Charnley Score?

Was browsing ebay UK recently and came across an interesting action for a boxed oil stone. Seller described the stone as green/gray and it was coated pretty well with oil.

I noticed what I thought was some red mixed in with the green on the stone in the pictures and thought that it could be a Charnley, was about 70% sure but when I noticed the sellers location (Leicestershire, UK) I was about 90% sure.

Took a gamble with a decent bid and won. Too bad the second bidder must have recognized it as well as I paid near my maximum bid and the 3rd bidder bid 50 pounds less than us. Oh well, pretty happy about this score. Stone measures 10.5" x 2"

Cleaned it up and lapped it (white slurry). Not a lot of red in it so my eyes must have been seeing something on the eBay picture, but I'm fairly certain this is a CF.

Had a great shave on a new razor with an escher finish tonight and am going to take it to this stone tomorrow to see how it compares.

For those that have used these - what is the best way to hone? I usually slurry and dilute to a water finish with my coti's and escher and was going to try the same thing with this one.

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/SAM_1823.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/SAM_1825.jpg

It may well be a Charnley, but they are not all equal. There are also other possibilities as to what it could be. Some are coarser than Eschers, some alot finer. They do not have the same consistency as do Eschers. I have had both varieties. They are all very hard and slow cutting stones. 30-40 laps with slurry and 50+ with water.

Charnleys are very difficult to raise a slurry on and it is more of a 'slime' that is usually a faint white with the slightest hint of pink. If you are lapping with a DMT however you should get a thick white slurry.

The second bidder was me.

I was pretty sure it was a CF but the vein looked a bit like a crack and I was worried it might only be a slice of CF. Otherwise I would have bid more ;)

Have you been able to remove it from the box yet?

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Originally Posted by Piet

The second bidder was me.

I was pretty sure it was a CF but the vein looked a bit like a crack and I was worried it might only be a slice of CF. Otherwise I would have bid more ;)

Have you been able to remove it from the box yet?

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The vein is definitely not a crack and actually is just a more of a discoloration spot as on the sides it doesn't appear like it runs down the stone.

I haven't removed it from the box and don't intend to. I used oven cleaner and it removed all the grease.

Lapped it with my DMT and got a thick white slimy slurry. Thing was pretty hard. When I just leave water on the surface it seems to evaporate almost instantly which seems weird (definitely isn't getting soaked into the stone).

I'll find out tonight how it works as I just put on one of my finest escher edges on a razor I recently honed last night and am going to take that to the charnley tonight.

Would you be too upset if that was Idwal hone?

I continue to use mine with oil and it continues to produce great results.

Have fun,

Lynn

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Originally Posted by adrspach

Would you be too upset if that was Idwal hone?

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Guess I'll find out tonight for how the shave goes. If it degrades my escher edge, then I'd be a little disappointed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lynn

I continue to use mine with oil and it continues to produce great results.

Have fun,

Lynn

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Hi Lynn,

What kind of oil and how many strokes do you do?

I considered that it may be an Idwal hone also. I have Eschers, Charnleys and a Llyn Idwal and they all give great edges, all certainly above a 10K level.

Remember that once you get to around 12-15K levels, it is extremely difficult to measure what a certain improvement is, rather I look at it as a different character. I have several different finishers yet I do not use one exclusively, furthermore I find that different steels respond better or worse to different finishers, therefore I reserve certain finishers for particular razors. Plus it just makes life more fun.

I'd be certainly quite pleased if I came across a nice big Idwal like that. FWW they are rarer than Charnleys.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scipio

I considered that it may be an Idwal hone also. I have Eschers, Charnleys and a Llyn Idwal and they all give great edges, all certainly above a 10K level.

Remember that once you get to around 12-15K levels, it is extremely difficult to measure what a certain improvement it, rather I look at it as a different character. I have several different finishers yet I do not use one exclusively, furthermore I find that different steels respond better or worse to different finishers, therefore I reserve certain finishers for particular razors. Plus it just makes life more fun.

I'd be certainly quite pleased if I came across a nice big Idwal like that. FWW they are rarer than Charnleys.

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Thanks - I have another definite Charnley (green w/ red streak typical one) to compare to. I haven't tested that one yet either.

At the moment I have too many finishers and am slowly going through them to really get to know them. Also have been restoring a bunch of blades so it is hard for me to continually use a razor multiple days in a row to compare edges of finishers when I'm constantly restoring new ones.

I think my HAD is over for awhile now so hopefully I'll get to learn in depth each of my stones in time.

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Originally Posted by Harvitz81

Hi Lynn,

What kind of oil and how many strokes do you do?

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Sewing machine oil, knife sharpening oil and I have even used camellia oil.

