Honing stones

Sorry I may have not been clear,
I would like to buy vintage razors & restore/use them myself....Thanks for the advice It's been helpful.

On another note I will be posting some macro photo's of the razor I own & other razor setups photo's.

Neil Miller said:
shanky887614 said:
...neil only charges £15 i belive a time which isnt expensive same cost as a bar of shaving soap
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Cheaper than £15 - and return post insured up to £46 is included in the price.

Regards,
Neil
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My straight razor has just been hone/stroped from the invisible bleedge costing £21.50 (I had to pay for postage there but they paid for it to be returned).I just got my razor back today after sending it on the 18th/1/11...Havn't used it yet as I shaved yesterday:icon_sad:
 
slrjona said:
Sorry I may have not been clear,
I would like to buy vintage razors & restore/use them myself....Thanks for the advice It's been helpful.
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Well, in that case, your just going to have to do a cost/benefit analysis. And the factors that go into it are how many razors you plan to restore, how much your time is worth, and how self dependent you want to be.

Once you figure that out, you can decide whether just buying a bunch of micro mesh films is the best route v. spending a few hundred USD on synthetic stones up to 12k v. just paying someone 12 pounds per razor. It's going to come down to how many you want to restore.
 
pugh-the-special-one said:
I use the King stones and find them excellent, I use 1000, 5000. 8000. and a Naniwa 12000 stone, and a small naniwa slurry stone from the 5000 onwards, they are excellent quality for the money, and easily sourced in the UK. I also have a Naniwa 12000 super stone which are again reasonable, but the King 8000 stone I would say is not far away from the Naniwa 12000 in finishing the razor, this is only my opinion but the Naniwa is never 4000 grit level above the King 8000. so with my learnt but costly knowlege if I could go back and replace a stone with another I would buy the King 10000 over the Naniwa 12000.

Jamie.
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Are you sure that your opinion is a true reflection on the stones jamie and not more do with your technique in sharpening rather than to do with stones, I have never used the 8k king but have used the 8k nawimi and norton and can say without a doubt there is a very noticeable difference in the edge produced if the 12k is used compared to the 8K alone. Is the 8k level your normal level of finish for a straight.
 
pedro083 said:
pugh-the-special-one said:
I use the King stones and find them excellent, I use 1000, 5000. 8000. and a Naniwa 12000 stone, and a small naniwa slurry stone from the 5000 onwards, they are excellent quality for the money, and easily sourced in the UK. I also have a Naniwa 12000 super stone which are again reasonable, but the King 8000 stone I would say is not far away from the Naniwa 12000 in finishing the razor, this is only my opinion but the Naniwa is never 4000 grit level above the King 8000. so with my learnt but costly knowlege if I could go back and replace a stone with another I would buy the King 10000 over the Naniwa 12000.

Jamie.
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Are you sure that your opinion is a true reflection on the stones jamie and not more do with your technique in sharpening rather than to do with stones, I have never used the 8k king but have used the 8k nawimi and norton and can say without a doubt there is a very noticeable difference in the edge produced if the 12k is used compared to the 8K alone. Is the 8k level your normal level of finish for a straight.
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Nawimi? New one on me, I must say.

I don't think that 8k is his normal finishing stone, else why would he have bought a 12k stone?

BTW, its a funny thing trying to assess hones by grit levels. At the lower end you might easily see a 2k hone refining twice as much as a 1k hone, but at the higher end its more a case of diminishing returns. In other words it isn't a mathematical progression, ie the difference is not a constant. As the grit rating increases the difference falls off/diminishes, so we can't categoricaly state that a 12k is 4k above an 8k. At the lower end of the scale (coarse hones to medium hones) we would be talking about a huge leap, at the upper end of the scale (pre-finishers to final finishers) it would be a much smaller leap - more of a step, I guess.

Despite that I have used the 8k naniwa superstone, the 8k king, the norton 4k/8k, and the naniwa 12k superstone and from my personal experience the difference between the 8k and 12k stones is good enough to feel whilst shaving (the only real test) and the 12k is without doubt a better, finer finisher.

Having said that, you can get a pretty decent shave of an 8k hone - if your honing ability is up to it.

