The goofy stones thread....

[Mel Fulks]

Interesting that the one that has more pattern (inconsistent makeup?) is the best.

[David Weaver]

Interesting that the one that has more pattern (inconsistent makeup?) is the best.

That's been my experience. When a stone has mottling like the one on the left, and the lighter colored parts of it look almost a little waxy, the stones are nicer performers than the gritty looking stones that are perfectly uniform. I have an old soft that has the same color as the washita on the left, but it's got little particles that don't cut any faster than a washita, but once the particles dull from use, they don't cut fine enough to be very usable for much.

A settled in washita and a good bare leather strop will do easy, clean quiet hair shaving, though they are all a little different in their fineness and speed.

If I saw that stone on the left anywhere for less than 30 bucks, I would have it.

[David Weaver]

David, remember that razor hone i lapped (and ruined) and then tried to fix with super cut shellac? Its still going strong! I even had it in my truck for a while to touch up chisels at work. Ill never know how fine it used to be, but right now its around my norton 8k. And durable. I thought for sure it would be dead by now. I'd guess that for gentle use with razors it would last until the shellac breaks down, maybe decades

I remember you talked about that, that's a smart solution. If you lap off the surface effect that keeps the particles smooth, worn, and together, suspending them in shellac is a really really smart solution. How does it feel when you use it? Is it smooth?

If the shellac breaks down, you can just redo it.

I had to get detached from the razor forums a little bit to get sense about honing razors, and using strops, and once I got to a linen (instead of aggressive compounds that are commonly used on the forums), I realized that I could literally make any decent razor hone out there last several lifetimes. I hope the linens last well. I can make a strop as good as I can buy with a clean run of horse butt, but the linen is something I haven't seen duplicated with current materials.

There was a nice lot of vintage linens yesterday on u-pay, but I have two good linens right now and kind of chickened out on it. The auction number was (posted because it's already over):

251427082592

[James Taglienti]

How does it feel when you use it? Is it smooth?

Slick and shiny with a nice faint scratching sound to go with it. It works great.

[James Taglienti]

I've put all my naturals away in favor of a high speed grinder and a norton 4/8. Its fast,and usually i dont even use water- i just wash it off when it gets too black.

Part of it was because I moved, and all i had for the longest time was the 4/8.

Some of it is because my work has shifted almost entirely to painted trim and furniture. I just dont need to fine tune as much. I dont need flawless surfaces or consistent texture. Strange- I had only made one painted piece in 10 years- in 2013 I made 22!

[Adam Petersen]

Thanks for the information guys. I am really happy with that left one for what I paid. The left and the Swaty were $13 bucks. I am excited to try to use the left one. I will take your advice and leave the Swaty alone for now. And no lapping! That's great to know. I don't straight razor shave so I may just leave it alone all together. The box and sticker are too neat to foul up for no reason.

[Noah Wagener]

not to tempt an addict, but some place that makes straight razors in Massachusetts that has some new natural water stone mined in the states i believe. http://theperfectedge.com/?product_cat=tpewaterstones

could you explain a little more what you mean by a "smooth" edge for shaving. As a novice i would think the finest particle stone would leave the smoothest edge but you said that the synthetics will not give one a good shave and also that the naturals are coarser. On another post you said that you wouldn't sharpen certain Japanese chisels with your high grit synthetics. Is this some cultural thing that is thought to be in bad taste or for performance reasons?

It appears in those microscope pics that the blades were held at a severe skew, almost side to side strokes?

I picked up a chipped Guanxi stone for cheap but i can not really get it to work. can you give any more tips on using that stone?


the dude abides

[David Weaver]

I'll answer, even though it's shabbos

Those stones look like hindostan hones (from indiana). You can get a shave off of a hindostan as long as the last one you use will hold it's grit. If they're something else, I'm not sure what they are. I do have a hindostan already, though. I got it thinking I might luck out from the ebay picture and get an all-yellow coticule (the seller didn't know what it was), but it's a hindostan. A lot of the razor guys like that fellow (Howard something or other) running that site, so I won't say much other than if they are hindostans, that's pretty high, but at the same time, he may have to do some work or make some arrangements to get the finer stones of the type because most are not so fine.

