Thread: Cleaning up and honing a new antique store find: A.J. Jordan

I got lucky at a local antique store this past weekend and picked up this A.J. Jordan for a song. Here's some picks. I didn't do much to it - really just cleanup and some very light buffing.




Went through my honing progression and decided to take some photo's with a USB microscope my sons gave me for Christmas. Lately I've been doing Naniwa 1K (if needed), Norton 4, Norton 8, Naniwa 12K and then finish on my Coticule under running water. Strop on Crox pasted felt thens trop on SRD bridle leather. I was shocked at the damage to the 12K edge done by the Coticule. It sure is a comfortable shave though - not sure why.

Here's some progression photos:












I understand the inconsistency of the scratch pattern with Coticule due to the natural composition and different size garnets in the stone. But wow, that's a lot of edge damage from the 12K progression. I've always felt like shaving off the 12K stone was a little harsh so I usually go to a Coticule or a Thuringan. I didn't realize that I was literally destroying the 12K edge. Very interesting.

I've not been able to get Dr. Matt edges off my Coticule but they are very sharp and comfortable.

Adam

You Norton 4k seemed to degrade the 1k edge and bevel. How old is your 4k? Have you used it very much since you got it? More importantly, have you lapped it very much?

I'm asking this because a lot of the 4k Nortons have an outer layer that has larger grit in it. For this reason, some people recommend lapping away the first 1/8 of an inch of the hone.

Originally Posted by aalbina

I've not been able to get Dr. Matt edges off my Coticule

.

Very nice photos!

Agreed, something seems off with the Norton 4K. The edge should be getting straighter here than it was at 1K, not worse. That doesn't even look to be improving on the 1K stria, just same/same.

Your coticule is probably 8K equivalent or lower. Look at the Norton 8K, then look at the coticule. Only a very slight improvement, if an improvement at all. I don't know how many laps you did on the coti, but I wager not many yes?

You could probably cut the Naniwa 12K out, Get the 4K hone sorted out, then go from the Norton 8K to the coticule and come up with very similar results to what you're getting now. Such is my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.

Originally Posted by Utopian

You Norton 4k seemed to degrade the 1k edge and bevel. How old is your 4k? Have you used it very much since you got it? More importantly, have you lapped it very much?

I'm asking this because a lot of the 4k Nortons have an outer layer that has larger grit in it. For this reason, some people recommend lapping away the first 1/8 of an inch of the hone.

Yes - I saw that and was actually pretty surprised. The image is from different places along the blade - it's hard to get the same spot every time. That might account for the disparity. I did look at the length of the blade - that's why I went back to the 4K for three rounds. I did joint the edge at the 1K level to get rid of some chipping I noticed along some areas of the edge.





The 4K has been in use for a couple of years and I did end up lapping off a good 1/8 of an inch when I first got it. I lap it before every honing session. I find that that synthetics foul pretty quickly even without tape. Ive always noticed that the 4K feels gritty. I've commented here on that in the past. Maybe I should replace it - I've never been that happy with it. Love the 8K side of the Norton combo though.

I've been thinking about picking up a Naniwa 5K or a straight Norton 4K instead of the combo. Any advice on that?

Adam

I think maybe our combination hones are from the same bad run or something. I had a 4/8, and no matter what I did the 'back' end of my 4K just never felt as smooth as what I would dub the 'front' of my stone. I tried to lap layers away, I tried polishing it up to 2K with sandpaper, that side of my combination hone was a lost cause. It's currently relegated to knife honing duty for the remainder of it's life, and even with those I kind of try to avoid that bad spot.

My single grit 4K hone is much, much smoother. It has been kinder to me (knock on wood). So far there's been no buyer's remorse with my single grit Norton set 1k, 4k, or 8k.

My only reservation with a Naniwa 5 is that may be a bit large a jump from the 1K. I'm thinking maybe the 3K would be a better fit, since you can generally shift Naniwa stones up a tick in comparison to Nortons because the Japanese scale is a touch different from the US model.

Originally Posted by Marshal

Very nice photos!

Agreed, something seems off with the Norton 4K. The edge should be getting straighter here than it was at 1K, not worse. That doesn't even look to be improving on the 1K stria, just same/same.

Your coticule is probably 8K equivalent or lower. Look at the Norton 8K, then look at the coticule. Only a very slight improvement, if an improvement at all. I don't know how many laps you did on the coti, but I wager not many yes?

You could probably cut the Naniwa 12K out, Get the 4K hone sorted out, then go from the Norton 8K to the coticule and come up with very similar results to what you're getting now. Such is my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.

I'm guessing I did 75 laps or so on the Coti - maybe a few more. Do you think that's too few on a 4 inch long Coti?

Adam

If you really want to follow a 12k edge with a coticule, then probably 10-15 strokes would be sufficient. You might be better off just going from the 8k to the coticule and skipping the 12k altogether. The number of strokes needed with that scenario will vary but are more likely to be in the range of the 75 that you did. I'd try increments of just 25 at a time though.

Utopian beat me to it. That's more or less what I was thinking.

Going to the 12k is wasted time, you just took it back to a coti. May as well start there, or just go from the 12k to the crox pasted strop, that's what you end up with if its used last anyway, Tc