Question regarding ebay chinese waterstone and ceramic waterstone

Hi everyone,

First a quick hello. This is my first post to the forum. I've got hold of my great gandfather's straight razor, and am in the process of restoring it and learning how to hone and use it. Should be an interesting project,

I have come across an ebay seller (open_razor) offering remarkably cheap razor hones:

sharpening stone 8000 Grit , ceramic whetstone - eBay Strops, Sharpeners, Shaving, Vanity, Perfume Shaving, Collectibles. (end time 15-Dec-09 10:23:41 AEDST)

and

New Chinese Water Hone Waterstone for straight razor - eBay, Barber Shop Shaving, Vanity Perfume Grooming, Collectables. (end time 27-Dec-09 01:30:20 AEDST)

I am wondering if anyone has purchased either of these, and what their experience was with them. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,
J.

Firstly, welcome to SRP!

I cant look at them here at work as its a blocked site, but you'll need more than an 8k to hone if your edge is dull at all.

Really you need a 1k to bevel set, a 4k to sharpen, an 8k to polish and then something 10k+ to finish. The only optional one there is really the 10k+.

I'll bow to the more experienced members about those stones you linked.

Also, do you know how to hone? If you dont want to damage your razor or sink a small fortune on hones, then it may be worth sending it out to a honemeister to restore. Then you'll know when you get it that the edge is good!

Whatever you decide, good luck and happy shaving!

I had bought the Chinese 12k from, exactly this seller from poland.
It cost me delivered 23€ wich is just incredible.
I have not yet come acorss a great deal like this.
The C12k I got was quite flat, I needed only little initial lapping
and it was a very homogenous and nice stone.
I got very good results with it. But I recently gave it away
because I have so many better and faster finishers (wich cost 10X the money ^^)

The delivery to germany was easy and took about 10 days.
Becaus poland is a member of the EU, I didn´t have to pay any toll.

I bought a 3 micron diamond paste from him as well,
wich I can recommend, too. He´s got some finer pastes, too if you don´t have any yet.

The 8k hone has gotten my interest as well.
It is so cheap!
I *really* am curious to know how they perform



I think when you say you already began restoring and honing,
you already got yourself a stock of coarser hones,
like 500, 1000, 3000 and maybe 6.000?
Because an 8k hone alone will defenitely not sharpen a razor ;)

The Chinese hone you linked is a valuable hone. You can find lots of infromation about it here if you search for "C12k"

Thanks for the advice :)

Have decided to go with both. I've got DMT plates for 600 and 1200 (mainly for sharpening carving chisels), so probably just need something in the 3k or 4k range to bridge the gap.

My razor still needs a good 24 hours of wet n dry before I consider sharpening and honing though.

I purchased his Chinese stone a while back and I've been very pleased with it.

I do 1.2k DMT to 4k bear (~8k norton/similar).

It takes a lot of passes, but it's perfectly doable. I plan to get a bridging stone some day, but it's not an urgent need.