Thread: Honing Escapades - A beginner's experience

So much stuff, so tired after a long drive...

First, the photos are great! I have a fantastic stereomicroscope but I envy those photos.

Ok, new first, because it's important (at least in my head), you might want to consider using the scope to assess your bevel setting and then putting it away for anything but recreational purposes. I think the scope is a fantastic tool for bevel setting, but after that I'm not sure that it is informative regarding the ultimate goal of the quality of the shave.

Second, I realize you are using a slurry stone on your Jap hones, but I'm not sure of there being any benefit to using both a Kiita and an Asagi, especially when you are using the same slurry stone for each. In my opinion, they should be ballpark comparable. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just throwing out the question.

Third, I suppose the scratch pattern your got from the Cro-Ox depends on the quality of the stuff you got. Given what I'd guess you spent on those hones, I would hope you didn't buy cheap Cro-Ox that is not of a fine uniform grade.

Finally, I would suggest that you do the leather stropping after, rather than before, the Cro-Ox stropping.

Finally again, since I thought of another, great job again with the scope photos and have fun experimenting with the toys! Everybody likes (well, at least 7 of us) the high mag honing photos and its always great to see what different hones accomplish.