Thread: Which hone for finishing?

Frictionite 00? I think I may have seen this come up somewhere before... is this a finishing stone as well? What kind of information can you lend on it? And if you would, keep me posted on that 12k Chinesse stone works out for you... I think I will try to toy with the Norton 4/8 for a while and keep searching for a good finish stone... im sure I'll need the time to toy with the 4k/8k before I really need a finish stone anyhow.

I have a 15K Shapton, and a coticule. I've personally had better results with the coticule.
E

Translucent arkansas works, and black arkansas probably works as well. They're very slow, and I wouldn't use them for primary honing. It's not in the same class as the fine shaptons and coticules and fine pasted strops. I've got a razor that's finished on pink translucent thats given me some of my best shaves, but the edge definitely isn't as refined as you get from the fine grit hones and pastes. It does work well for my beard because the edge seems to be tougher than the finer hones, and seems to cut my coarse beard very easily. I'm still experimenting with it, but the initial results are very intriguing. PM me if you're interested.

As for the coticule vs shapton debate, most of the guys that own both prefer the coticule. However good coticules are hard to come by while the Shapton is a couple of clicks away.

For starters, try to finish with the Norton 8000 only. If you feel you need sharper edge, search for alternative, which will be hard to find.

Nenad

I use a 12k (Japanese) as well as a pasted paddle strop (0.5 & 0.25 µ) for the ultimate refinement of the edge. The bulk of the work is done on the Norton combo however. The rest is just gravy.

X

Originally Posted by Billy

Frictionite 00? I think I may have seen this come up somewhere before... is this a finishing stone as well? What kind of information can you lend on it? And if you would, keep me posted on that 12k Chinesse stone works out for you... I think I will try to toy with the Norton 4/8 for a while and keep searching for a good finish stone... im sure I'll need the time to toy with the 4k/8k before I really need a finish stone anyhow.

I have one, and as I remember it's two-sided. Fine side is good for finishing.