Thread: Naniwa 12k honing surprise

Originally Posted by str8tlkr

Michael:

It's good to hear of your experience with the 12k. I'll share mine also; however, it isn't as good as yours. But I'm not blaming the stone, but rather, my inexperience. My Naniwa 12k came in Thursday along with a DMT 325. I flattened it and then proceded to perform a touch up of a razor that I had sent off to be professionally honed but never seemed to be as smooth as some other razors I had. Well about 3 strokes into the process, I ended up lifting the tang end which ground the point uneven. I could visually see with the naked eye that I had done this so I determined that I needed to perform more strokes to even this out. After a few more strokes, I did the same thing again. That's when I decided to use two hands instead of one. I then kept very light pressure on the spine with one hand in order to keep the razor flat on the stone. After about 20 or so strokes, I stropped and shave tested it. If there was an improvement, it was only slight. I definitely didn't make it any worse, but it doesn't shave comfortably like my other razors. My next step is to give it a few strokes on crox. If that doesn't work, I may send it off again before I invest in 5k /8k stones. I probably should have given a few strokes on crox initially but I wanted to see what it was like to shave directly off of the 12k. I'm assuming that an experienced honemeister can get a very smooth shave directly off the 12k with the right technique. Hopefully this will come with enough practice.

You can't fix a borked edge on 12k. It's too fine, it doesn't remove much metal.

Originally Posted by mjsorkin

I learned some things. An edge is sometimes better than expected. Do as little honing as possible AND be confident it will work. Finally that the 12k stone really is capable of changing the way a razor shaves.

And that Dovo is finally getting closer to a shave ready edge out of the box.
Maybe they read our forum.