Thread: South African Hones....

Scott,

I'm trying to get a good cross section of blades in, so I've been going through my razors.

I've done Genco's, Solingen, Puma,(which is basically Solingen) Henckels, and I have a Sheffield up next. All hollow's. I've done quite a few, no wedge's though. I'm curious to see how it does on hard Sheffield steel. I have a lot of confidence in this hone though. He sent me 3 stones to test, and so far, I'm pretty impressed with just this one hone.

I also have two other hones that I believe would make excellent pre polisher's, or perhaps finisher's in their own right.
A lot more testing to do, but so far it looks very promising.

Rich

Originally Posted by zib

Scott,

I'm trying to get a good cross section of blades in, so I've been going through my razors.

I've done Genco's, Solingen, Puma,(which is basically Solingen) Henckels, and I have a Sheffield up next. All hollow's. I've done quite a few, no wedge's though. I'm curious to see how it does on hard Sheffield steel. I have a lot of confidence in this hone though. He sent me 3 stones to test, and so far, I'm pretty impressed with just this one hone.

I also have two other hones that I believe would make excellent pre polisher's, or perhaps finisher's in their own right.
A lot more testing to do, but so far it looks very promising.

Rich

Interested in finding out how this hone performs on sheffield steel?

I started testing Hone#1 in the series. The No.1 hone reminds me of a Coticule. I need to post some pics for you guys. The slurry is brownish in color, like mud. The stone itself leaves a very smooth comfortable shaving edge, very similar to a Coticule. If I had to guess at it, I'm thinking this stone is around 8k.

Today, I did the "One Stone Honing" method on No.1 hone. I did a TI, SRP razor. (Pics to come) The blade was dull, but had a good bevel. No need to reset it. If it needed a bevel, I would have used a Chosera 1k. Normally on this razor, in the shape it was in, I would have started on my Shapton 4k, and gone up from there. It also would have been a good canidate for a Coti or Escher/Thuringian w/slurry.

I started with 10x stokes, followed by 20 circles, dilute, repeat x2. So, that's about 90 lapps, and then I did 10 on water. The blade wasn't as keen as the Zulu gray, As I said, the Zulu Gray stone reminded me of an Escher on steroids.

The No.1 hone edge reminded me of a blade finished on a Coticule. Very comfortable, not harsh, not very keen.
I got a great shave, BBS. I have more work to do, but so far I'm impressed with these stones. I will test as many type blades as I can on these hones. I'll post more results on the No.1 hone as I can.

I still have one more stone to test. Results to follow.

P.S.

I will continue to test Hone #3 as well, as time and razors permit.

Hey Rich, very cool man. Appreciate the time and dedication you're putting into this. Excited about these results I must say..

- Mike.

For reference, I will post photos of all 3 hones we are testing for Mike (MichaelC) here.

Here is what mine look like clean, dry slurry and wet slurry.

#3 is the Zulu Grey.

The two on the left look an awful lot like japanese stones, even the wet and dry slurry look like what you'd end up with a typical asagi stone.

Originally Posted by DaveW

The two on the left look an awful lot like japanese stones, even the wet and dry slurry look like what you'd end up with a typical asagi stone.

Well Dave, I can tell you one thing, these hones sure as heck act like top notch Japanese stones or Eschers.

Just like Rich says, the Zulu Grey - No.3, is like an Escher on steroids. The other 2 are also very impressive hones, IMO.

These South African hones amaze me every day I try a new razor on them.

Maybe there's a reason that the origin of many things is from Africa.

These hones that Mike has found after digging up the SA countryside just proves how much excellent stock mother nature still has in her hidden secret chest...if we are willing to go that extra long mile to find it - like Mike did for us here.

Originally Posted by leadingedge

Well Dave, I can tell you one thing, these hones sure as heck act like top notch Japanese stones or Eschers.

Just like Rich says, the Zulu Grey - No.3, is like an Escher on steroids. The other 2 are also very impressive hones, IMO.

These South African hones amaze me every day I try a new razor on them.

Maybe there's a reason that the origin of many things is from Africa.

These hones that Mike has found after digging up the SA countryside just proves how much excellent stock mother nature still has in her hidden secret chest...if we are willing to go that extra long mile to find it - like Mike did for us here.

Agree 100% We talk all the time about certain razors/steels liking certain finisher's, etc...and I've experienced that myself. These hones seem to be the exception so far. Everytime I finish on razor on them, it's great. Especially the No.3 I literally had to put it down, in order to test the other two stones. I have not used any other finisher's. I really don't want to.

Hi Guys,

I just wanted to post some extra pictures of the Zulu Greys I've just cut. It's nice to see them as a neat group of blocks in various sizes - and the figuring is quite consistent - which I was surprised about. You have that fine speckled white and grey majority, with this rusty coloured blotching - best way I can describe it I've just lapped these to 360 grit and thought I'd throw some images up for you guys who are interested in this thread to look at.

Cheers,
- Mike