granite table top or counter and its effectiveness) some I got some pictures through magnification of the bevel after the progression ending with the burnished ark and then got some more after I did 100 various laps on the granite table top. Honestly I haven't touched the polished granite table top for quite a while. I have had a rebirth in terms of honing and I wanted to look back and see more clearly just what I had been carrying on about. With all that mouthful said here is the comparison.
Before the polished granite

and after the polished granite

I know that these are not exactly microscopic photos but it is what I am seeing with the magnification I have. It appears to me that they are close but the striations are somewhat, if not much, finer after the granite which is, I think, worth noting seeing as that followed a highly burnished ark.
I'd love to hear some thoughts as I am still learning to observe and interpret the stria and welcome any commrnts.

Because granite contains some minerals that are harder than steel, it will change the edge of the blade. Whether that change is beneficial depends upon the composition and grain size of those minerals .