Purchased some hones from Ebay as I'm looking for a finisher better/different from my Chosera 10k.
Not an easy task.
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These are a Chanley Forest (I think), a Turkish Oilstone and a Tam O Shanter.
Of the three, the most interesting was the CF. I bought it on the strength of the Ebay image which was less than promising.
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I just thought the dimensions of the stone of 6.75" x 2.25" were promising. I could be getting anything from a manmade hone to a Escher I thought.
When I received it, I was reassured by how smooth the surface was.
Lapping it produced a milky beige slurry.
Getting the stone wet allowed some red spots to show through. Charnley Forest! I thought - nice!
This is closeup of the surface of the stone dry:
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And this is the surface when wet:
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The streaks at the top are water caused by my finger wiping water across the stone.
Close up when wet:
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As you can see, there are interesting white particles in the stone. Are these the abrasive particles in the stone?
I tested all three stones.
The Tam O Shanter and CF produced a rather scratchy and rough edge.
I then read in the wiki that a lot of laps are needed on the CF in order to produce a polished edge. Polishing the stone either with high grit sandpaper or laps with a blade allows it in effect to polish the blade.
A hundred of so laps later and yes, I was getting a polished edge. Still quite a few scratches but it looked and felt quite good.
I've yet to subject the Tam O Shanter to a similar process. Hopefully it will behave similarly.
I tried the Turkish Oilstone with water and it was a rather unrewarding experience. It just felt like rubbing the blade across a block of polished stone and nothing discernable seemed to be happening.
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Wetting it with WD40 was much more productive - some black metal swarf appeared quite quickly.
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No hint of any polishing going on though, just very fine even scratches on the blade after 50 or so laps, using a fair amount of pressure.
Again it's possible that I need to vary stroke pressure and laps in order to achieve a more polished edge.