Thread: The C-Nat-athon

I'm psyched to hear about your results mj. Your stone's characteristics sound a lot like how mine acts. Hard as hell and smooth as glass.

I honing how I loathe I right now u really know how to press my buttons

Taking a break from honing and thought that i'd check in. I know that we are supposed to use synthetics with a known grit progression up to the PHIG but this thread lit a fire under my ass to try something I've been meaning to try for a while. I have a second useable PHIG and am honing from bevel set through finish using oil and natural stones. I've never used oil on a PHIG and am eager to try it out. I've got the bevel set and still have a lot of work ahead of me. I'll hopefully report back tomorrow after the shave to tell you how it went and post pics.

Originally Posted by Theseus

Taking a break from honing and thought that i'd check in. I know that we are supposed to use synthetics with a known grit progression up to the PHIG but this thread lit a fire under my ass to try something I've been meaning to try for a while. I have a second useable PHIG and am honing from bevel set through finish using oil and natural stones. I've never used oil on a PHIG and am eager to try it out. I've got the bevel set and still have a lot of work ahead of me. I'll hopefully report back tomorrow after the shave to tell you how it went and post pics.

I have wondered about using oils myself so I will be very interested on the water to oil comparison results you get. I know a trick that substitutes the oil for stones that work well with oils, someone told me to add just a drop of dish soap to the water/slurry. I guess it's supposed to be better if you plan on using water on the stone in the future because once you use oil on a stone I read there is no going back. Now you got me thinking.

Originally Posted by mjhammer

I just got done honing a beautiful little 4/8 salamandar with some pretty impressive results. I got hair popping clean 1/4" off my arm (or leg as the case may be) and I took it to the shave den and gave it 100 on the felt and 200 + on the leather (lost count somewhere around 180 so I just kept going for a while).

It has a friggin edge on it alright. I had to really work it on the 1k and 4k to get rid of a double bevel and some micro chips on the edge, but it all came out good.

I had to do a lot of circles and X's on the 8k to get it to feel just right, but I was pleased with it and could have shaved with it off the 8k.

So, I took it to my newly lapped/chamfered C12k and tried to work up a slurry. Barely got sh*t from my slurry stone. I hadn't read the other posts here before I tried, so never tried the edge. I'll do that next time. I did get a little milk on it after about 10 minutes of trying to work some up. Had to keep wetting it as the slurry stone would just stick to it.

I finally gave that up and started to do X's. I did 8 sets of 25 X's, and between each set I would have to rewet and then did 20 lite circles. After every set, I examined the edge with my lighted loupe (30X) and it showed continuous improvement in scratch pattern. It was starting to mirror up pretty nicely, the best I've ever seen yet from one of my hone jobs.

Keep in mind I've never successfully gotten a good edge off this thing yet, I've been shaving off the 8k for a couple of weeks. I tried to keep the pressure really light and consistent, and I think I did a pretty good job. After @ 200 X's and a final HHT (which popped that sucker before I even knew what happened) I took it to the felt and leather. 100 felt 200 leather and I tested the edge again. Hair literally fell to the floor in bunches. I was kind of shocked at the ease with which it caught hair and popped them off my leg.

So, in a couple of hours will be the real test. All indications are it will be the sharpest razor I ever honed. And I take back what I said about mine being closer to 8k than 12k. Using the other side of the stone that had never been lapped before, it was like silk and the razor just glided across it. I really could not feel any grit or grab to it. It just pushed the water off like it was ice.

I'm pretty pumped to give it a shot!! I'll update when I can!

M

How about using a dmt 325 to create a slurry on the phig works good for me!!

Originally Posted by Martin103

How about using a dmt 325 to create a slurry on the phig works good for me!!

I understand it works to raise a slurry, but with all the time I spent lapping mine up to 2000 grit, there's no way I'm rubbing 325 grit diamonds on it! (To be fair, there are different schools of thought on the importance of a totally smooth surface.)

I've not tried oil but my smaller Chinese stone works a treat as a touch up hone with a little lather. I might give oil a try as I don't imagine it would penetrate far into the stone, if at all.


I recently tried lapping the other side of my bigger stone, but it didn't work out too well. There's still enough length away from the chip to try the edge off it but it's not ideal.



There's a coticule slurry stone waiting for me at the post office and I think I'll have to give the above mentioned coticule slurry on Chinese stone method a try.

Originally Posted by northpaw

I understand it works to raise a slurry, but with all the time I spent lapping mine up to 2000 grit, there's no way I'm rubbing 325 grit diamonds on it! (To be fair, there are different schools of thought on the importance of a totally smooth surface.)

Oh ok maybe you should tried a different aproach since your method with this hone is not working and you would probably benefit
from working with slurry!!

Originally Posted by Tylerbrycen

I don't know if it's my pressure of the tape but the water displacement is not even along the blade so I didn't know if it was the tape or not

If the edge at any point does not bead up evenly then your bevel is not full set.

Originally Posted by Martin103

Oh ok maybe you should tried a different aproach since your method with this hone is not working and you would probably benefit
from working with slurry!!

I believe that stones work better when they are smoother. I think it lends to the hardness and provides a better finished product... if you think about it, lapping a stone to a high finish provides a much more consistent mirror-like surface... the same type of mirror-like surface that you are trying to impart to the edge of your razor.