* I don't use fine synthetics on nice japanese chisels because they leave sort of a tasteless looking edge. A nice natural finisher leaves a prettier edge, and since the japanese chisels don't hold onto much of a wire edge, you can't tell a sharpness difference between synthetic and a decent natural finisher

* The shallower the groove is, at least relative to its width, the more I usually like the shave, as long as the edge is keen enough in the end. Coticules are a stone that gives a very good shave despite having huge particles. They might be 10 times the size of the particles in a synthetic finisher. They are very round, though, and a good uniform coticule will allow you to final hone a stone without releasing garnet particles. They are a total crapshoot, so I wouldn't advise getting into them (most of them just don't lead to that keen of an edge, and the truly good ones are usually really expensive and of vintage flavor), just using them as an example. Some synthetics will do funny things with razors. There are pictures of edges chipping right off of a shapton 16k glasstone, despite sharpening fine on anything else.

Some of that preference is also related to my skin not tolerating the 0.1 micron powder kind of shave. If an edge is brought from any stone and then finished on those super fine compounds, it doesn't make any difference where it came from. I prefer a natural stone brought up with a vintage linen. It'll be very sharp, but not punishing. Everyone likes different things, though, and most of the guys who hone for pay (which boggles my mind) like something quick and work through synthetics and may possibly do a few strokes on a natural stone and then finish with a modern compound. I'd bet they hone a razor in 3 minutes for $20. There is a demand for it, I guess.

* naturals are not necessarily coarser. They have larger particles. If a natural stone will just refuse to hold its particles in place (and make a slurry like a soft synthetic stone does), then the 1 micron type synethetics will be sharper. If one of the stones out there with the smallest natural particles (the slates or the japanese stones with 3 micron particles, etc) will hold those particles in place and you use light pressure, you can get a very keen edge without deep grooves in it (deep being a relative term for synthetics with 1 micron stones) and it will be comfortable for someone with sensitive skin, but still sharp.

* that leads into your guangxi hone - if your stone is hard enough to hold its particles in place, it should be able to do a good job. Otherwise, I think they are probably like a low level finisher like a 4000 grit stone, and if they are soft, you'll never really get a great edge off of them. If you have one that's hard, you can really work up a good edge with it, but it takes some patience to learn the stone. I don't know how practical that is for woodworking. I'd consider them a great razor stone, especially given their price, but if you get one that's soft and won't hold its grit, it'll never make a good razor finisher, and for tools, it'll leave you wishing you were just using synthetics.

If you get a hard one, then you need either a stone to slurry on it or to raise a slurry at first with a diamond hone and then finish with it without a slurry.

[Noah Wagener]

thanks David,

Ive read a few books that were just on sharpening and they do not even scratch the surface of info you provide here. I really should "build you a cake or something" in appreciation.

I wonder how that stone came to be called Hindostan. I think it means land of the Hindos as Hindustan in northern India is the land of the Hindus. Now i'm curious about how Indiana got it's name as well. How silly of me to think there was a stone you hadn't tried. I'll keep trying to stump the guru.

I think the Guangzi stone i got is a hard one. It does not slurry with just the tool like synthetics. It also does not hold any water. I also get a burr which i do not with synthetics except on lower grits. Are these indications of hardness?

I think i'm going to have to breakdown and get a nice synthetic finisher anyways. Is there a difference in the Japanese version of the Shapton pro? There are few on ebay that are stateside and cheaper than the one they sell here. But a guy in Japan selling them says they (the Japanese versions) are magnesia stones which sound a little to fussy for me.

fyi, in another Cohen brothers movie (Miller's Crossing) the Italian mob boss says you get a first class shave if use cold water on your razor to contract the metal.

[David Weaver]

There's definitely a lot of stones I haven't tried, most notably a tam o shanter and a norton 8000. I haven't tried either of those, for different reasons. I'd have a tam o shanter if I ever ran across one that said it was for razors and didn't cost a ton (they were the it stone for a little, but the escher and droescher thuringians quickly became the it stones). Like the cake reference, though!

I don't know much about the hindostans or hindustans (can't remember what the spelling of the town in indiana is), just that they are considered a second rate stone compared to the novaculite stones, like the queer creek stones, and I've never really chased after stones for historical reasons (and thus don't have one of everything) except for washitas. I think the whole reason that I got a bunch of washitas was based on their ability to eliminate almost every other stone that was commonly used before them in the US and parts of europe. I think they're my favorite.

