Thread: Where to start with natural hones

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

I think part of it depends on what kind of person you are too. Synths are definitely easier and more reliable, definable and repeatable and they are definitely quicker than nats, Arks especially. Still where's the fun in that? We all ate mushy peas when we came off the teet and had no teeth. If one's happiness depends on having success every time then stick with synths. I don't say that as a judgement, just a point of fact. Not everyone likes the wilderness. If not stay your ass in the city because tagging along will suck for everybody. For me there is something...cro magnon about finding a rock and rubbing shiny things on it to make them ouchy. That's all part of the fun. That's where the joie de vivre comes from for a man ape like me stuck in civilization whose wife makes him sleep in a building instead of under the stars...she won't come along otherwise.... Anyway that's why I walk by a rock garden and say, "hmmm"

I don't disagree with you Paul but, the obvious point is that a person learning to hone needs a system that has repeatable results and a lot of available help (Synths).

That is probably not the most fun for people like you that are at the stage in their honing that they can experiment because they know a good edge when they get one, but I don't believe you would even think of talking a newbie into joining in your fun.

As far as mushy peas, I'm English. We get Mushy peas with our fish n chips (and curry sauce for our chips usually).

I must not be stating things correctly because people keep missing my points. The safe route is to go the synth road. However someone had to be the first otherwise we wouldn't know any of this. I'm not trying to tell anyone to go any direction. The OP sounded adventurous so my point was that that's always a way to go and it's definitely an adventure. Just be aware here be dragons. For those with big brass ones the spoils are sweet but pricey.

Edit: PLUS, let me just add that we act.like.no one would ever figure out how to hone a razor without someone to hold our hand. The internet is great but it is also a crutch, just like cell phones. I learned to shave and hone in the dark with one double sided barber hone and a straight both heirlooms. I know many others did too.

Hi Walter, welcome to the forum.

If you're into lapidary, you definitely will want to check out this thread;

https://sharprazorpalace.com/hones/1...ver-there.html

In general, I agree with STF that synthetics are probably the best route to learn honing razors on for the reasons he gave. I think this is especially so if you are learning from scratch to rehab old razors that may be chipped among other defects. OTH if you are learning to do touch ups only then a natural can fit in there nicely as a finisher or at the end of a synthetic progression on a rehabbed razor too.

Bob

“What would be a good/more forgiving type of stone to start on?”

Assuming you are new to honing and straight razor shaving and are looking to maintain a razor as opposed to restoration, a small Jnat, (Koppa) or a small vintage Translucent Ark 6”. A koppa Jnat and a diamond plate to make slurry and flatten stones under $100, or a Vintage Translucent, also under $100.

Get on CNTG mailing list and they will email you when their Koppa’s are in stock. Their $80 Nakayama Koppa sell out in hours.

Buy vintage Arks, not new, you do not need a large, expensive stone to refresh or finish. Larger is nicer, but pricy, you can finish on a 4 inch stone easily but 6 inch is a little more real estate. There is a nice 4 inch vintage translucent on a well know auction site right now for $30.

Both are easy to use and capable of producing the best shaving edges possible, it is where most shavers/honers end up after trying all the other hones available.

Honing can be as simple or as complicated as you make it, but really a Jnat with diamond slurry will refresh an edge easily. As will a Translucent and oil or soapy water. Both can keep you shaving very well for a long time, assuming you learn how to strop. Stropping will improve or trash an edge quickly, which is why you need to learn to refresh. Stropping is way under rated, and more difficult than it looks, to do properly.

(Learning Jnats with Microscope) thread for Jnat honing instruction with great bevel and edge micrographs.

Best place to start, IMHO, is with good quality synthetic stones, or lapping film.

But if you narrow the scope as you have in the question, to just naturals, my vote is split between arkies and a coticule.

Arkansas stones or other novaculite type stones run in a range of densities and degrees of fineness. You can set a bevel on a medium Arkie just fine. Been there, done that. Just keep the pressure reasonable and use a thicker honing fluid than you might normally use, to reduce scratch depth. Harder Arks to refine, and a well burnished surgical black, or translucent, to finish. It is these extra hard glassy stones that are nearly pure quartz that are infamously slow. They don't self slurry. The coarseness is all about the surface finish. Lap it well and carefully, run it up through 1k or 2k sandpaper, then rub with another similar stone or some 3u lapping film on a granite plate, whatever, and you are halfway home. Final burnishing calls for steel. Honing a stainless steel chef knife works nicely. Eventually you get a very smooth finish on the stone and it in turn will do a great job finishing a razor, if you put enough time in on it. "Great" being a subjective and relative term, of course.