Typically I try to stick with 10 X strokes on my finishers following the 8K.

Have fun

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lynn

Sewing machine oil, knife sharpening oil and I have even used camellia oil.

Typically I try to stick with 10 X strokes on my finishers following the 8K.

Have fun

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Thanks Lynn. I'm going to try it with water tonight and I also have some honing oil I may play with in the future.

After scrubbing all the oil off though I'm hesitate to expose it to more oil.

I use Singer sewing machine oil on my CF and all that happens is the oil goes a bit black while honing. (it's the bottom one btw, top one is an India oil stone)

http://www.shaveready.com/attachment...2&d=1276623266

The reason I dont use mine with oil is that I like to use slurry on it after an 8K for 30 laps or so, then progress to plain water for another 40-60.

Lynn says to do 10 X strokes, by which I assume he means 20 in total. I have never found a Charnley that 20 strokes couldnt be improved upon and have tried 7 in total now, but they all do have different properties.

They are not fast cutting stones.

Well last night I took a razor that had an excellent escher finish to this suspected CF.

I started with a slurry and did about 20 very light half-strokes on each side and proceeded to dilute 5 times (dilucharn , which BTW is how I found best to use my escher as well before finishing with water (diluesch ).

Finished with about 60-80 or so x-strokes on just water with very light touch.

If the stone was to degrade the edge I figured I gave it plenty of opportunity. The resulting shave was excellent! I didn't notice an increase in sharpness per se, but it was a tad smoother than my escher finish. I finished the shave with some Alt-Innsbruck (same as prior days shave) and noticed less tightening of my skin.

All in all, I think this will be a great finisher for me as I've been trying to find something similar to an escher finish (don't know why as I love that finish), and think this will fit the bill.

Next tests will be coming directly off the coti for comparisons sake.

Hi Joe,

One thing I am aware of from doing similar tests is that there is no 'control sample' for the experiment - ie no constant that can be referred to, so its a bit like trying to compare apples with oranges. The only way you can compensate for that is by a high degree of standardisation.

For instance, how many laps do you normally do on the escher? You are doing 100 in total on the the suspected CF (I'm thinking that your 'half' stroke is a back and forth motion, so I'm calling it a lap), so any variation in how you finish the razor on each stone has to be taken into consideration.

You also started with 'half' strokes - did you do the same with the escher - if you did, did you do the same number? In the absence of a control hone, perhaps a 'blind' subject or two (someone who didn't know what hone the razor had last seen) would do. That would take some of the subjectivity away, as would honing it on the same hone twice in succession and seeing if any differences were noted by the subjects.

Just a thought! A bit impractical I know. :)

Regards,
Neil

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Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Hi Joe,

One thing I am aware of from doing similar tests is that there is no 'control sample' for the experiment - ie no constant that can be referred to, so its a bit like trying to compare apples with oranges. The only way you can compensate for that is by a high degree of standardisation.

For instance, how many laps do you normally do on the escher? You are doing 100 in total on the the suspected CF (I'm thinking that your 'half' stroke is a back and forth motion, so I'm calling it a lap), so any variation in how you finish the razor on each stone has to be taken into consideration.

You also started with 'half' strokes - did you do the same with the escher - if you did, did you do the same number? In the absence of a control hone, perhaps a 'blind' subject or two (someone who didn't know what hone the razor had last seen) would do. That would take some of the subjectivity away, as would honing it on the same hone twice in succession and seeing if any differences were noted by the subjects.

Just a thought! A bit impractical I know. :)

Regards,
Neil

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Hi Neil,

Thanks for the suggestions. I know there is no real scientific way to do this. In regards to your questions - I do actually use my escher very similarly with half strokes on slurry then x-strokes on water. For whatever reason I found this way to work best for me and always gives me an edge improvement off a coticule finish.

Yesterday I finished a razor on a coticule and shaved and though I got a good shave, the sharpness wasn't up to what I prefer. I'm going to take this razor to the suspected CF tonight and see if I get an edge improvement.

Basically, I'm very familiar with the edge I get from the coti and if this stone improves that edge then that is all I really care about whether it is a charnley or not.

Ultimately what I would love to do with all my finishers is find a nice 7 day set and finish them all up to a DMT 8K. Save one at that level and then use the next 6 on different finishers (coti, escher, CF, JNat, yellow lake oilstone, chinese 12K - all the finishers I have). That way the razor at the 8K could be my baseline and then I could see how the edges are on the other 6 finishers ruling out the steel as a factor and also ruling out how the razor was finished prior (i.e. going from escher to CF).

Someday this will be my ultimate test, but I need to find a nice seven day set first.

Thanks again Neil!

Joe