Thread: Slurry, Dilution, Grabbing

I am using a Zulu as a finisher and have found that dilution of a slurry that seems to work perfectly on a small Escher I use and a big Welsh Slate does not work with the Zulu. When I reach about 3/4 dilution if I can describe it that way the Zulu is fine, smooth, no worries but as the water clears the razor feels like it is on a totally different stone and it is a feeling I do not like at all. Does this make any sense to those members experienced in honing or to Zulu users specifically?

I find much the same with my Zulu Grey. I find that mixing just a little liquid soap with the water helps plus I use very little pressure with both hands to overcome the jerkiness.

Originally Posted by WW243

I am using a Zulu as a finisher and have found that dilution of a slurry that seems to work perfectly on a small Escher I use and a big Welsh Slate does not work with the Zulu. When I reach about 3/4 dilution if I can describe it that way the Zulu is fine, smooth, no worries but as the water clears the razor feels like it is on a totally different stone and it is a feeling I do not like at all. Does this make any sense to those members experienced in honing or to Zulu users specifically?

Same here. I think one of mine came from very close to amother strata, and ,the surface was decidedly gritty in places. Prolonged - and I do mean prolonged, arm achingly long lapping solved this, but I still find that I am only happy with the edge 70 per cent of the time and generally go on to another hone that gets the job done quicker.

I agree that it feels better once slurried, but as you thin the slurry it turn s into the hard, sometimes gritty (in my example) stone that it is. It also takes an inordinately long time to remove the rounded, mushy ('soft and smooth' in coticule language) edge left by a decent slurry - for my purposes anyway.

Bear in mind that comes from my point of view as a honer with a tight schedule to meet, though. No doubt if you were honing for yourself and indulged in the time for this stone to do its stuff it would be a different story, as witness the many who raved about it.

Regards,
Neil

What do you suppose is causing this? Thanks, I'll try your method.

Originally Posted by UKRob

I find much the same with my Zulu Grey. I find that mixing just a little liquid soap with the water helps plus I use very little pressure with both hands to overcome the jerkiness.

Well, I hesitated to say this but as the slurry thins it begins to feel like I am hitting patches of another hone embedded in the ZG. I really like the history of this stone and man who put his heart and sweat into it but something is off. As a rank amateur I did not want to whine too loudly about it until I received some additional feedback.

Originally Posted by WW243

Well, I hesitated to say this but as the slurry thins it begins to feel like I am hitting patches of another hone embedded in the ZG. I really like the history of this stone and man who put his heart and sweat into it but something is off. As a rank amateur I did not want to whine too loudly about it until I received some additional feedback.

That is essentially what I meant by my example being too close to another strata, and the gritty feeling.

I dont mean that it felt gritty all over, but only in a few isolated spots.

Lapping removed this gritty or grabby feel from where I had noticed it, but then it would occur inanother, different place.

I am pretty sure that it is representative of small inclusions. Maybe examples from nearer the centre of thicker seams of this stone do not exhibit this.

Regards,
Neil

Cedric Smythe made a box
He didn't make a hone
Our Mother Earth did that
And she was all alone.
Animals and Plants
Came and went
And added to the mix
But Cedric Smythe knew a box
Was so much easier to fix.
UGH!

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

That is essentially what I meant by my example being too close to another strata, and the gritty feeling.

I dont mean that it felt gritty all over, but only in a few isolated spots.

Lapping removed this gritty or grabby feel from where I had noticed it, but then it would occur inanother, different place.

I am pretty sure that it is representative of small inclusions. Maybe examples from nearer the centre of thicker seams of this stone do not exhibit this.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by WW243

Cedric Smythe made a box
He didn't make a hone
Our Mother Earth did that
And she was all alone.
Animals and Plants
Came and went
And added to the mix
But Cedric Smythe knew a box
Was so much easier to fix.
UGH!

Cedrick knows a good poem when he hears one. It makes him smile. He isn't smiling.

Right now I figure that he is more interested in your measurements as he's making a rather large box...

Purple will be Ok right? I mean, the colour wont be bothering you much where you are going...

Regards,
Neil

Neil, you are right and to apologize to Cedric Smythe for a hastily hammered out piece of crap, I offer:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
BY WALLACE STEVENS
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.




Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Cedrick knows a good poem when he hears one. It makes him smile. He isn't smiling.

Right now I figure that he is more interested in your measurements as he's making a rather large box...

Purple will be Ok right? I mean, the colour wont be bothering you much where you are going...

Regards,
Neil

Now then, thats more like it. Cedrick, slightly mollified, has put his tools away - for the time being...

Regards,
Neil

PS: we won't tell Tarkus about this minor misdemeanour, let's just keep it between ourselves.