Thread: Made in China but not 12k so let's stop calling it 12k

I have a minor peeve. I don't care about it enough to call it a pet peeve, but I think it is something that should be addressed...

Could we all please stop calling the Chinese hone the Chinese 12k?

It is Chinese. It is a rock used as a hone. For those reasons I have no problem calling it the Chinese hone, but that's all it is. It's not 12k. I don't know of ANY other natural hone that has a grit designation and there is a reason for that--aside from not being accurate, it just doesn't make sense.

I suggest that whenever you get the urge to mention the Chinese 12k, you simply pause, take a deep breath, and as Dr. Laura used to say..."do the right thing." Call it the Chinese hone instead.

Agreed, from this day I shal only say... Chinese stone... Never again Chinese 12 k

I don't think so. It may not be descriptive, but that is now its name. Old habits die hard! Plus, calling it "Chinese hone" will not be useful when we discover other excellent natural stones in neighboring Guizhou Province and other parts of China.

I will call it the Peoples Hone.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

I will call it the Peoples Hone.

I LOVE IT!!

Originally Posted by igitur55

I don't think so. It may not be descriptive, but that is now its name. Old habits die hard! Plus, calling it "Chinese hone" will not be useful when we discover other excellent natural stones in neighboring Guizhou Province and other parts of China.

If and when that happens, we'll call it the "Guizhou hone" and start it off right. Or, would you rather call it the new one the Chinese 12.1k hone?

There must be an actual name for the type of rock that it is. I mean, "Chinese 12k" isn't really a name at all. It would be like calling an escher a "German 10k", or whatever grit you want to call it.

Maybe we should start calling it a Guizhoun rock or something of the like, since it came from the Chinese province of Guizhou. It would be similar to calling a rock from the German province of Thurigen a Thuringian.

Would that make sense?

EDIT: Utopian just posted the same thing pretty much.....

Actually, it's from the Guangxi region, but until another one is found, I'd rather stick with "Chinese."

To-may-to, Tu-mah-to.

Calling it a Chinese 12k gives newbies an instant method of determining where it should fit in a progression. Should I use it after an 8k? sure. Should I use it after my shapton 16k? nope. Feel free to make the Escher (X)k, coticule(X)k, Nakayama(X)k argument, but for me it's all just semantics. It's just another part of the straight razor lingo that has developed over time, i.e. BBS, TPT, TNT, etc.

Since most people pick these up from Woodcraft - it probably has to do with their description of the chinese hone.

A dense, hard stone that's perfect for final polishing on all your carving tools, plane blades, chisels or any tool requiring a keen edge.

Extremely fine (12,000+) grit natural water stone quarried in the Guangxi province of China.

From this one could argue that we should call it a "Chinese'>'12k". This should properly be read as a "Chinese 'greater than' 12k".

But in the end, To-may-to, Tu-mah-to.

Edit: okay, maybe a "Chinese'>/=' 12k". Read as a "Chinese 'greater than or equal to' 12k". But that's as far as I'm going.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Actually, it's from the Guangxi region, but until another one is found, I'd rather stick with "Chinese."

That's reasonable enough. Weren't Thuringian hones referred to as "German Water Hones" and coticules as "Belgian Hones"? So referring to the stone by the country it came from certainly makes sense. I honestly have no idea how the "12k" got tacked on at the end...