Thread: beginner looking for stone

Hi Toughluck,

You could do a lot worse than contact Maurice at Ardennes Coticule. Here is their shop: Ardennes Coticule - natural sharpening stones from Vielsalm Belgium. - Online shop

A 125 or 150 x 40 standard stone can easily take care of your razor needs at a good price. Bigger is just overkill. I would suggest to ask for a La Grise, La Veinette, or La Dressante au bleu. They will give you fine smooth edges and (not sure about La Grise) should be natural combos. Ask for a slurry stone.

Get a coticule and spend time learning it (not long), you won't regret it.

regards,
Torolf

In all honesty, If you plan on maintaining your own razor(s) one hone isn't going to do it. I couldn't agree with Glen more, Coticules are great, but taking a blade from bevel to finish is difficult, even for an experienced user, and then you need "the right" coticule" and I was/am a vendor for Ardennes. I have handled hundreds Coticules, and still have quite a few in my collection...

Eventually, A 12k, or similar will not do the job anymore..If your serious about it, I'd recommend getting the Norton 4/8 combo or Naniwa 5 and 8k or even 3 and 8k.

For finishing, you can use the Nani 12k, or if money is tight, get some Chromium Oxide.

Barber hones are great, but are really for keeping an already shave ready blade, shave ready. (They're like a 12k) If your razor is starting to dull and tugging, a Barber hone isn't going to bring it back ime.

If you were to actually read the "What Hone do I Need" article in the Wiki and around the forum you would see the first piece of advice is take about 6 months before you start looking at hones to decide what type of user you are going to be ... Might save ya some real money that way ...

The latest version...


Some thoughts on honing razors..
Aspiring honers are often not clear about what they are trying to accomplish when it comes to honing razors. In particular, they are often unsure of what they are doing and how often they should be doing it. Some questions you might want to answer for yourself before you start buying hones: this also means that if you are not sure of the answer here, you should shave more, and wait to buy hones until you can answer these questions.... I normally recommend 6 months of shaving before even thinking about honing

■ Are you an "end-user"; someone who only hones a previously shave-ready blade back to shave-ready?
■ Are you a hobbyist who is chasing the absolute finest edge that may be obtained where money is no object?
■ Are you a frugal shaver who is after the cheapest way to complete your morning shave?
■ Are you a collector who needs to take E-bay specials from butt-ugly to shave-ready?
■ Are you a Honemiester; someone who gets paid to do all of these things for others?
■ Are you a razor restorer who needs to take damaged blades and bring them back to life and shave-readiness?

Each of these types of honer profiles have different requirements for the stones they will own. Theoretically, you can survive using the "one stone" approach, but each razor does have an optimum stone set - and more importantly, a technique for using the required hones. So generally, when somebody asks what stone or how to use what stone, the question to ask them is: "What are you trying to accomplish with the stone(S)?"

Refreshing vs. Starting from Scratch:

The types of hones required depends first and foremost on the type of honing you want to do.

Hones needed for refreshing a dull blade:

If the only task you want to perform is refreshing edges that have previously been established by a Honemiester (the process is often referred to as "touching up"), you need only get a fine grit finishing stone or a barber's hone for this. Either of these hones can be used to keep your razor(s) shave-ready for years.

Hones needed for restoring razors:

If you want to set a bevel, or have many different types of razors, you will need a full set of hones.


A bevel setting stone approximately 1k

DMT's 325 600 1200, Shapton 500, 1K and 2K, Coticules with slurry, Norton 1k, Naniwa 1k, King 1k

A sharpening stone approximately 4k

Norton 4K, Shapton 4K Naniwa 3k or 5k, Belgian Blue with slurry, Coticule with slurry, King 4k or 6k Tam o Shanter, Dragon's Tongue

A polishing stone approximately 8k

Norton 8k, Shapton 8k, Naniwa 8k, Yellow Coticule, Water of Ayre

A finishing stone 10k and above (this is often subject to debate, however)

Shapton GS 16k-30k Shapton 15k Naniwa SS 10k-12k or Chosera 10k, Thuringens, Escher's, Many different natural Japanese finishers, Charlney Forest, Extra Fine Coticule, even some of the Arkansas stones...

You have several choices of how to accomplish this setup whether you use natural, man-made stone, or a Diamond-style stone, even honing films, but you are going to have to be able to cover those 4 grit ranges. There really is no true shortcut here if you expect to take razors acquired in need of restoration from butter knife dull (or damaged) to shaving sharp: You are going to end up needing these types of stones.


Pastes can be used after the hones and before the final stropping also these can be used for re-freshing the edge before going back to the hones for a touch-up... Some shavers even use pastes to "sharpen" the razor after the bevel set has been done...

A few different types

Dovo Pastes:

Green 5-8 micron
Red 3-5 micron
Black 1-3 micron
Dovo pastes are a much more mild cutter then say a diamond paste of the same micron size...

