What advice can you guys give on getting started with natural stones. I'm interested in learning how to finish with Eschers, JNATS, etc. How do I wade into this?
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What advice can you guys give on getting started with natural stones. I'm interested in learning how to finish with Eschers, JNATS, etc. How do I wade into this?
Start with a good paying job. Then, add patience. Everything else is just practice.
I don't have a job, I own the company!Quote:
Originally Posted by JimR
What would you recommend I buy first to get started?
All of the stones you are mentioning are wonderful finishers and their is so much info on each, you could read for days and end up with memebers who prefer one to the other claiming which one is best.
Before you venture into that world, in no way want to insult your abilities, but generally, anyone of them will be great, providing you can get a good shave off a synthetic 8k grit. If your abilities in honing are not there yet, a natural finisher might be something you will want to hold off until your skills are good enough to get something out of them that would be worth the expense.
At that point, there is no debating that eschers are consistant and they have a very strong following here at SRP.
If you venture into Jnats, you will save much time and frustration by picking a vendor that understands your honing style and abilities because of the much larger variation and individuality of the stones.
Coticules are also excellent stones and there is a number of people here that use them in different ways and love them as well.
I hope I began to at least set you in the right direction, but that is a very big question, and I can not emphasize how important it is that you know where you stand in your abilities so you can make a good choice.
edit-this forum is known to many as a "stone forum" take some time and you will not be disappointed, I don't know any other place that has accumulated as much information on natural finishers applied to razors than here. You are in the right place to get the help you will need. Good luck.
Mike
Why not start with a coticule an Belgian blue? Much cheaper than Escher and Jnats. See whether you like it before you move on to the more expensive stuff.
I have been using the Tam O' Shanter a lot lately.
I'm interested in learning how to use slurries to sharpen and hone. I'd like to get a stone with a wide range of capabilities. JNats seem to best fit this profile? Is it possible to sharpen after bevel set all the way to final hone on one JNat using different slurries?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees
At the last London razorcon Birnando had a variety of slurry stones and J-nats to hone on.
The only thing I would say is it might be worth getting yourself a bevel setter and a DMT to do edge repair and the initial bevel setting. You can't do edge repair on natural stones as easily as you can on a DMT and I think you'd probably struggle to hone a chip out of an old wedge on a Jnat!
A Chosera 1k would ensure you always have a decent bevel cut before starting on the natural stones and will really help you end up with a great edge.
This is all just IMHO of course, but that's what I'd do if I was going the naturals route.
I definitely recommend talking to a reputable seller about what you want to do and having them recommend a stone to you.
Good luck and have fun!
I'd suggest you first learn how to hone on synthetics then move on to naturals. You have to first understand how the edge develops during different grit stages and get consistent good results @8-10k level, before you have any success on natural stones.Quote:
Originally Posted by carazor
If you want to get a good Jnat contact Maksim:
JNS japanesenaturalstones.com
For Escehr classifieds or e-bay is the place to look.
All great advice here. I only put one more forward. Do not learn on your daily razors. Get some which are simmilar shape to yours and you do not nd to mess them up.
Good thing to know about the eschers is that its a very slow stone. It is a very very goood finisher but you need to get the most out of your razor before you go to the escher. If you use it too early then you're not going to get the most from the escher stone. For example if you go norton 8k to escher the results wouldn't be as good as norton 8k--to coticule---to jnat----to escher. Some people call this overkill but my mentor taught me this and he's right from what I've experienced. The thinner and finer you make the edge first the better the escher will be.
Having recently travelled the path you want to follow, I suggest getting an old inexpensive razor with which to practice, it was suggested to me to get a Norton 4/8 combo and to work on it. Then a Chinese 12k to finish what I achieved on the Nortons. Lastly, I was lucky enough to buy a JNat from Jim R. But I do not suggest that you go to the JNats until you become most proficient with the Nortons. Good luck on your journey, I have found mine to be most rewarding.:tu
These guys are all wrong...i am the only one you should listen to...no, not really i don't know jack about honing I just know what has been working for me..i recently got into jnats also. I. Like thejapanblade.com guy's site. It brings a little zen to the learning process. And he is very accomodating. He will send stones until you can fi d the right one for your style aand blade...very cool...nice fellow.
Hello Wintchase
Thanks for the mention. I generally try to encourage fellows (no gals as of yet) to try out a few stones at the same time to make comparrisons against each other, like a stone bake off, plus against the stones they have already. This was the old fashion way of buying stones in Japan, a stone merchant would visit the barber shops with a selection of stones for the barber to try out and he could pick and choose.
These days this would be a luxury situtation, but the basic idea is still a good one. Some users know what they are looking for and what they want, but in the case of you Carazor, and other newbies the best option would be to test out a group of stones or better yet to locate a member of the STP here who lives nearby that might host you for a couple of hours some day to test out their stones in a comparrison and learning situation. This would be the best of all worlds because their established honing skills could rub off on you along with their stone knowledge.
Maybe mini regional "hone-in's" could happen every once in a while to diseminate some skills on a small spontanious scale. Good luck with it all, no matter where your next stone comes from, I guarantee it will be a learning experience. Alx
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Above all, buy from a reputable dealer and from one who uses the stones to do what they say they do - at least at first. You can branch off and bargain hunt later on, or try unproven stones, but the reputable dealers will sell you exactly what they say they're selling.
I've bought natural stones from probably about five different places, maybe more. Of course, the reputable dealers will often not have bargains that appear to be such if you are just comparing the size of the stones at a given price level, but in the end if your objective really is to hone with a good stone and not to tinker around with some OK stones and some substandards, it is my opinion that the good dealers (and probably the very knowledgable users who like to run through stones) really are the best value.