I haven't read any books other than leonard lee's book and the short excerpt on sharpening stones from the holtzapffel book

Did just fine a nifty reference in trying to find the right spelling of hindostan, too:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XVI...stones&f=false

If the guangxi stone is raising a substantial wire edge without a slurry, it must be coarser than most of them are. They are usually slow on clear water (with no slurry) and don't raise much of anything.

As far as the shaptons go, they say they do something with the stones to make the US market stones more appropriate for the weather here, and that the japanese stones might craze. I have one japanese stone and it hasn't crazed but other people say they have had crazing on their stones. To me, that's not something I care about because I know for sure I'm going to glue the stone to a base, anyway.

If the japan market stones are magnesia instead of resin, that's news to me. Those are just terms to me, anyway, though. You can get the gray market shapton cream, etc, from stu and from a seller on ebay called "JP metal master" (who is Takeshi Kuroda, I've ordered at least half a dozen things from him in the past, he's a reputable seller and the fact that he tracked down nimura and get me a full stamp nimura dai at a custom angle at my request means that he's not just selling odd lots of stuff).

The cold water quote is an interesting one. There was a craze about 2 years ago to shave cold water, it didn't exactly fully catch on. I figure my razor at room temperature doesn't know much difference vs. what it would if my face was cold, and my face definitely doesn't like the cold water that I'd need to have to keep the edge of the razor cold. I tried a whole bunch of stuff when I started shaving, but have gone low maintenance and just maintain my razor with a vintage linen for the most part. I could literally use a chinese hone to keep it in shape once every 6 months for 5 minutes. Without the vintage linen, though, I'd have to hone every three weeks.

I kind of like to try the stuff that's been marketed away (as in, straight razor shaving, etc) as being difficult to master, etc, because most of it turns out to be baloney. There is a little more learning curve, but you usually find out that people 100 years ago weren't just a glutton for punishment doing everything they could the hard way just because they were into self torture. Straight razor shaving reveals itself to be pretty practical and quick (but not very good revenue for razor makers), as long as you know what you need to have. A great shave for me is 6 minutes. A very quick 2 pass is 4 including the stropping. Even the "very quick" is better than any shave I ever had with the super multi blade razors out there.

After ditching all of the modern wonder metals, I'm starting to feel the same way about the washita and a clean leather strop. It's interesting how sharp you can get a tool if you have to do it with just one stone, and how well the vintage stuff works when you pair it with a washita stone. Maybe not beginners material, and nobody really wants to rob themselves of the experience of trying a whole bunch of different things I guess, but I could teach a beginner how to use the stone (it would need to be in person) at least as fast as they could learn any other method. It's just a little narrower range for technique forgiveness. It's too bad norton won't humor us any longer by mining what are otherwise still plentiful natural stones.

[Noah Wagener]

Lots of info here to digest. So a fine stone will not put a burr on the side of the edge opposite the one you are working? I thought i wasnt getting burrs on fine synthetics because of the softness and mud. I thought maybe a harder stone would fold steel over like a burnisher? Now that i've used that Guangxi stone a little I do not get a burr. It does sound coarse but it is real slow and i do not really see any of that black swarf. Did the one you had work best with a soak? I do not think i have enough experience, sensitivity, or money to experiment with naturals. But your threads are a great resource if i ever want to.

Are you also saying that a slurry is used to speed up a fine stone and then finish with the stone clean?

In the classifieds you said you were getting rid of your man mades. Do you have anymore for sale and did you sell the Snow White?

Thanks again

[David Weaver]

Lots of info here to digest. So a fine stone will not put a burr on the side of the edge opposite the one you are working? I thought i wasnt getting burrs on fine synthetics because of the softness and mud. I thought maybe a harder stone would fold steel over like a burnisher? Now that i've used that Guangxi stone a little I do not get a burr. It does sound coarse but it is real slow and i do not really see any of that black swarf. Did the one you had work best with a soak? I do not think i have enough experience, sensitivity, or money to experiment with naturals. But your threads are a great resource if i ever want to.

Are you also saying that a slurry is used to speed up a fine stone and then finish with the stone clean?

In the classifieds you said you were getting rid of your man mades. Do you have anymore for sale and did you sell the Snow White?