Diamond Paste:

From 3 micron down to actually .10 micron if you really wanted to...
These pastes are fast and many people use them incorrectly and manage too get a harsh edge, when used correctly and on the right razor steel these will most likely be the sharpest edge you will ever feel...

Diamond sprays:

Mostly found in 1.0 .50 and .25 micron watch the Carat content here, the higher the better (SRD has the best I have found and yes Lynn and Don are friends of mine, but heck it is still the best spray I have found)

Chromium Oxide Paste/Powder .50 micron (CrOx)
Probably the most universal of the pastes, get the most pure you can find, and no the bars at Woodcrafters are not pure...

Cerium Oxide Paste/Powder (approx).25 micron (CeOx)

Super fine, super soft, and super smooth, polishing media...The bar at Woodcrafter's is of unknown quality at this time

Other Pastes and Powders:

Iron Oxide
Aluminum Oxide

Both of these can also be used again be very careful when buying this stuff as the purity and the micron sizes are very important...

Carbon blacking/lamp black:

This might be the oldest of all the sharpening "pastes" when used on a leather strop it increases draw

Wood Ash:

Another old fashioned one very slightly abrasive when used on Linen strops and Leather strops..

White chalk:

Can be rubbed on a linen strop to increase the abrasive qualities

Newspaper:

The ink itself is a very fine abrasive and so is the paper..

Keep in mind that different razor steels like/dislike different pastes, and the different media that is used to apply it including Balsa, Linen, Leather (paddle) Leather (hanger) and Felt paddle and hanger all give different results on different razor steels....


The above are only my personal opinions and observations... There are no set rules in Razordom

Originally Posted by AlanII

Strangely, that's the part of the post (all good) that I most agree and disagree with. This Coticule user only refines bevels on them now. For true setting, Naniwa 1k. There's usually a barber's hone and a vintage Thuringian in the progression too.

I don't think we disagree at all Alan,, I guess I didn't take it too just a middle grit range stone... Although I am seeing more and more posts like yours that are talking about an Escher, Thuringen or Charnley Forest after a Coticule ...

Personally I have a great Coticule, and I like, the smoothness that it gives as a finisher on Sheffield steel... I don't much use mine for many other razors, but on those it is hard to beat...

There are a lot of choices out there and month by month they seem to grow. Just take a step back and read about the different stones and what they can do for you and then decide what you want.

Remember we here are to a large extent hobbyists and have a tendency to get the latest and greatest and strive to have the highest quality edge possible.

Also remember for most of Straight razor History folks had maybe one hone or two to maintain their razors including barbers and if they were still around they would tell you those razors thus honed served very well.

Also remember if you lean towards natural stones the quality varies from piece to piece as the product is mined out over time so my Coticule which I got probably 6 years ago or so is probably not the same as one mined today. I know mine is an excellent finisher. The cat's meow it isn't but still very fine for me.

FWIW I bought a vintage Swaty for $36. I use this as my final step when honing, (also have a set of Norton combos) and will be using it to refresh my razors when the time comes.
I have 2 razors that were honed by THE Honemeister, and I compare any I hone to them, both visually (60x loupe) and practically. I am getting my honed razors to shave as well as the other 2.
Keep an eye out on the Bay, there are usually 1 or 2 vintage hones for sale, just don't outbid me for 'em.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

If you were to actually read the "What Hone do I Need" article in the Wiki and around the forum you would see the first piece of advice is take about 6 months before you start looking at hones to decide what type of user you are going to be ... Might save ya some real money that way ...

I wish I read this. I have a slight case of all AD's I have 9 stones and still have only touched up 1 razor with my barber's hone... The 2nd to last stone I have purchased.

Thank you,
--Shoki

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I don't think we disagree at all Alan,, I guess I didn't take it too just a middle grit range stone... Although I am seeing more and more posts like yours that are talking about an Escher, Thuringen or Charnley Forest after a Coticule ...

Personally I have a great Coticule, and I like, the smoothness that it gives as a finisher on Sheffield steel... I don't much use mine for many other razors, but on those it is hard to beat...

No, neither do I, badly worded, sorry.

Take a look at coticule.be and make your own decision on this whole "one coticule isn´t enough" thing. I don´t say it´s bogus, as well as I don´t say it´s not. I do perfectly fine with a Coticule and a 1000 grit synthetic for the very hard evil mistreated ebay-razors. But maybe, I was just lucky getting the right stone…

Regards,
Tok

Originally Posted by tok

Take a look at coticule.be and make your own decision on this whole "one coticule isn´t enough" thing. I don´t say it´s bogus, as well as I don´t say it´s not. I do perfectly fine with a Coticule and a 1000 grit synthetic for the very hard evil mistreated ebay-razors. But maybe, I was just lucky getting the right stone…

Regards,
Tok

So what your saying, is with a 1k synthetic and a Coticule, then one Coticule is enough?????

Hmmmmm yeah I think that qualifies as two stones....which is exactly what we said above... whether you use two Coticules or a synthetic and a Coticule that would still be 1+1 = 2 hence that statement that One Coticule honing is becoming more of a myth...