Thread: GENERAL BARBER HONE QUESTION

I have seen many barber hones for sale,and have a Swaty myself,the question is though there all mostly brown,except the ones that say Carberunbum,does anyone know what the brown ones are made of.
Im assuming that they look so much alike that they are made of the same material,except maybe the grit. Anyone?

Originally Posted by Grizzley1

I have seen many barber hones for sale,and have a Swaty myself,the question is though there all mostly brown,except the ones that say Carberunbum,does anyone know what the brown ones are made of.
Im assuming that they look so much alike that they are made of the same material,except maybe the grit. Anyone?

idea was you will not be able to separate from ground color and drop it as often as possible.
after it brakes down you move on buy next hone.
what do you think?

I don't know the answer to that. Randy might be along and he has a lot of knowledge of the formulas the hone companies used. I'll tell you this, I've had a number of the brown colored hones and some were better than others so I'm assuming that even though there is a resemblance they ain't all the same.

Possibly a local clay used in the ceramic?

The colorings come from various minerals that are added. A reddish tone is made from iron oxide. There is also a yellow iron oxide. The deep blue is also a primary color but I do not know what mineral is used. The black is from carbon black. Every other color is a mix of those. The Lithide hone also has lead added so be sure not to lick that hone!

While we are asking general hone questions..... I see alot of hones listed as a barbers hone. Do the grits widely vary or are they are around a certain grit?

Synthetic barber hones as opposed to naturals used by barbers (cotis and Eschers) are generally regarded as 8-10K range from what I have gathered. I had one myself but sold it, and believe it was an improvement from 8K, but not in the region of a Nani 12K, coti or Escher.

Some are lower in the 4-6K range, others are combos with a coarse and fine side.

The manmade abrasives were in the grade range of 2F-4F and at the end the finest was 1200F. But that is a bit misleading because during the process of making a hone the mixture of abrasives and binders there were at least 2 other steps that reduced the size of the abrasives to make them finer. The exact finished grit size is unknown so a person has to use it and see what the effective grit rating would be compared to a modern day waterstone where there is a finer starting grit range (we think).

This is as accurate as it gets.

AFAIK the brown razor hones are made of Aloxite.