I have not bought a razor stone from alex, but a woodworking stone several years ago. I did not buy one of of the super rare stones, but instead a fairly large (#30 size) suita that is a fast-cutting practical stone to use as an everyday last step on tooling. It is an absolute treat to use every time I have the chance to put wrought iron and steel to it, and very practical to use because it cuts fast for its grit (cheap stones often will cut slowly or unevenly for their grit size).
The stones I have gotten from fujibato (330mate) and a guy who goes by metalmaster on ebay, and from hida have all been decent stones for woodworking (i.e., tolerable), but they all have compromises and I wish with all of the other money I've spent tinkering around, I would've just gotten two more stones from alex, So or one of the other top end sellers. The stones I've gotten elswhere are either uneven, not as fine as advertised (I literally was able to replace an aoto with two of them, but that's not a pleasant thing have semi-finishers that cost what finishers cost you), or are fine but cut too slowly to be practical to use and don't even cut fast with a slurry. Hida was honest about what they have, I'll give them credit for that. It's just not as good as what alex has.
So that's my advice - buy smart from a reputable place, not cheap. Because you can buy synthetic hones left and right, and you can buy a lot of natural stones that don't really improve on synthetic hones, but folks want to believe they're better or tout them as such just because they're natural. Good naturals really are better finishers. Crapshoot natural stones are not.
Remember one thing: there's no real magic to natural hones. Eschers, coticules and Jnats are, with few exceptions, finishers to be used after the bevel is set. Buy from a reputable vendor and play around a bit.Try one at a time and get to grips with it.
Find some folks around you who have some finishers. If you are this way (check the community map) just contact me. Best advice is learn your system of stones thru 12k (if using Nani's) or 16K (for shapton gs). The nani 12K would be the first finisher I would recommend as it's about as consistent as an atomic time clock. When your skills are ready, find someone who has a few finishers and go over and have beers...
I don't think you can go wrong with a coticule from a reputable seller. These are specially selected coticules for razor use, some of which in my experience are the most versatile natural stones there are. Having said that, some are only capable of finishing, which is the beauty of naturals - no two are quite the same.
Chinese waterstones are also reputed amongst the community to be excellent finishers, and though infamously referred to as 'Chinese 12K' this is somewhat of a paradox, namely because such naturals are not comprised of grit and the scratch pattern they impart is said by respected members to be less fine than an artificial 12K stone, although to add another limb of confusion, certain specimens have been reported to exceed the finish of a 12K.
To conclude: buy a cheaper natural first, see if you prefer it to your existing arsenal, then become a rockhound.
I am your biggest advocate. You are my Max of hones...You both have a knack for bringing a zen to your work...That is the big secret in life....Make the morning shave the best, because everything else after that is nothing but interuption and interferrence, and irritation. If you can control that one thing (the shave), everything else can be dealt with.Quote:
Originally Posted by alx
Carazor you do not mention in your post where you are located, how long you have been using a straight and other things that might give us some sense of what you want. The journey to J-Nats might be long or it might be very easy for you. Once a bevel is set one can use Nagura and a moderately price mid priced J-Nat to get very close to what you want out of a stone. There are certain skills that one must have to hone and if you are resolute about learning on a J-Nat then that is very doable but, I would encourage you to go with a $200 mid grade before stepping up to a wold class hone that can easily cost you over $1000. My Asagi cost in the neighborhood of $1500 and I have never been sorry about the purchase, it is an amazing stone.
One of the easiest ways to do what you want to do is go have someone who is fairly well educated in hones show you.....actually put eyeballs and ears and fingers on a hone while someone is showing you how. It will save weeks of effort and answer thousands of questions but you must have shaved long enough with a straight to tell the difference between a razor honed on a 12K or a fine finishing Asagi. Not an easily accomplished feat!
So... I will cut the ramblings off but if you wish to PM me I could possibly head you off in a direction that may not be what everyone else has done but one that I have found rewarding! This is, after all, a personal journey so enjoy!
Take Care,
Richard
You know what happens, of course? You get hooked and every time someone mentions any new kind of natural, you immediately try to buy it. So really, just buy anything first because in the end you'll get them all anyway. :cry:
James, FRSHA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Hone Acquisitions)
Richard, I will PM you in a bit. I'm located in the SF Bay Area. I've only been shaving with a straight for about 2 months, and I've worked my way through a Norton 4/8 and a C12k. Now I want to explore other things. I'm having fun with the journey and wanting to learn more now.Quote:
Originally Posted by riooso
In all my experience with stones from all popular vendors in many price ranges, huge $$ does not translate to better quality necessarily.
The big $$ price tags come from bigger size, perfect rectangular shapes, color ,how clean the stone is, and of course hype of certain mines.
A great razor tested stone can be had from the right vendor for a great price. So my advice to the OP is to ask all vendors about their stone recommendations, and do not believe any hype about mines and colors and so on, that is just to raise the prices. Just look for performance.
You are, of course, correct and there belies the problem with J-Nats. It takes a certain amount of experience honing to discover what your preferences are and if you are not careful you will waste time, energy, and money. I have seen some people chase the "perfect" stone only to find out that when they obtained more experience that the stone that they lusted for was already in their collection. It takes a very good shaving hand to be able to tell the difference in the performance of a razor that is obtained by doing a dozen water laps on a very hard Asagi. Very subtle, but necessary when you are trying to evaluated a stones performance.Quote:
Originally Posted by mainaman
Take Care,
Richard