Thread: Finishing Hone ~ .5 Paste

[QUOTE=Its my understanding a diamond paste of .5 is harder/harsher and can be/should be followed up with CrOx even if the diamond is .25 follow it with .5 CrOx cause it that much smoother.[/QUOTE]
This is interesting. I did not now this. I have .5 and .25 diamond spray on a couple of felts for the SRP paddle strop and I thought this would do the trick.
Perhaps i need the CrOx as well?

You are going to have to be the judge for what works best for you. I use .5 diamond spray on felt probably more than any other media, but do use some .5 CrO paste with the felt. I have used this with an oil base and water type base. I use a Cro harder paste (almost like a crayon) on either leather, water buffalo or poly webbing and a couple of diamond pastes on either and they work very well too.

I would hold the jury until you have honed a few more razors.........

Have fun,

Lynn

Originally Posted by JohnG10

I've decided I don't like pasted strops as well as I like hones. (I dislike cleaning off the old paste, and how some areas have thicker paste than others).

Are the barber hones a better finisher than a 12K ? Which brand & model should I look for if I want something that refreshes and smooths an edge almost as well as .5 CrOx ?

Barber hones are all over the map... I saw a reply post with a
link to the Wiki on barber hones. In general the more expensive
ones on Ebray are the finer and smoother ones. You might get
lucky... all but one of my barber hones feel coarser than my 8K
Norton but when used with lather and a small number of strokes
they do fine but need a good canvas strop to tidy up after.

If you are cleaning off old paste more than once a year you are using too
much IMO. A strop with CrOx should leave little green when
rubbed with news paper. Because the CrOx bits "float" in the leather/
canvas they are not very aggressive and no "rock" is going to give
you the same finish and polish. A 12K man made hone is on the cusp and
finer hones get very expensive fast. Rumor is that some rare naturals
finish better but I do not own any.

Not sure if you can really "duplicate" it as such, but definitely a Shapton 30K, & possibly some Eschers & very hard (level 5) Jnats might give sharpness levels that are in the same ballpark. This depends a lot on the stone & even more on technique, & also your face, so it's still kind of subjective. Whatever you choose to finish with, the actual cutting of hairs should be effortless (for you).

Diamond spray is generally considered (this is also somewhat subjective, but still) to leave a somewhat sharper edge than crox, even though they're both rated @ 0.5 um. Barber hones generally are not even close. Some might be finer, but most behave ~10K or below.

Personally, I would never follow a good Escher or Jnat edge w/ anything but a clean strop--IMO it totally defeats the purpose of buying an expensive (in the case of the Escher) stone & then taking the time to really learn how to use it when I'm then not even going to be shaving with it's finish, but rather the finish of the paste/spray. Nothing wrong w/ them @ all--they work great--but if I were going to finish on paste, I'd just get a Shap 16 or something like it to use before it--cheaper & faster.

0.5 CrOx is 60,000 grit so your s.o.l there no stone in that grit range

There are several things that need to be corrected.
First of there is a stone below 0.5µm, that is the Shapton 30.000 (it specifically says 0,49µm).
You cannot translate 0.5µm diamond or CrOx to any grit rating number and compare this number with a different companies number.
If you´re interested in how these grit ratings seem to work, I have uploaded a little PDF of mine:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...tml#post758812


Second:

Please correct me if I am wrong-

Its my understanding a diamond paste of .5 is harder/harsher and can be/should be followed up with CrOx even if the diamond is .25 follow it with .5 CrOx cause it that much smoother-

That´s not necessarily the case. It is true that diamonds are much harder than Chromium Oxide, but both are much harder than steel, so it doesn´t really make all that difference.
But high quality chromium oxide like the one you get from Kremer Pigmente is known to be of spherical shape, whereas diamond partikles are splinters.
The splinters can cause more (miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicro-) damage to an edge than a spherical shaped abrasive.
But in reality you can get perfect shaves with a 1µm, 0,5µm diamond or 0,5µm Chromiumoxide or even 0.09µm Iron Oxide.
Bottom line, to each his own, because the differences are so small


To the original question:
I own a shapton 30k and gives me great results. But the results are completely different from 0.5diamond or Cr2O3 (as far as I can tell).
Diamond and Cr2O3 is just so effective and the results so smooth and keen AND so cheap, you really have to love what you do to buy something that expensive,
to try to replicate the results. If you love the Cr2O3 or Diamond, stick with it and get a C12k or maybe a Naniwa 12k to pre-finish before stropping.
Otherwise if your level of skill is high enough, anyway you can get perfect (but different) shaving edges from a Naniwa 12k, Shapton Pro 12k, Shapton Glass 16k, Barber Hone, Coticule....
all the known finishers can give you edges that will shave you just fine, without pasting afterwards

i may be wrong but the shapton is not finer then crox . crox is 0.5 the shapton is .49 crox is a half of a micron and the shapton is not 4.9 its 49 microns

I´m sorry I don´t understand.
Chromium Oxide is believed to be around 0.5µm in diameter. Kremer Pigmente evaluated this from REM samples.
The Shapton Glass 30.000 I hold in my hands right now, clearly says 0,49µm.
1µm is 1 micron. µ is the greek symbol for micron, or 10^-6m.
So why should the shapton 30k now be 49 microns, which would make it a ~800 JIS stone?!
Just for clarification and to show at what astonishing levels both of these cutting agents are:
Cr2O3 is believed to be of 500nm average size,
whereas Shapton 30k is stated at 490nm.
[nm being nanometer]

If you would have read the PDF file I uploaded,
you would know that you can not say "shapton 30k is finer than crox"
Microns and grit rating systems only give you an idea of the average particle size, or the size distribution.
Not more, not less. Especially not more. They don´t tell you what edge they produce, how fien they will cut,
how good they will smooth out an edge.... especially when it comes to pastes vs stones the numbers are incomparable.
One will have to live with statements like: Both Shapton 30k and Chromium Oxide 0.5µm are suitable for finishing a razor excellently

well lets take a look at my shapton 16k stone its .92 micron's which is a little bit morn then half of the fineness as your stone and its 92 micron thats the first pic the second pic is a bottle of chromium oxide it speaks for itself

I´m sorry, but you know it says 0.92 microns, and not 92 microns on your stone?
Even if it would say .95 microns, that would be just another way to write 0.95
It is written on it. 0.92µm equals 0.92microns wich is less than one micron.
0.9 is less than 1.0 and much less than 90...
0.92 microns is not 92microns!
What´s your point?

The shapton 16k is rated at 0.94microns, wheras the Chroumim oxide is rated at 0.5microns and the Shapton 30k is rated at 0,49microns.
Do you think 0.94microns means 94µm? No big deal if you do, I´m just saying you may be a little off track here

For comparison sake here a picture of the 16k and 30k


My pictures from a review for a german forum
Along with your picture of the Chroimium oxide it looks like this:

• Shapton 8k: 1.84 micron
• Shapton 16k: 0,94 micron
• Shapton 30k: 0,49 micron
• Cr2O3: 0,5 micron

Disclaimer:
Again, for everyone who reads this at a later stage:
I am not saying the shapton 30k is superior to 0,5µm Cr2O3,
please read the pdf