Thread: Friend new to razors looking for a Natural finishing hone

I would go coticule and then a finishing arkansas stone (translucent or hard black)
Jnat can be a fun route but expensive for the good ones

All except the Arkansas are pretty expensive. I have a hard black Arkansas. The company says its actually finer than the translucent. It seems so much coarser than my Escher. Have you used one as a finisher? Is the edge nice? I've never tried it.

I have a translucent I finish on with some norton sharpening oil. Gives me a very nice edge and personally I find it easier to finish on arkansas stones. Have your friend try out a straight razor with an arkansas stone finish before he buys one

You're saying jnat because thuris are expensive? I'm no expert but from what I have seen jnats are high as you can get. At least the ones I see are high as a cat's back.

I have several Arkansas finishes, all from Dan's Whetstones. The edge from my True Hard, Translucent, and Black are excellent. My Blue Black seems to be a sharper edge but they are hard to find.
The edges from my Arks and my jnates are similar. My Thuringen produces a nice edge but not sharp enough for me.

I feel finishing ho.nes are way overrated. It really is the final touch, which in my view is more for adding comfort than keenness. Keenness is determined by how thin you get the edge up to your finisher, after that it's just about nuance.

In my view a coticule on water only is an ideal finisher, as they tend to be on the slow side, make it hard to mess up a well established edge and add a great deal of shaving comfort. I'm in the minority on this forum on that, but that is how it is for me.

The thing is, you can add similar comfort with chromchromium oxide, Thüringer hones, many Japanese naturals, probably hard Arkansas hones (never used one) or a €250 Suehiro Gokumyo 20.000, among others.

Finishing is really about the last 1%; if you're not up to 99% before that, whatever you finish on is quite inconsequential.

So tell your friend to go with his gut and budget; if he already has a coticule, tell him to focus on getting it as keen as he wants and try the coticule as a finisher after that. If he wants to push his edge further after that, tell him to rub some talcum powder into the coticule surface (dry or wet, either way works) and do some 30-50 careful finishing strokes, test, and repeat if necessary.

Regards,

Pieter

Originally Posted by dcaven

All except the Arkansas are pretty expensive. I have a hard black Arkansas. The company says its actually finer than the translucent. It seems so much coarser than my Escher. Have you used one as a finisher? Is the edge nice? I've never tried it.

Hi ! I used black translucent Arkansas in my experiments. I brought one side up to 0.5 microns. Did the transition to it from 3K naniva. And I will say that this is a great tool for soft razors.

Ask 10 honemeisters and you get 10 different answers. If you want to refine a coticule edge you can also use a pasted strop. Not a hone but a cheap option.