Thread: Dragons Tongue

Originally Posted by rodb

I use the whole set often if I want to use a natural stone progression. I use my PHIG (C12k) the most as a finisher with the fine dark stone from AJ 2nd, it's a faster cutter than my Chinese hone.

I think AJ's numbers are a bit high, DT 6k, Purple 7-10k(maybe), Dark 10k+

This is roughly equivalent to my experience with them. I don't know if AJ was actually able to fill my request, but for laughs I asked him if he could possibly choose finer grade hones since my intent was to use them on straight razors.

Unfortunately I've no synthetics higher than 8K to compare stria to, so I can't accurately guess what equivalent my particular hones perform at. The best I can say is Norton = DT < Purple slate = PHIG < Black slate. This is evidenced both by the feel of the edges on my face, and pictures of the stria taken at 200x magnification. Pictures can be found here:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ne-camera.html

I haven't shaved off the Dragon's tongue to be sure of where it lies in the progression, but visually I'm placing mine at 8k equivalent. Maybe that will be a weekend project.Could be a fun little experiment.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I have seen that advice many times for the Norton 4k, but never for a natural hone.

I don't even want to know how long it takes to lap 1/8" off a PHIG. It took me 3 hours just to get mine flat so I could start to polish the #$%^ thing.