Thread: The C-Nat-athon

Originally Posted by myersn024

If you live near enough to an actual Woodcraft store, you could probably tell them what you're wanting it for and they'd let you open a few of them up before you make your decision. There's two Woodcrafts within two hours of my house, and they're extremely helpful in-store.

I meant if you are ordering them online is when i heard people buying a few before they like. I like woodcraft they have some good deals. Was just wondering if the Polish guy may grade them before he sells them because mine is an awesome stone and it's the first one I bought.

I'm In!!

Hones: King 800, King 1k, Norton 4/8 combo, C-Nat

My Cnat appears to be about 8k. I haven't lapped both sides. Mine has some really beautiful light red lines running right down thru the length.

IMO it is probably closer to an 8k than a 12k just based on feel. I have tried a few times to use it as a finisher, but usually they come out duller than after the 8k. I have found that using the 8k from slurry thru to clear water, sometimes using as many as 50-60 X strokes and 100 circles (20 circles at a time, followed by 15 X's) gives me a good edge off my 8k. I follow that with 100 laps on the felt and 200 laps on the leather and ended up with a pretty darn good shaver.

I have had trouble getting a sharp razor after the Cnat.

This stone is hard as hell tho. It will hone dry in about 25 X's. I've tried soaking it for hours, but that has no effect at all. This stone will not absorb water.

I have lapped it continously with my DMT 325 between uses, I've even tried rubbing it with my 1k to try and smooth it more. I've taken one of my Swaty's to it as well.

Slurry will form during the process of honing also. Depends on the razor hardness, but the harder ones will form their own slurry so I have to spray it off between times.

I will try again today on a razor I have shaving very well off the 8k and see if it improves or degrades. I may even do more lapping on it, or try the other side, as I've only lapped and chamfered one side. I have hardly any need of my slurry stone, and have yet to use it to any great effect.

I'll post up my finding later!!

Great idea, I really want to learn this stone better. It's a beauty and I'm sure I can figure it out!

Thanks Mack!!

Mike

mj, maybe yours acts more like some j-nats where it actually works better with slurry than without?

My C-nat leaves a better edge with slurry and ending on a lightly diluted slurry. Mine is very hard, and the polished surface is like glass when using the slurry stone (slippery). By scoring the surface of my stone and the slurry stone with 1K sandpaper lightly it makes it easier to create a slurry by polishing out the light 1k scratches. With lighter pressure with the slurry stone and taking more time to create the slurry makes an extremely fine slurry. Feels like pushing silky milk over a glass plate like sensation.

I have not needed to hone a razor in many, many, months.... I moved a few months ago and hadn't unboxed my stones from the move. I had a few razors that needed a touch up and pulled out my tools. I decided to post an article on my gplus about the stones and honing and did some quick googling to find out what the I in PHIG meant. I couldn't remember if it was in-determinant or ignominious. Anyway, that search led me full circle back to here. I haven't posted anything in a long time and I'm glad to see people are still adopting PHIGs.

I am a bit of a blasphemer because I do things differently and specific to what works for me and my abilities. I bought my PHIG from the guy in poland from an ebay sale where it was listed as a chinese 15,000 grit stone. My stone was a literal 2 foot long paver. I had a tile shop slice it up into several smaller stones which I sold to other members here. I kept one for myself from that original brick. At that time, I also had a coticule from Old Preu and an unlabled Thuringian aka Escher. I also had a progression of naniwa stones. After trial and error and experimentation, I gave away the Thurry and sold the Coti and settled in with my particular phig.

This is how I use it. I use a piece of les latneus coticule to build a slurry on my phig. It takes a bit of elbow grease and I build a good skim milk colored slurry on the phig using the coti. Then I use the dilution method down to just water for my final finish. For me, this provided the best compromise between keen and smooth, without fail. For me, it improved the keeness of what I could achieve with a coti and with a thuri. Used alone, it does not match either in smoothness. It's simply not a smooth finisher for me. I tried using combinations of coti and thuri slurry and what worked best was using the coti for slurry and then working that down for a final finish. I have a few DMTs which I've used to raise a slurry on the phig for honing and I've tried diluting that down for a final finish, and while it was keen, it wasn't anything I would call smooth. It is good for adding or restoring a touch of keeness to an already smooth razor with a few strokes using lather.


