I guess it depends on the translucent.

I had the norton translucent, which doesn't seem like a natural stone (it seems like natural stuff pressed together). I wouldn't like it on razors, i think. The stone I used is a natural stone that I do still have, and a good bit finer (maybe half as fast and half as coarse as the norton translucent), and it has been used a lot on woodworking tools without refreshing its face, so it's very settled. It makes a pretty nice edge that I would put on par with any 8k waterstone (the edge is different than a waterstone, of course).

I guess there are probably two groups of people (or three, or four, maybe) -
1) people who are daily shavers who hone their own razors and who want something quick and comfortable - ultimate sharpness may not be that important. I'd assume this type would like to keep a hone in the bathroom where powders and pastes might cause a problem (with the wife, obviously not a practical problem) - I'm in this group. 90% of my dawdling around with stones has been for woodworking, and not razors.

2) People who hone their own razor and who are chasing the ultimate edge, be they daily shavers or otherwise. They would be unhappy with an edge off a translucent stone, even a fine one like I have, and they would probably consider an edge off of 0.5 chromium oxide or a specific razor grade natural stone (thuringian or ozuku or something) as the minimum acceptable stopping point.

3) people who send their razor out for honing - (though I've never done that, I'll speculate...) who should accept only a very sharp edge back from a honemeister, and one that's in good geometric condition to be able to stretch the lifetime of the edge before it goes back to the honemeister


I'm going to assume that in the days of people shaving by necessity (100+ years ago) with a straight razor, there were a lot more people in category 1 than there are now, though category 3 would've been the easily accessible barber. Not to mention that few people had constant people-facing jobs where their appearance mattered that much, and most people probably didn't shave daily, anyway.

But, anyway, another woodworker told me they got a comfortable edge off of a natural translucent stone, and I was surprised, so I tried it and ...well, I was surprised, too. I got a comfortable edge that had decent shaving sharpness and uniformly passed the HHT without any ugliness on the edge under a loupe.

I did have to spend more time on the bare leather strop, though, whereas my daily regimen of using a well settled antique japanese barber hone, I could use the razor comfortably off the stone without any strop at all, and i rarely use more than 20 laps on a small paddle strop.

I'm new to socially talking about straight razor shaving, but I'm assuming that there are a lot of people out there who once they master honing technique, they get into a routine that's quick and easy and comfortable, and get a bit away from ultimate sharpness and powders and such.

After I got into the daily routine of straight razoring, I brought it up on a woodworking forum, and I was surprised to find that there are a lot of other daily shavers, some of them having shaved with a straight razor during the "dark period" for the last 40 years, and never using anything but arkansas stones and a bare horse butt strop. Those using the arkansas stones are very experienced with squeezing performance out of them, though, from having used them for decades woodworking - being very protective about their "settled in" state, which is removed as soon as you lap the surface of them.