I've used my toma nagura before for a slurry stone and I'm pretty sure all the slurry is from the Escher. I also use a little pocket sized DMT 325 and it works just fine as well.
Printable View
As some may no i'm in the barber trade and i have a shop that is now ben established 77 years , i've owned the shop for 16 years. Jim who still works thursday mornings and is 80 years old and his dad before him used a coticule, i have seen t , it was wrapped in a wrag and worn nearly to the slate and it was well dished. Now i asked him about slurry stone and slurry . he did not have a clue what i was on a bout. they used there coticule with water . Now the wrag was coverd in yellow powder, i can only asume it was slurry, caused by honing, auto slurry. As they placed the hone on the cloth. another barber in austrailia said he never used slurry stone. he call ed his coti a soap stone. he set the edge on his little combo norton, one of the small ones, and he said he just finished on soap stone with lather. two barbers in the later years and neiter of used slurry.
well i tryed water only on my mates ti, and i was very impressed, thats now going back to him, so i just used light slurry on my john clarkes , i'll give that a whirl, then i'll try just water, then i will do a slurry to water, and compare . i will post my findings . coming of water was very silky, so at the moment i would settle for that. its only my first razor .
well i could not wait, i just had a shave of slurry and sham was right, you can shave of slurry, the edge was perfectly smooth, i'd find it hard which one to choose water or slurry they both worked. So may be i'll just use slurry then water, best of both worlds. If i was asked which edge was the smoothest, i would be hard pushed to say, as both edges are very nice, there is defanatley a feel to escher that i realy liked, mayb e because it differant i liked it. the other thing is there so nice to hone on the surface with slurry and water is hard to beat.
I just used mine with soap a few minutes ago before a quick shave.
It's now definitely an Arko stone. lol.
What is really nice is that they all will provide a sharp, gentle edge after a Coticule, "Dragon Tongue" or a similar 8-12K grit hone. I am finding that the Thuringians/Thuringer's are a decidedly nice addition to my hone regime. As pointed out in the post above, a few strokes and the bevel is back!
They and a couple other English equivalents are the original "Barber Hones" for final edge and touch-up.
Then I should not use those little Eschers, Thuringers and Charnleys and WOAs....Those that are furnished in sizes under 2x4x1 inch, in and out of hinged boxes?, those mined and sold before the 1880s or so when the Europeans started making barber hones from resins and grit? :gl:
What did the Barbers use to freshen their edges on the 14 hour seven day, a week they spent in their shops?
I use those mentioned above for "touch-ups." they do not take much room in the 'Shave Cave." I am accused of having rocks in my head but the big ones are used in the basement by the deep sink.
Nearly 60 posts with the Mods, Mentors, and many Senior members of the forum, and now we can safely assume that Eschers are good hones :y:y:nj:w
Barber's hones are great if you want to keep it simple and quick. I think most barber's went to Barber's hone back in the day because if you have a client at your chair and you need a touch up you wipe the blade on the stone 5 times and you're done. The client is probably on the chair with a towel on their head not even realizing it. Coticules leave a better edge, imo, unless you get one of those Norton hones the Axemen love, which I will never own unless I find it in a shop somewhere. Downside is the coticules are slower and you don't want to have to make 50 laps on water to touch up a razor with someone sitting there. Gary, I don't know why I am saying this to you. I know you're more than familiar with that! LOL.
Another consideration is size. Of those old barbers in NJ, back in the '80s, I bought a coticule from three of them. All three coticules were the 5x2 1/2x1". A swaty is 5x2x3/8" and much lighter in weight. The one barber I used to see all the time, I used to hang around in the shop, was 70 and cutting hair 50 years. He wore the white barber's smock with the two pockets at the waist and his swaty was in his right hand pocket. The coticule would not only have been slower but more cumbersome and fragile than the barber hone.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........the Escher standard.
I like the sound of this, especially as I have one in the mail :D
Wait, will this make Sham the Chairman to the Board of Directors to the largest deposit of naturally occuring Yellow, Blue & Green Gold known to man?
They will have to made a new wiki:- Alan Greenspan - Wikiquote