Thread: German-French-Belgum-Hone Progression

That was a mouthful....

I sent this to Peter (hatzicho) but I thought I would ask all of you which way you would go.
Please include any special procedures you would use.

If I have these stones, which I do…..
What order of progression do you suggest?
Leave out any stones you would deem unnecessary.

La Pyrénées
BBW
La Lorraine
Creaton (Turkish)
Levant
Artaunon
Frankonian
Coticule
Thiringian

Thanks Guys

You can cross out the Pyrénées, which is wayyyyy too slow.

With natural hones it's always quite difficult to know, and requires some experience to "feel" the smoothness of each one.

For exemple you'll find people that use coticule until pre-finition.

But if you come across a really fast bitting one, it'll be unlikely to make a good pre-finishing hone.

Thuringian can often be seen as a good finishing hone, but there is different grades.

I can't make a proper use of my Levant, so I couldn't say.

I personaly use an agressive japanese nat. hone, then a moderatly agressive chinese nat. h., my fast-bitting coticule, my Lorraine, a "Sud-ouest" hone and a Dragon Tongue (but I could use a thuri).

A lot of your stones overlap. So using them in a progression isn't something I would suggest. I've never used a pyrenees so I'll leave that one out.

But play around with them and see what you like. I would invest in a 1/3k synthetic and do a lot of two stones combos if I was you. I've gone through most of the stones you listed and honestly most of them finishes well.

For the sake of argument, lets say all of these stones are perfect (Yeah, right...).
In this case, all other things being equal, Just use the stones listed. I have a billion others I am only interested in how people would use these stones in the list. If you think a stone is unnecessary then don't include it in your reply.
I know some of these stones are similar.

Is there a particular progression you like better than another?

Debates can last forever on which is a better hone. I don't want to get into that. Everyone has their own opinion and preferred stones.

Thanks again for all your input. It is appreciated.

Ok sure. If I only had these stones and no bevel setter I would always start with the coticule. I've never used a pyrenees so can't say if I could set the bevel on it or not.

After that I would either finish on the coticule or go to the thuri. Another progression would be coti-turkish-artaunon
The two last ones used with oil. And so on. Lately I have been getting awesome edges going from a coti to an artaunon. another favourite is a slurried coticule to a slurried thuri and finish on the coti with clean water.

Great, thanks