Thread: Smiths tri stone

I was in Lowes today and I noticed this tri stone hone in the tool dept. obviously it's made for sharpening tools and such, but could it work for a straight? Any help is appreciated, this is the link:

Arkansas Sharpening Stones Set | Featuring fine, medium, & course Arkansas Stones | Smith's - The Edge Experts

I would think they would be too rough to work on razors, Ark stones usually aren't good for razors unless they are the clear translucent ones that are lightly colored and most of the members here still wouldn't use them for their razors, others have different opinions.

Take a look at the quoted grits:

Grit:

Medium Arkansas - 600 Grit
Fine Arkansas - 1,000 Grit
Coarse Synthetic

If you want to reset bevels, those stones will work (though they are smaller than the bench-size Nortons, and will take careful work to avoid creating frowning edges).

If you want to hone, they're useless -- too coarse. The "honing" stone many people use is a Norton "combination hone" with 4000 and 8000 grit surfaces.

I started out using sandpaper and microabrasive sheets. Cheap if you're only doing a few razors. But they're no "easier to use" than stones -- the same learning curve for both. There's a good article in the Wiki about them.

Charles

If it did I guarantee there would be threads and post saying it does. I've seen the question asked before. I've never had one so cannot speak from hands on experience but my intuition tells me it wouldn't be good for the fine edge of a razor.

Yes; I have one that I actually got from Lowes and it has worked well for me.

Originally Posted by JeffR

Yes; I have one that I actually got from Lowes and it has worked well for me.

So then is it reasonable to pick one up in order to maintain razors, not for restoring a damaged or ruined edge?

Originally Posted by joshb1000

So then is it reasonable to pick one up in order to maintain razors, not for restoring a damaged or ruined edge?

It is entirely reasonable to use one to both maintain and restore razors. I've used mine for both purposes for a couple of years now, and haven't felt the need for anything else.

I should note that practice is important. I learned to use Arkansas stones from my father over 40 years ago and have been using them ever since. As a young man he was a barber, so showed me how to hone knives and straight razors on a Ouachita stone. (I wish I had paid more attention at the time but Trac II razors were more appealing, so had to re-learn some things when I picked up the straight razor a few years ago.)

I have found that the grit rating of a sharpening medium is relatively unimportant. Please don't misunderstand - the finer the stone the easier it can be to get a fine edge, especially for a beginner. Arkansas stones however have the characteristic that they both grind and burnish metal. That allows one to get a very fine edge - much finer than might be expected based on just their nine-micron-ish particle size.

Thanks for the heads up, i may pick one up, simply for the fact that if i dont like it , i'm only out 30 dollars. Mine if i contact you for tips if i do get it?

It's funny you bring up the Smith's Tri hone. That's what I honed my first two razors on about a year and a half ago. It was the razor I had sitting in my drawer for 20 years and the one I got from my barber. I actually got both razors to shave fairly decent and I shaved with both of them for the first few weeks until I ordered my Dovo Bismark from SRD. When it came in the mail and I shaved with it for the first time, I learned what a razor should shave like. I was never able to duplicate that kind of edge until I got my set of Nortons. The last post said something about not having to lap them anytime too soon. That may be the case with the medium and fine but I know when I hone a knife on the course, I always have a lot of grit that comes off in the process which tells me it would need to be lapped. Now granted, you would only want to use the course for setting a bevel. The one thing that bothered me with my Tri hone is the stones are not that wide or long and you are constantly having to draw both the toe and heel across the edge of the stone. Hey! if you get it and find it doesn't work well, you still have a good hone for your pocket knives.

kcarlisle it sounds like your tri hone is the one that has a silicone carbide coarse stone and a soft and hard arkansas if so the silicone one is the one that releases the grit arkansas stones don't release grit like that they don't have a grit rating they're measured by density but the particle size is extremely small as they're of the quartz family you will get great edges with the soft better with the hard but for really fine polished edges like you want on a razor you need the surgical black mirror polished edges you can see your eye colour in and split hairs length wise compared to the highly polished edge from the hard but they say the true translucent is as big a difference again although expensive as the rarest arkansas worth a try one day