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?

Some info on the PHIG


http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...stion-s-3.html

http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...nese-hone.html

In post #1 of the second thread, read what I wrote on #4 it might sound familiar...

Then again this might be a totally different animal...

The pics in #1 look identical to the stone I bought as a C12k. Right up to the size, orientation, and concentration of the little wavy lines -- all the same.

I got it from open_razor on eBay in summer of '08, for whatever that's worth.

Mine's certainly slow (and a PITA to lap), but it does give very nice edges.

Interesting...the PHIG I had was a completely uniform, almost black color. No wavy lines or anything, and the visible "texture" was different, as well.

Maybe another seam or something?

I sold my Guangxi Chinese stone (from Woodcraft) some time ago but this stone looks nothing like that one. That was a very dark gray while this is a light blue in color with no black specks or lines in my particular copy. Mine does have some thin strata that is a tan color towards the bottom of the stone. It looks like sand but is harder. Not as hard as the blue surrounding it. The bottom and sides of this stone are marked by the saw that cut it and are left as is. IIRC the Chinese stone from Woodcraft was more smooth on the bottom and sides.

I checked the stone out for Burt and it performed well for me in the 10k range IIRC. Finished a few on it. I don't really remember what or how ... oldtimer's disease ..... but I know that I liked the stone. Deleted the PMs as a moderator's PM folders seem to fill up quick so I can't go back and see what I wrote.