Man, do I love our little SRP database - a real treasure throwe of information.

Although I've had had a couple of different hones for some time now, I never really have serious thought to honing as I wanted to get my straight razor shaving down to an acceptable level first. One of those hones, and my very first one at that, was a BBW (I guess I felt very partial to a stone from the Ardennes as I am myself from that area, but on the other side of one of the borders...) Anyhow, I digress...

Back to topic: So, just a few days ago, I decided it was time for me to get my head around honing as I would really like to be able to maintain my own razors. There I was chatting with a fellow straight shaver from the Land of the Celts and the Dragons and he told me he was using Naniwas. So I start looking at them (and of course also at Nortons and the like, just to compare) when I was thinking "Man, I am sure my BBW would make for a nice finishing stone." Maybe I should have left it at the initial thinking and starting to read up on the topic instead of sharing my assumed and totally unfounded wisdom with the aforementioned fellow member of this fine community. And I am rather glad I came across this and a few other threads on the topic of the BBW, AFTER I have made a complete fool of myself but luckily before I started any actual honing... I still wonder why I was thinking the BBW was a suitable finisher.

I like natural stones, always have (and am not talking about hones only but most definitely exclude the Kidney variety, they are no fun...) but after reading that the BBW is more or less a 4K stone, I have decided to go for a set of synthetics (Naniwas, as I like to buy local or Regional and Japan is 'only' about 6 hours North from here...).

To cut a long story short (and I am sure you are all wondering what I am rambling on about) - I am really glad and would like to say 'Thank you' for all the imparted knowledge and shared experiences here on SRP, all readily available if one looks.