In the bowl is my Norton 4k/8k soaking in water. Top left is my trusty Double-sided 325/600 DMT. I use that to flatten all of my other stones, build slurry, and occasionally rough set a bevel. It took a few hours of work with the DMT to take my rough finish phig to the smooth beauty it is today. Beneath the DMT is a pair of 1k naniwas in light blue, a slightly darker blue 5k, yellow 8k, and a white 12k. In the middle are my two slurry stones. The top is a les latneus combo bout that I use to make slurry. Beneath that is a small piece of phig that would normally be used to make slurry, but both stones are too damn hard... You could spend 5 minutes rubbing with that small piece of phig and only have a very very thin skim milk colored slurry... it really is that hard. Beneath the razors is my c15k stone. I think it's either 18 or 24 inches long and 3 or 4 inches wide. It's wide enough that there is no need to X stroke on any of the razors I own. It's also long enough that I don't have to do nearly as many strokes.




The bottom left razor is one of my first straights and is my gold standard for smooth shaves... A Shumate. Above that is a uncommon 6/8 Genco. In the top right is a 6.8 Henry Dunner & Co that's going to get some MAAS tlc and the full progression. Beneath that is a Novelty Cutlery out of Canton Ohio. Bottom right is the 7/8 Big Pecker,err, Karl Becker out of Bremerhaven.

Here's pics of my c-nat. I have no idea as to what it's grit rating would be, but it's definitely finer than my 8k Norton. I haven't used it a bunch, just to touch up one of my razors. As you can see, it's not a remarkable stone looks wise, no discolorations or veins of darker or lighter rock. It's really hard and the slurry is like talc once it dries. In one pic, the stone is dry; it's wet in the other.

Nphocus... How did you get such a large C-nat?

I really love my C-nat, since I was lucky enough to get such an amazing whetstone. It is basically based on luck if we get one that is decent or truly superior. If this stone was quarried in the U.S. I guarantee it would probably cost at least around 80 bucks.

It's like paying a cheap price to have a chance at winning the whetstone lottery.

Do I have to use type when I use my Chinese 12k

Originally Posted by xMackx

Nphocus... How did you get such a large C-nat?

I really love my C-nat, since I was lucky enough to get such an amazing whetstone. It is basically based on luck if we get one that is decent or truly superior. If this stone was quarried in the U.S. I guarantee it would probably cost at least around 80 bucks.

It's like paying a cheap price to have a chance at winning the whetstone lottery.

Well, you are going to love this. I found the info in my paypal purchase history:

Business Name:
Marek Kopczynski (The recipient of this payment is Verified)
Email:
[email protected]
Payment For:
Invoice #0001

Business Contact Information

Customer Service Email: [email protected]

Amount sent:
-$75.00 USD
Fee amount:
$0.00 USD
Net amount:
-$75.00 USD

Date:
May 6, 2011
Time:
05:45:18 PDT
Status:
Completed

This is from our ebay correspondence:

Dear marek101,

15000 grit whetstone for fine honing. 2" x 6" x 16"

I guess I had the big stone cut down to roughly four 1 inch thick, 16 inch long, 3 inch wide slabs. 16"x3" is a lot of honing surface. He had the big stone listed on ebay for $50 +$25 for shipping.

I think tyler meant 'tape', and I feel that if you use tape to hone it, use tape to hone it all the way.

Now, here is my setup, and I tried to get some decent pics of my CNat. I hope you can see the lines I was talking about. Reminds me a a dragons tongue stone I've seen somewhere.

I went ahead and lapped both sides (top side 'again') and finished the sides up to an 8k polish. I polished it with 1k, 4k and 8k stones to help and try to smooth it out, and I think it did amazing. It feels so much smoother now that I've done that. I can really tell the difference.

Here's some pics:





I included the last pic to show Tyler that my DMT has some rust on it also, put away wet in a sealed container and it rusted in those spots. Don't try and remove it, just make sure it is dry when you put it away or they will get worse. (I know, whoops!).

As you can see the red lines run thru the stone perfectly on both sides, almost exact.

Now that it is relapped i'm going to give it another try. Mine is pretty narrow so I have to do X's. Slurry came up pretty quick before, but I tried to raise a slurry after lapping this time, using my C12k slurry stone, and it didn't do anything!!! What do you think about using the 8k to put some slurry on it? I don't want to hit it with the DMT again as I think that was just roughing up the surface.

Opinions??

Thanks you lot!! Great thread..

Mike

Cripes, forgot to say what is what... Starting from the left: King 800, King 1000, Norton combo, C12k and the DMT 325..