Thread: Poor edge after 12k Chinese stone

Originally Posted by JohnM

I would recommend going from the 6k stone to a hard back stropping on newspaper (my guess 30K+ grit) until the edge is noticeably mirror bright and then on to you hanging strop. Newspaper works pretty fast and will let you know right away if your 12K chinese stone is worth using and do so without spending a bunch of money on another stone.

Help me understand this, please:
Jump from a 6K , to a newspaper that you rate at 30K, then that will tell me that it's O.K. to drop down to my C12K ?? and that tells me if my C12K is good ???

and they wonder why people get confused

Well I think there's a bunch of info giving going on around here, so here's some questions for the OP. How long have you been using a straight razor? How long have you been sharpening, or practicing sharpening straight razors? Have you read any guides on honing? How many "shave ready" razors have you handled? What is "shave ready"?

The answers to those questions may very well send this thread in an entirely different direction.

I"m confused, got it along with my birthmark.

I've had three C12K's, two from Woodcrafters and one from the Polish seller on Ebay.
They are all different with the Ebay one being the best, it will give a REALLY good edge, one from WC was just average, the other fairly good

You might have to try a few to get a really good one

Originally Posted by rodb

I've had three C12K's, two from Woodcrafters and one from the Polish seller on Ebay.
They are all different with the Ebay one being the best, it will give a REALLY good edge, one from WC was just average, the other fairly good

You might have to try a few to get a really good one

+1
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...nese-hone.html

You didn't mention how much success you've had with a finishing stone before, but did say you're new at this, so is this a first attempt? I'm also new, and got thrust into honing after my very first shave. I managed to nick the strop and roll the edge severely, so I had to start with a 1K to get past the chunk that fell out of the blade and then go to the 4K. Once it looked good under a 10x loupe, I did about 15% more on the Norton 4K and 8K than Lynn suggested in his pyramid progression, due to the fact that my Dovo is a stainless. THEN, after 30 on my 16K Shapton, I wasn't satisfied with the edge at all! So I did 30 more on the Shapton, but this time I tried to start light and end even lighter on the pressure. That seemed to do the trick.