Thanks again

I never soaked any of the chinese slates I've had (I've had 3, they're all a little different). One of them gives the same kind of impression that you're describing, it makes a whole lot of noise, as if it's made of porcelain, but it doesn't damage an edge or cut fast. If you tapped on it with something hard, it would sound a little like tapping on a ceramic coffee mug. Both of the others (one from woodcraft and one directly from china on ebay) don't make as much noise.

As you've described the slurry is pretty much the way it goes. Raise a slurry to speed up the cut on a fine stone and if you want a finer edge than the slurry provides, clear it off and finish honing with just clear water on the surface instead of a slurry. Sounds like a pain, but it's probably a minute long process, and if you want to save the slurry, you can just spray clear water on one end of the stone and leave the slurry on another and finish the honing on the clear spot.

That obviously only works on a stone that doesn't self slurry. Stones that self slurry will never quite be able to match the edge that a similar but harder stone will make. The difference is much more stark in natural stones since the particles in the finer synthetics are so small and sharp (e.g., the SP 13k will raise a slurry while it's working, but its particles are a fourth or fifth of the diameter of the finest natural stone particles, so it will still create a very nice edge).

As far as burnishing an edge or bending it over, it depends somewhat on the steel. Something very hard like a good quality japanese chisel will just refuse to do anything other than be honed. Off of a fine stone, there just never will be much there that bends back and forth or feels like a wire edge (you can, of course, raise a wire edge with a coarser stone). On the other hand, if you have a vintage chisel, especially if it's vintage but new enough to be alloyed, the edge can probably be influenced more. You'll always get the best final edge if you finish on the stone with light strokes, despite the sensation that the stone isn't doing anything with those light strokes.

You can even take an edge that is very sharp for woodworking and find out which way the iron shaves hair better -bevel up or bevel down. then wipe the opposite side with a few firm strokes across your palm and all of the sudden it will cut hair more easily on the opposite side. On a truly fine fine edge, like a straight razor edge, you go to the length of coming up with a process that gets past this and leaves an edge so correct and perfect that it will not show favor to one side over the other. Quick is more important for woodworking. Out of habit, I always make the last strop stroke on the side that will be cutting. Belt and suspenders I guess, but except for the few times I've done something out of curiosity, I have never spent time getting a woodworking edge to be as fine as a razor edge, but every edge on every plane will still shave hair pretty easily. There's a big divide between shaving hair and shaving hair the way a straight razor shaves comfortably - I think it's easy enough to get that shaving hair sharpness of a plane that I do it even on the coarsest planes, and it takes long enough to get the toothless feeling smooth straight razor type of sharpness that there's nothing that warrants it in woodworking. It would be blasted back to the quick edge in a couple of strokes.

i do have some more stones to dump - pretty much everything synthetic that wasn't a gift or part of a friendly trade, though I've probably dumped a dozen stones or more in the last year already so my grotesque pile isn't what it once was.

[David Weaver]

Someone asked on another thread what my favorite finisher was, and I think this pretty much covers it. Bone colored hard arkansas.

I had one, but found another one on ebay last week. I have no idea what makes them bone colored, but it's not something on the surface, as you can lap all you want and the stones are still yellow.

So far in a grand sum of two stones, they are strong cutters but fine and will bring out a nice polish.

I've never found these stones in the wild, and thus have never had the chance to get one cheap, but I guess at $100 each for this one and the other one (that griggs so nicely made me a case for), they are cheaper than new translucent stones, and the new stones are missing the combination of fast and fine that this one has and the bone colored stone that I probably posted earlier also has.

I had to guess a little bit whether this was actually a translucent stone, you can see the before picture. The seller was fairly proud of it, too, so there's a risk it ends up being a mediocre stone that's not that fine that just has oil that's oxidized a little brown. Fortunately, that's not the case here.

IMG_20140315_151121_389.jpgIMG_20140315_151648_673.jpg

Someone made a nice case for it, too, with the hinge on the end. It is the first stone I have seen that was actually crowned significantly, but the surface was fine with no abuse. I'd guess that it was being used for someone's razor, but probably not recently. It had an outers gun oil kind of smell that you know if you've smelled it. This was its first and last unjust abuse with a diamond hone. It's fairly fine already, but should settle into something really nice.

[Tony Zaffuto]

What diamond grit did you use?

[David Weaver]

I used a worn out DMT extra coarse. If I use it on razors, I'll probably rub a washita against it to condition the surface.