Thread: Chinese Natural- Great New Discovery

I have an exciting new discovery to share.

About 2 and a half months ago I was browsing around some of the razor and cutlery shops in Hong Kong (where I currently live), and I found an interesting little shop where I saw an old chinese gentleman honing on some really cool looking stones.

His english was very restricted, but after a lot of pointing, and my trustworthy english to chinese dictionary on my PDA, he finally dug out some hones that was wrapped in plastic with chinese writing on it. I unwrapped one and I was instantly excited!

I explained to him that I want to hone straight razors with it, and I got the following out of him "Welly goood for lazol". I bought 2 of them for a relatively decent price, and lapped one as soon as I got home. Boy, was he right about that statement of his!

I sharpened a Henckels Friodur, and a Dovo Facharbeit on the hone, using this hone and nothing else......HOLY HECK!! is all I can say. The shaves I got was absolutely BBS and even silky smoother than my Naniwa 12K!!

Under my powerful little 100X hand-held mini microscope, the edges looked absolutely superb.

My feeling is that this is a very fine, but relatively fast cutting stone, and the finish I get is in excess of my 12K Naniwa....So, it may just be in the category of the coticules or Eschers, IMHO.

I felt that I needed a real hone expert to try this one out.

JimmyHAD was the man who has helped me a lot so far, so I sent him one to have a go at honing on it.

Well, it seems my feeling about that this was a winner was 100% correct, because even Jimmy was impressed with it, and got BBS silky smooth shaves out of it!

I will ask Jimmy leave some more comments, and his findings, on this C-Nat for us all to read on this thread if he wishes to do so?

Since then, I went back 3 times to the shop, but it has been hard to get more of these, but I have managed to get hold of 5 more of them. They all still need lapping, as they are only rough, machine cut hones, but they are all the same, superb hones as the one I have, and the one I sent Jimmy. Hopefully I can get some more of these in the near future! Will keep enquiring about them at the shop.

Here are some pics to indulge for those of you who are interested in hones:

Awesome! Could this be the Taiwanese black stone I've heard about before?


Goodness. Put me on the list for one, mate.

I don't think this one is from Taiwan, but it may well be! The shop owner's english is too limiting to figure out where exactly it is from. When I asked him if it was from Guangxi, he said yes, and when I asked him if it is from Guangzhou, he also said yes. LOL!

So, it may well be Taiwan as well, I will try and ask again next time.

Could you post pictures of any of its wrapping?

Originally Posted by JimR

Could you post pictures of any of its wrapping?

It looks identical to the C12K I bought from Woodcraft for $20--gray with little wavy black tiger stripes. (Excellent hone, by the way.)

Christopher

Picture of my C12K or PHIG or whatever..
How does it differs from picture above?

Originally Posted by JimR

Could you post pictures of any of its wrapping?

The wrapping is just plain old clear cellophane. Some has red stripes in the cellophane, and the others just plain clear. The first 2 I bought had some hand-written chinese writing on it, but the others only have the clear plastic stuck together with cellotape(scotch tape).

Those first 2 with the chinese hand-written paper in it was just the price, and shop details, nothing else.

Of what I can tell, but I'm not an expert, this does not seem to be the plain old Chinese 12K...it seems to be a different beast alltogether. I was able to hone razors from blunt, all the way to super smooth, starting with a slurry, and diluting it as I went along. The result was better than what I can get from my vintage Coticule, using the same technique.

Jimmy, I just checked my old PM's, and if I may, I will quote your last PM of the final result of this stone after your testing:

From Jimmy: "I don't know precisely how to categorize it grit wise but it is a real good hone. Yesterday and today I honed razors (Craftsman) with it and shaved. The razor I honed today was an old vintage Sta-Sharp (Sears & Roebuck) and I set the bevel with a 1200 DMT 8" then honed on the Chi hone with slurry diluting as I progressed. Finished with water at maybe 100 strokes ...... very light .....weight of the blade. HHT was effortless and the shave was smooth as silk and BBS. You've got a winner there."

The C12k I owned had exactly the same look.
Nice gray with decent dark "tiger lines".
It was superb. A true 12k, and I never understood why people would not rate this a 12.000 or beyond finisher, but a mere slow 8k stone.
Obviously there are several different types of C12k.

Honestly I believe the grey ones with lines tend to be the superb finishers
everybody has been talking about, whereas the darker tend to be more 8kish

And I highly believe the hone in the first post is a C12k or something identical.
Still a very good buy, though!