Thread: South African Hones....

Originally Posted by Cangooner

I have the same question as Brooksie: how worn is well worn? I know this is probably like asking how long a piece of string is, but thought I'd ask.

I was going to wait until my stone arrived before getting a small DMT for slurry. But what do you think? Should I get the DMT now and spend some time on the backside of my PHIG to wear it in?

Either way, can't wait for my stone to arrive!

If you get a 1.2k DMT and run it a few times on a 1k synthetic, it will be good to go.

Well Worn..

As our Friend Vasilis mentioned Chaep or New plates are not that great for this work, Releasing and High diamonds are a bad thing


To break in a plate for Lapping/Slurry making take a Knife or even the round shank of an old screwdriver and run them down the plate about 10-20 times this will knock off the Loose and High Diamonds..

Lapping a Barber's Hone or lapping an Arkansas stone for about 20 minutes should take care of the rest, after that it is just more use


Personally since buying the hugely expensive Shapton DGLP (325 Grit) which is used on the 30k Shapton I have never really worried about using anything higher than a DMT 325 (well worn ).. I just haven't found a difference in the outcome

Another trick for slurry is to use a smaller Arkansas Stone they are so hard that you will usually never realease grit when rubbing water stones...



Two more razors done last night using the Zulu with Slurry and Water, I think I like the feel of that better, but I am going to try doing my Wacker with the slurry and water then after a few shaves switch out to the Smith's and re-hone it and see if I can feel any difference on the face...

So far only good reports back from customers

One thing to look out for when using a 1200 dmt for lapping .... Before sham posted about ruining his 1200 DMT lapping with it I was using one at work to lap my norton combo. On the 4k side I noticed a gray residue that puzzled me. I had been using the 325 dmt plate on my 4k single grit at home and had never seen anything like it. At first I attributed it to swarf from honing but it was the diamonds and the nickel substrate that they are embedded in.

Fortunately for me Sham posted before I went too far and ruined my plate. I would say for making slurry a 1200 is fine. Even to finish lap after running through a series of grits with other plates or with sandpaper would probably be safe enough. Just saying don't use a 1200 dmt to lap a hone from start to finish or you'll end up with a plate with bald spots.

Double0 dropped off his zulu and his atoma 1200 to me a few days ago. The atoma is fabulous and I will get one down the road. The jury is still out on the zulu. I am playing around with it and will be test shaving with a W&B 'Lather Well I'll Shave Well', and a Kissing Crane full hollow in a few minutes. I want to work on some others too before I draw any conclusions.

After talking to Burt, He also tested this stone. We've found the magic happens over 80 laps. It will work well with less laps, but it may feel like an 8k edge. I do 5 sets of 20 laps. I use an Atoma 1200 credit card size, raise a moderate slurry.

I do 20 laps, 20 circles, dilute, repeat, and finish with 20 laps plain water. A total of 100 laps. For the most part, and all things considered, this seems to be the magic number. At least for me. I've found a big difference from 20-60 laps vs 80-120 laps. I don't think you can over hone on this stone.

Of course, YMMV. Lot's of variables here. Razor, Technique, etc... If your getting good edges, try a few more laps, and you should get great edges...They should be comparable to an Escher or Jnat.

I'll have to try that RIch. Yesterday I did like thirty laps each with a misty slurry on a friend's zulu, with the two razors mentioned in the post above yours, # 213. Shaved one side of my phizzog with each razor and they were very nice. I'm planning on trying a couple more and I'll do the requisite 80 round trips.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I'll have to try that RIch. Yesterday I did like thirty laps each with a misty slurry on a friend's zulu, with the two razors mentioned in the post above yours, # 213. Shaved one side of my phizzog with each razor and they were very nice. I'm planning on trying a couple more and I'll do the requisite 80 round trips.

Jimmy try thicker slurry as well, I was not too happy with thin slurry, but when I got it a bit on the thick side and worked then diluted, I got really good edges.

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to pop in again to say I'm working hard on prepping existing orders as well as future-proofing my readiness for new orders.
I wanted to post a few pics of what I was doing this weekend - I've been rough cutting a whole bunch of new material, as well as chamfering a batch of soon to be shipped stones. You can see in the image below that what I do is clamp each stone in an old heavy-duty mill vise, and then I use a large file to cut in the chamfers on each side.. painstaking doesn't begin to describe it And when you're looking at like 25 stones at a time waiting to be prepped, it's tiring work to be sure.
The rough cuts on my bench there you can see are all mostly hone shaped - just very large and very rough. Some of them have very nice figuring in the stone, which as I understand it is the result of organic material like seaweed etc. being encased over time in the stone.. (This bench is just a very small portion of the supply I have..)

- I'm working on stamping the sides of my hones with the ZG logo and text in a white ink, for hones that have a rough backing where a label won't be easy to apply. Actually I may just stamp all future hones like this and instead just supply an information card with each stone instead of the adhesive labels...

Thanks guys,
- Mike.

Still waiting. Have the 1st razor set to go!

Originally Posted by Johnus

Still waiting. Have the 1st razor set to go!

Hey John, yours and 11 others will be in the mail on Wednesday for sure..

- Mike

Originally Posted by MichaelC

Hey John, yours and 11 others will be in the mail on Wednesday for sure..

- Mike

hopefully mine is one of the 11 coming )