Thread: Found: Escher Water Hone

Hello everyone,

As a newbie I didn't intend to dive into the honing forum just yet (I'm still working on the shaves!), but an interesting discovery changed my mind.

After only a month of dedicated interest in straight razors, I was rummaging through my garage searching for sharpening stones to touch up my pocket knife. In an old box of family hand-me-down tools was an Escher Water Hone (images at bottom). The wiki article tells me this is a good find, and the grain is around 12k.
With this, of course, comes questions:
First, it has some chips along the margins, so it looks like some restoration work would need to be done to get it in working order. Is a lapping stone all that is needed, or is there more?
Second, it appears that I would need to supplement this with coarser stones such as a Norton 4k/8k in order to get the full complement of honing stages needed to both re-bevel and finish a razor's edge. Is a 4k/8k/12k the most common grain sequence for a good set of honing stones?
Third, the label mentions working up a lather on the stone. I've read other threads that describe these stones as coming included with a smaller lathering stone, which this has none. Is a lathering stone necessary for its proper usage?

Any info would be a great help, and I am already indebted to the expertise of the membership here.

Best,
Kurt

That's a fortunate find, indeed. I'm jealous.

Yes, you can lap it with a lapping stone, and chamfer the edges. It's a lovely find, and you should be quite happy with the finishing properties

For Lapping, a DMT XX would do nicely, you can of course use wet sandpaper...A 4 and 8k would compliment that nicely, A 12k is really not needed. A slurry stone would go a long way with the Echer, you can of course use the dmt to generate slurry or the wet sandpaper. I prefer a small slurry stone. There are Escher slurry stones to be had at Timber tools.
A C12k slurry will work too....

Welcome to SRP. Looks like a Dark Blue Escher, they made them in different named colors. Good stone. As the other guys said, chamfer the edges with the lapping whether with a diamond plate or sandpaper. Here is a tutorial on the topic. I find I like to use a 325 DMT D8C for most stones and in the kitchen sink under running water. You'll see it in the tutorial Josh Earl did in the link above.

lucky bastid. Still trying to score an escher after loosing mine.

Great find.

Just ignore those big chips, no need to lap them away.

Thank you gentlemen, this is very helpful. I will check out the instructional posts on lapping. My timing with finding this is remarkable, so I want to take good care of it. It must have been my grandfather's, who straight razor shaved till the very end - then it sat in a cigar box for over 40 years.

Thanks again,
Kurt

Originally Posted by Piet

Great find.

Just ignore those big chips, no need to lap them away.

+1, just to clarify, as the tutorial says, draw a pencil grid and lap the hone flat. Knock the sharp edges off, slightly rounding them. As long as the edge of the razor is not hitting an edge that might chip it you're alright. The chips visible in the photos will be below the honing surface and are inconsequential.

Yes, this one is only good to maintain your razor edges, sharpening razors from scratch with it is just a waste of time. It's way too fine for knives too.
They're not hard to lap at all too.
Try to not get the label wet, some people pay a lot of money for these hones with a sliver of label on them, and sometimes even without any labels too.

So, yeah it's a very good hone to get at this point and if you don't start restoring razors you could live happily ever after just with it.


Below is my annotations on what you can leave and what you have to remove - those chips along the edge that need to go can probably be dealt with by chamfering.

Congratulations on your heirloom Escher-you will be way up on the shaving comfort curve when you get it lapped and learn to use it properly. I finish all my personal shaving rotation razors on Eschers. The razor must already have a bevel evenly set and be sharp, before using this very fine grade hone to finish the edge.