Quote Originally Posted by Croaker View Post
What I have learned from this interesting thread is that I have been thinking of grit and hardness of a hone interchangeably, when actually they are not at all the same thing. A fine grit hone will polish a razor edge well. A very hard hone will do so also, although possibly much more slowly. Novaculite is extremely hard, with a MOH hardness of 7. (just looked it up in a chemical company reference manual). That means that a surgical Black Arkansas hone has the same hardness as if it was made out of solid garnet. Wow! Unfortunately, it is a slow polisher and does not really remove metal at all, in my experience. I just honed a razor that was not passing the HHT on my black Arkansas, until it would pass the HHT off the hone.I t took about 200 passes. I then stropped it 50 on linen and 50 on leather. Tomorrow, I plan to shave with it and see if the edge is appreciably better than usual for that razor.

Hey Croaker, thanks for this info. Thanks much to the rest of you fine people. I was actually worried that this post would result in series of potential flame replies just because it has been asked before in previous posts (searched).

Croaker, let me know for sure either PM or better yet, re-post here. If you get good results, then I wonder if I can just get the Belgium Coti (to go with my Belgium beer!), and a slurry stone, then finalize on the black, then linen, then strop. Or would hitting the black be overkill? Dunno. I am stoked though.

Thanks,

Alpsman