This man Vasilis has opened an important door, I think he is on to something.alx

Quote Originally Posted by Vasilis View Post
First of all, regarding most of the best or favourite or expensive naturals, there are no quarries left. The softer stones are the ones that disappear before the hard ones for obvious reasons. And soon people forget that a magnificent quarry had soft and hard stones, thinking that they where all hard ones( for example, I haven't seen many light colored Thuringians the last years, but the dark ones are plenty). The older the quarry, the most likely the softer of those stones are not around anymore. Second, honing a razor or whatever with a soft stone and no pressure, is like honing it with a hard stone applying more pressure. And the pressure we apply is a mysterious thing. If we use the weight of the razor on an escher, we get a nice shaving. Can we decrease this pressure? This way, we could get an even better shave. For me, that's the difference between a hard and a soft hone. Both have their abrasives and their binding material. The binding material and its hardness has nothing to do with the size of the abrasive particles.