Thread: Something new????

Hey guys. Just thought I would share a little something with yall. I purchased a "shave ready" st8 from a fellow member here. When I recieved it I went ahead and shaved with it that evening without stropping as was said by the seller. It did shave but not bbs. I figured it was my technique because I am very new to it. So i kept using it like that. The seller contacted me to see if I needed a barber hone for when I need to dress up the edge. I agreed to purchse the hone. It is in fine shape, no problems. One day last week I decided to try and sharpen the razor a little more. I was confident I could do it right from all of the studying I have been doing on SRP and with the experience I have from sharpening my kitchen and pocket knives. So I went about doing it. After I was satisfied with the edge after the barbers stone I decided to use a stone that I have for finishing the edge on my knives. This stone did the trick, and it is this stone I wish to tell you guys about. It is not actually a sharpening hone but is in fact a piece of granite that I found where I used to work. They used to deal with counter tops for kitchens and baths and this is a piece of a countertop. I found it in the trash and thought I would use it for sharpening knives. I sanded the shiny finish off of it and use it for my razor now. It put a very fine edge on it and if anyone is having trouble getting a good finishing stone this could be a good alternative. Worked for me. Well, have fun shaving. Smooth faces to all. Hunley

Sounds interesting! I'm not a hone expert, but a picture would always be nice....

The topic of Granite has come up before. There really is no real granite because it comes in so many varieties. Usually its a mix of quartz, feldspar and mica with a bunch or other stuff thrown in depending on the variety.

I know guys have said they have good results. Just from a general standpoint the mica really wears pretty fast and the stuff then comes out of the matrix really easily leaving pits in the rock and then the quartz and feldspar are pretty different minerals too.

feldspar is one of the abrasive components of Finnish stones, their 'mudstones', and helps make them fast cutters.

They aren't stones I'd recommend for razors but they're gems in the kitchen. I've got a couple 7x1.5 and that's as big as I've seen, but it would be worth a good bit to have a 'brick' of it for knives.

I'm going to have to see if I can snag a scrap of granite countertop. Maybe feldspar works to polish as well as grinding away metal..

Here is a couple pics of the stone I mentioned.