Thread: ARE THERE NO NEW NEW HONES?

Are there no new barber hones being made?,Are there no new source of natural hones being mined except coticules? I saw some newly mined "Escher's" on one site,but I read somewhere that there not as good as the original ones. Isn't there a supply of new stones that don't cost a fortune,aren't in Japanese and can be bought by us average guys and be assessed by the people here who can compare them to the stones of old and tell the rest of us whether they are good or not. It seems to me there are plenty of river and lots of rock hounds,and no shortage of buyers of such items,anybody out there got a thought?
Thanks for your input,
Griz

There are lots of synthetic hones that are currently in production.

Old barbers hones were man made back in the day and are no longer made but are all over ebay and don't cost much money.

The Chinese 12K is a natural stone and it's cheap a lot of the guys here use it as a finisher and like it as a finisher.

Norton 4/8k is still out there and it's the best hone I can think of for that kind of money it does it all.

What ever happened with the CrOx hone that someone was working on? Seems like I read about that a WHILE ago with no updates...

Originally Posted by avatar1999

What ever happened with the CrOx hone that someone was working on? Seems like I read about that a WHILE ago with no updates...

The fellow that was working on that is still trying to perfect it. I expect we may see something come of it before too much longer. Like disburden said, that norton 4/8 is hard to beat for the price.

Griz,

I tend to use the Spyderco UF ceramic hone as 'substitute barber hone'.

It does very well (for me) in that role

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

What exactly are your criteria here?

If you're only interested in natural hones, well, Arkansas hones are American...and Cotis aren't Japanese, and neither are the Chinese hones. There are Israeli hones, too.

But really, I think you overestimate the market potential of straight shavers, balanced against the not inconsiderable expense of finding, mining, polishing, evaluating and distributing rocks.

Just get a nice artificial hone.

Originally Posted by JimR

Just get a nice artificial hone.

The horror.

The... horror....

My son worked with a sushi chef that used the back of a porcelain dinner plate, the rim or foot portion where it's not glazed to refresh his knives. This was just a light touch every so often and not an actual sit down and sharpen session.
The world is full of old dishes, you could have a sharpening plate from every country. alx

This is what my wifes mom did when she was growing up and what my wife still does.

Originally Posted by alx

My son worked with a sushi chef that used the back of a porcelain dinner plate, the rim or foot portion where it's not glazed to refresh his knives. This was just a light touch every so often and not an actual sit down and sharpen session.
The world is full of old dishes, you could have a sharpening plate from every country. alx