I may well be in the minority here, but I prefer big stones with lots of honing real estate on them. Big trans or SB arkies are not common and are expensive, but sometimes you can get lucky and find some great stones at garage or estate sales.

Next up is coticules. Why coticules? Because they are as close to a practical one stone solution as it gets, and while they are a slurried stone, they are not as complex as Jnats can be. The slurry stone for a coticule is just another piece of coticule. If you have a 600 or 1k synthetic for setting bevels, then you can carry on with a coti using dilucot. Start with a heavy slurry and firm pressure. Gradually lighten up on pressure and dilute the slurry until at the end you are using weight of the blade only, and clear running water. Edge sharpness is nothing to brag about but most will agree that at least a nice coti edge will be a comfortable shaver. Since you generally will never need to reset the bevel again, you do a lot more touchups on the razor than bevel sets, and so rather than spend money on a stone that you will never come close to wearing out, just use sandpaper for setting the bevel. Coticules don't turn up at garage sales as often as Arkies but it is not unheard of, either. Prices on very large rectangular coticules, especially natural combos, are pretty high but most coti users get used to smaller rocks.

Jnats can be a big rabbit hole. However a nice level 5 stone can be used as a finisher without naguras (fancy exotic foreign word for "slurry stone" in practicalese) to perk up a dilucot edge. A Jnat can actually be quite a bit cheaper than a coticule, The shoe box full of nagura that you will collect later is where you will have the most Jnat money tied up. Get them later, under advice from the Jnat gurus.

Meanwhile my advice if you insist on naturals is to start with arkies or coticules. If you want a natural for just a finisher, there are other options to consider. When your income tax refund comes in and the money is burning a hole in your pocket, maybe look into thuris, charnleys, stuff like that, or a nice big Jnat and two or three recommended naguras. THAT ought to keep your hands busy and out of mischief for a while.

I have done Arkies. I have done Coticules. I even went through a very brief Jnat stage. (still got the Jnat rocks, somewhere.) I always go back to good synthetics or lapping film, and diamond on balsa for a finish. Nothing works better. But if you are more about the process than the result, then maybe you will like naturals.

IMHO natural stones have a nice sound, but if you start a progression of purely natural stones on a dull razor, it will take A HECK OF A LOT OF TIME. Finishers is another thing, but using exclusively naturals, that's tough.
Start with synthetics, and finish on a natural. Which one? You'll be the judge of that. Do you have any pals in your general vicinity that own hones? Ask them nicely to let you try some.
And if you're new, get a cheap razor and learn the how to get it sharp, before trying and/or destroying your good ones.

I have to admit that regardless of all the talk about caveman methods when I have given people help with honing I don't do it with my Arks (which would be my recommendation) I start them with the old stand by Norton combo stones. 220/1k, 4k/8k.

I once had a friend who was a professor of anthropology and he told me that people romanticize about going to the Amazon to live with the Indian tribes or traveling with Bedouins and loved to ask him questions about it but the talking about it was a lot more fun than actually doing it.

Billy Gibbons supposedly was talking to BB King about guitar strings and brought up hearing about players like King using heavy guage for a fatter sound. BB supposedly told him no man I use light guage strings. Why do you want to do all that work?

Probably the most realistic way to approach using nats in a progression is get comfortable using synths with a natural finisher then when you are comfortable doing that work backward toward nats in earlier stages. I still maintain that arks are the way...just sayin'.

If, after that, you really want a challenge then try to do a one stone progression.

IMO honing on naturals is not more difficult than or different from honing on synthetics. Naturals may be slower and have a character of their own but other than that: honing is sharpening a piece of metal by moving it across a flattended stone.

Originally Posted by Kees

IMO honing on naturals is not more difficult than or different from honing on synthetics. Naturals may be slower and have a character of their own but other than that: honing is sharpening a piece of metal by moving it across a flattended stone.

There is also the case with the composition/quality of the stone. Japanese ones are among the most famous, for the reason I'm writing about; Inclusions. Some naturals are extraordinarily pure from them, and for some you're flipping a coin and hope for the best. Not to say that all synthetics are pure of that, but the quality control is better from a man or a machine than leaving it to nature.