Thread: Working With The Zulu Grey.

Interesting, maybe Michael will shed some light on it.

Pretty soon we will be able to put 3 together for a group shot Royalcake :<0) Mine just landed in Customs jail and I hope it gets paroled soon.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Pretty soon we will be able to put 3 together for a group shot Royalcake :<0) Mine just landed in Customs jail and I hope it gets paroled soon.

Very cool.
I think mine took about a week after it left customs. It'll be interesting to see how they all differ. Just like any other natural I guess.

Originally Posted by Trimmy72

I haven't had a lot of time to play around with my ZG but here's what I did and was satisfied with it for now.
Started with two shave ready razors on the Norton 8k 25 laps, then a Naniwa SS12k - 12 laps, ZG no slurry 150 lap - shave test and was satisfied with the results
I usually finish on a Yellow Couticule and .5 crox and am fairly happy with that, the ZG made a noticeable improvement to my shave. I'm sure as I play around with it more, it will get better

Looking forward to reading what every ones routine is with the ZG

Update: I honed up a Bengall and this was my process
1k - two strokes of heavy circles, then 25 heavy X strokes, two strokes of light circles, 25 strokes of light X's
4k - 50 X
8k - 50 X
C12K - 150 X
ZG - 150 X
.5 CrOx - 10
Cotton webbing - 15
Leather - 60
Results were a comfortable shave, and noticeable improvement over my previous process

I really appreciate your post on the Zulu because I am about to break out mine and use them on a number of razors.
This will be very helpful.

Thanks Randy, but I doubt there was anything in my post that you didn't already know or will discover in the first 15 minutes with it.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the Zulu.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

...I doubt there was anything in my post that you didn't already know or will discover in the first 15 minutes with it...

Thank you for taking the time to post your efforts and results! I hone my own razors and shave with them every day, getting a very comfortable and very close 2 pass shave; however, I feel like I still have a lot to learn about honing, especially using my Zulu or any other natural, honing more intuitively and being able to read the razors' and stones' feedback well. Posts like these definitely help me understand troubleshooting honing methods when something doesn't work, as well as using naturals.

First of all, let me say that I sold my ZG. Not because it wasn't good but because I was raising money for a Jnat Anyway, my experiences with the ZG were varied. When I first got it, it was very 'skippy' on plain water. I looked up info on here and found that just a touch of soap would fix the skipping and it did. I played with the stone for a couple of months and found that for me it worked MUCH better with slurry in a dilute as you go fashion. Later, I lapped it with wd sandpaper (400 then 1000 grit) which took it to a more 'matte' finish. After that, it worked well with just water. I always got good, if not great results and comfortable shaves. My only complaint is that the slurry stone was difficult to raise a slurry with. I ended up getting a DMT 1200 credit card for slurry.

In a ZG to jnat comparison I'd have to say that if my ozuku is 5+, the ZG is like 40+!!! Incredibly hard and dense and slooooow cutting. Great stone and I wish I was independently wealthy enough to have kept it and the ozuku!

I've been using a Zulu Grey for "touch-ups" for awhile now. In the past, a razor usually
needed 60+ laps, using light slurry diluted to water only, to bring it up to snuff.
Today I tried using the ZG with Smith's Honing Solution. The razor chosen for this
experiment was a Theirs "Welcome."

I applied a coat of Smith's to the ZG and did 2 rounds of 20 heel-leading
laps followed by 5 or 6 light X strokes. After that, it was almost there, but
not quite, so I rinsed the ZG and did about 10 X strokes with water only.

The ZG rinsed clean of the Smith's solution, and the edge that I was able to
obtain was, in my opinion, the best so far.

Before I shaved with it, I gave the razor 5 light laps on a felt strop treated
with 0.5 CrOx spray; then 30 laps on fabric and 60 laps on a Roo hide strop.

The resulting shave was primo, BBS with 2 passes and zero irritation. Here it is,
12 hours post-shave, and there is only the finest of stubble felt. Not a bad shave.

Granted: I'm new to the ZG, and this was the first attempt using Smith's,
but so far so good!

ps: I have a new understanding of what "light pressure" means, both on the hone
and on the strop....it means very light, and it does make a difference!

To PaulKidd--great idea trying the Smith's; I'll have to try that on my ZG next time it's out. Smith's works very nicely on my CF.

To the guys using Naniwa12ks--I'm with you. I think it's a good hone to bridge the 8k-natural gap. For naturals other than coticules, I always use the N12k before going to any natural hone. If the natural doesn't improve the N12k edge then I don't use it any more. My ZG does improve the N12k edge, qualitatively if not quantitatively. As others have said, it gets subjective.

To Hirlau--I've been off the site quite a while, and always enjoyed your thoughtful posts before. I can tell you've been thinking carefullly and thoroughly all the time I was away; and it's now an even greater pleasure to read what you're up to.