Thread: The Hone stone Poll

Bevel (re)building: DMT-C (325) and DMT-F (600)
Bevel correction: Coticule with slurry
Edge refinement: Naniwa Chosera 5K + Chosera 10K
or BBW
Finishing: Coticule with water
Stropping on clean leather. (Dovo Russian)

Belgian Blue Whetstone
Chinese 12k
Shapton 16k

Other:
Carborundum razor hone (About 4-6K very fast cuter) bevel setter/sharpen.
Norton 8K (with slurry, then dry) to polish.
Leather strop.

This is all I need for excellent shaves…
… back in the old days they got along with even less.

My favourite combination this far is Naniwa 10k + crom ox
Pro's

• great honing feeling and feedback
• cheap option to get a natural stone feeling ( i'm not sure is Naniwa natural stone?maybe)
• big stone, no need to do x pattern
• great polishing result

Con's

• really soft stone, needs lapping almost after each use
• due to softness is not a good stone for harder steels

Lots of changes until recently:

Light lapping on all hones with a dmt course, the shapton seems to need it more than the others

coticle with slurry and GEM tonsorial blue side for serious work

For regular touch ups or honing:
natural coticle combo - cot with slurry, blue with water, cot with water
shapton pro 12k until sharp (chinese 12k works all right, too, just slower)
alternate coticle with water and 12k until nice and smooth, finish on cot with water for about 5 laps

at least a hundred laps on a proforma strop, anything less and I won't get the best shave out of it until the second time around (next day's shave after stropping)

I use mainly the cheapest (new) dovo carbon steel razor I could find. Seems to work well enough on my dovo 105 as well.

For bevel setting I've got 3 stones with gritt 1k 3-4k 6k. Afther that the coticule and than some laps over 1, 0.5 and 0.25 micron diamont paste.

I think I finally have mine figured.

I set the bevel on the 1k. Move the 4k for Sharpness. Move the 12k w/ heavy slurry for even more, then light slurry, then water. Move to ChromOX balsa. Move to bench strop, canvas and leather.

Thanks.

My stones. Left to right: 2 slurry stones, combo slurry stone, coticule (harder), coticule (softer), BBW. Dimensions: 4"x1 1/4".

I have just recently gone to a Coticule so I do the following. This combo gives me the smoothest and closest shave of anything to date after about a year and a half. I learned about the Coticule after actually seeing and hearing someone who is very good do a honing job on one of my razors. Touch ups on most of my razors takes about 10 minutes.

1K Shapton for bevel
8k DMTEE after a bevel
Slurry on a Coticule, I start here and work down when touching up.
16k Shapton
0.5 micron paste on leather paddle
0.35 micron paste on a leather paddle
Finally Chromium Oxide on a balsa paddle, this step added a level if smoothness that is very hard to believe. Sorry I waited so long to use it for the final step.

Strop 60 to a 100 times on leather.


Take Care,
Richard

I use 1k, 4k, 8k and 16k shapton followed by powdered .5 micron chromium oxide on a 2" leather strop and about 50 laps linen and 100 leather on the regular strop.

I've been thinking about replacing the 16k shapton with a japanese natural hone and getting a thin belgian coticule stone for warped blades, something like 1"x8" combo coticule. Above is what I use though.