Thread: Tam O' Shanter Vs. Belgian Blue

Couldn't agree more Dylan. The newbie notes are there because they work, and have been proven to work.

I must say though that what I, as a noob, have found far better then the initial advice, is that reading the forums shows that there are so many other ways of doing things.

It is nice for me to know that just because I didn't buy a norton 4/8 (and don't want one either - its unnatural) and a Tony Miller strop (import duties will make it uneconomical) and a razor honed by Lynn (LX is in the next coutry to me and turned it around in a week), doesn't mean I am doomed for failure either. I can get by on my yellow, blue and TOS stones just as well as with a 4k/8k. Even if I will end up with a right arm like arnie...

Si

Sunsi, sounds like you know what you're up against, and LX will be able to give you good advice. Bear in mind though that even LX has a coarser stone for chips and what not; the blues and TOS's are great for microchips but not major repairs or setting new bevels.

Also, I think the idea that a half hour on the coticule can substitute for significant work at the lower grits may be optimistic. If you develop your technique to LX's level maybe not. But let's say just for example, that doing so would require 250 passes on the coticule. Ballpark estimate. How good is your technique? Can you manage, like LX, to never flub a stroke? If you get to the 198th pass and a door slams somewhere and you lift the spine and rake off the edge, I think we'll hear your howls of frustration all the way from the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

I also love natural stones. The first thing I got was a blue/yellow natural, and for a long time I tried to use Arkansas white stones for all my low-grit work. It's taken me about seven months to learn how to hone – !! – and the all the major milestones happened in the last month. What happened to trigger the sudden acceleration in my slow-motion learning curve? I finally broke down and bought a Norton 1/4K.

Take this all with a grain of salt. I'm writing partly out of envy. I came into this hoping to keep it all simple and minimalist, a couple of razors and a single natural stone. I failed at this, and have only admiration for LX's success, which will be yours too if you manage.

I have several Tams of different sizes and a bunch of belgian blues. The reason you should buy both is that they work differently on different razors. You have to experiment to find out. I get calls all the time from people telling me they could never get an edge on the XYZ razor until they used a particular stone.

I agree with Howard's "Buy Both" comments. I own a lot of different stones, partly because I simply love the natural ones but also because each behaves differently on different steels. I think you will find Lynn comments on this as well many times.

There are lots of choices and from reading the many threads people have each found thier own unique path to honing sucess based on what was available to them.

No need to feel shorted because you don't own a TI, or a natural blue/yellow coticule, or a yellow/green Escher or one of my or Keith's strops. Learn to use what you have.......the rest is icing on the cake.

Many guys get by just fine with an old eBay razor, Grandpa's old Arkansas stone and a leather belt for a strop.

Tony