Thread: suita woes

I need some advice on using a natural japanese suita stone, I am having trouble with chunks of something getting released onto the honing surface while sharpening razors. Thanks to murphies law it always seems to happen on the last few strokes right before being done. At first it seemed to be just the carbon coating on my japanese straight flaking off occasionally, the more I use it though I think it is actually coming from the stone. I have read that sometimes suita stones will have inclusions that get retained in the same gas pockets that differntiate suita stones from other types. Are there any tricks to get the stone to release the trouble before I hone, maybe a wire brush, or ? Most times I get lucky and feel them before they get to the edge, but the times I dont and I find them with the edge, it has the tendancy to get my blood boiling. When I use just water it is a lot easier to notice, as well as remove. Usually a quick rinse and I am good to go, but when using slurry I hate wasting all the slurry that I have been breaking down and thinning out for the last hour down the drain.

I am hoping that with time I will get to a sweet spot in the stone with no inclusions, and I have plenty of stone to work with since mine is a good 2 inches thick. I just hate to wash an expensive rock down the drain, especially with no guarantee that it will ever get better. When I get lucky it produces a wonderful edge, when I dont, well I am sure you get the picture.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

lap pretty good and see what happens. if still inclusions comes out then sorry. gl

Does your Suita have a 'holey' surface. If so could it be metal particles getting caught in them ?
If you're spending one hour on it, I would imagine heaps of swarf in your slurry.
Do you really spend that long on it . Suita are usually very fast cutters or are you setting bevels with it ?

What are you lapping with? have you eased the edges of the stone?

At least some of the time the problem comes from something in the environment that gets picked up by the plate, your hands, and then transferred to the stone. The feeling of it is similar to having a cut hair on the stone-but not a hair- it's big and you feel it.

Or if you are using something other than diamond plate it could be coming from your lap. Maybe you are using too much pressure to lap-if the edges are not eased over, minute crumbling on the edge could be getting sucked into the slurry, and/or even when you hone along the stone's edge(but this is obvious)

Su are not invisible. The stone I had, which I thought had bad su, felt scritchy when the blade passed over them. ie localized the the portion with su rather than a random, roaming mystery particle. I was able to disect the stone into smaller hones. So depending on where the su lay you may be able to cut around them, or cut them off-if you have any affinity toward narrower hones. You might also consider saw, lap the whole width making a thinner, hopefully cleaner stone, yet it may get worse. what is on the bottom of the stone?

As Sham suggested give it a very good lap and see if you are going to reveal nice clean surface.
What do you use to lap the stone with?
What do you use to raise slurry with?
Have you at least a few times gotten shaving edges from it?
How long have you had the stone for?

Thanks for all the replies,

Originally Posted by mainaman

As Sham suggested give it a very good lap and see if you are going to reveal nice clean surface.
What do you use to lap the stone with?
What do you use to raise slurry with?
Have you at least a few times gotten shaving edges from it?
How long have you had the stone for?

I started to give it a good lapping last night, the holes are getting fewer, the further I go, so maybe I will be able to find a good spot yet.

The chunks do kind of feel metallic, maybe it is just chunks of my razor getting stuck in the su holes.

I use a DMT 8xx to lap as well as to raise slurry.

I have gotten a couple good edges off the stone, well close enough 10 swipes on CrOx gave a close, comfortable shave. I have been trying to get an edge straight off this hone, so far I have gotten close, then a chunk of whatever it is seems to pop up and ruin my edge.

I bought it about 6- 7 months ago from alex. It is "my last jnat" in my user profile pics.

As to the time, I am pretty laid back and dont get into to big a hurry with anything I do. I am not going back and forth for a straight hour.

Thanks again.


Jason

Jason
Be patient with the stone. i think it seems like problem could be your DMT or honing.
It may be very well as you mention metal coming out of the blade.
you are trying to do perfect job and hone until edge start to break down.
i had similar issue (not exactly)
Problem was i honed almost 27 razors on the hone was not able to find the problem.
AT the end i find out problem was fault line(there were in the middle of the stone iron lines Yellow color.)
This is what happening.
when i set bevel on 1 k shapton edge was fine.
then i was moving straight to this stone.
i was honing couple minutes on this stone then edge was getting finer and finer.
before i get the final best edge - half of the edge was gone.
Similar to someone used laser and cut the half of the edge.
The reason for it was when edge gets finer it gets weaker and the FAULT line was able to break the edge when it is weak enough.
What i did i cut the stone half in the fault line .
Now problem resolved.
I don't think you have this problem but i think you hone so much final edge gets so weak and it brakes.
In the other hand sorry to say You don't know when to stop.
hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Jasongreat

Thanks for all the replies,




I use a DMT 8xx to lap as well as to raise slurry.

Thanks again.


Jason

+++1 on all the above......
Get rid of the 8xx for slurry on that kind of stone. That is leaving big chunks getting he stuck in the su.
Use a DMT course stone lightly to raise slurry. DMT sells smallere products that are better size than full size plate.

What stone do you use before the Suita?
As far as the DMt, yes get a finer one, 600 or 1.2k should work very well.
As mentioned above Suita stones are pretty aggressive and if you spend so much time honing its quite possible the edge just fails.

I would suggest that you start with some initial set of laps, for example 20 circles each side and 10 x - stroke , then evaluate the edge and adjust the number of laps until you find what works best. You also will have to figure out what consistency slurry to use for best results, do you need to dilute or not etc.

Originally Posted by mainaman

What stone do you use before the Suita?
As far as the DMt, yes get a finer one, 600 or 1.2k should work very well.
As mentioned above Suita stones are pretty aggressive and if you spend so much time honing its quite possible the edge just fails.


.

Hi Stefan,

If you have never tried these little gems for slurry stones, they are my favorite for fine hones. There size is just about the same size as the rubbers that use to come with stones. They do not stick and conserve hone. Dia-Sharp Diamond Mini-Hone Kit

I wish I knew how to do that "here" trick.
Mike