Regards,
Neil
 
Hi Neil thanks for your input and veiws, but what i was getting to was, and I would like your opinion on ihis is, If given the oppertunity to go back I think i would have purchased the the 10000 grit King stone over the 12000 Naniwa and still may do this, see I can spell Naniwa right sometimes :), i would like to hear yours or anyone's opinion as a comparison on the merits of the finishing qualities of the King 10000 compared to Naniwa 12000.


Regards Jamie.
 
pugh-the-special-one said:
Hi Neil thanks for your input and veiws, but what i was getting to was, and I would like your opinion on ihis is, If given the oppertunity to go back I think i would have purchased the the 10000 grit King stone over the 12000 Naniwa and still may do this, see I can spell Naniwa right sometimes :), i would like to hear yours or anyone's opinion as a comparison on the merits of the finishing qualities of the King 10000 compared to Naniwa 12000.


Regards Jamie.
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Hi Jamie,

I knew what you were getting at! I just wanted to put a few facts straight as a lot of people don't realise the diminishing increase in performance as you advance up the grit levels, is all. And I thought it was Pedro who mentioned 'nawimi' - not you! For all I know there may well be a nawimi hone?!

I have never used the King 10k, but I have used the naniwa chosera 10k, the naniwa superstone 10k and the naniwa superstone 12k.

The 10k chosera does a fine job and - in my view - is a bit more abrasive than the superstone 10k. I don't regard the chosera as a final polisher and always follow it with something else - even the 'shine' it gives to the bevel is less glossy than that the superstone 10k leaves. If both are compared under a strong lens the grit lines left by the chosera are obvious, although very fine of course.

I don't think that there is much of a detectable difference between the 10k and 12k superstones. I think both of them are good enough to be finishers. As I said, I haven't used the King 10k but from the other King stones I have used I would guess that it leaves a very good edge - if it is equal to the 10k superstone which seems likely, then I see little improvement to be had by getting the 12k superstone.

Regards,
Neil
 
We could have a massive debate (again) about which hone to use. However if you decide you want/need one then a second user hone would be less expensive. I would personally start with a BBW (Belgium Bkuue) and learn to hoine

They are inexpensive and totally underrated. This would keen your newly honed razor keen for a while.
Howver if you want to get into restore you will need a coarse stone then that means more expense

My first set was a norton 220/1000 and 4000/8000 they do the totol job nicely
 
I would personally start with a BBW (Belgium Bkuue) and learn to hoine
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Yes if you like lots of unrewarding work!

I find them very slow cutters needing lots of laps through a progression of slurries to get any result from.

A Naniwa 3-5k will do the same job in a quarter of the time and I would be hesitant at shaving off one.

My opinion of course:)
 
jaycey said:
I would personally start with a BBW (Belgium Bkuue) and learn to hoine
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Yes if you like lots of unrewarding work!

I find them very slow cutters needing lots of laps through a progression of slurries to get any result from.

A Naniwa 3-5k will do the same job in a quarter of the time and I would be hesitant at shaving off one.

My opinion of course:)
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I agree with Jaycey.

Q: What grit is a BBW quoted as nearest to by most users? A: 4k.
Q: Are they fast or moderate cutters? A: No, they are slow.
Q: Are they finishers? A: No. Far from it.
Q: Are they bevel setters? A: No. Far from it.

No - no need for a massive debate - just follow the right advice and get the correct stone to start with.

Regards,
Neil
 
Regardless of whether or not you could get a shave off a BBW, a coticule is a known quantity. At least you'll know exactly what your getting and it is universally well-regarded. So, if your only going to get one stone, get a coticule.
 
asharperrazor said:
Regardless of whether or not you could get a shave off a BBW, a coticule is a known quantity. At least you'll know exactly what your getting and it is universally well-regarded. So, if your only going to get one stone, get a coticule.
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and because of there large appeal you could easily get your money back sell it on the bay
 
shanky887614 said:
asharperrazor said:
Regardless of whether or not you could get a shave off a BBW, a coticule is a known quantity. At least you'll know exactly what your getting and it is universally well-regarded. So, if your only going to get one stone, get a coticule.
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and because of there large appeal you could easily get your money back sell it on the bay
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I agree - with a coticule, that is. Not with a BBW, "regardless" or not.

A BBW is not a coticule. It is an intermediate grit hone.

A coticule is a well-known finishing hone. Unfortunately it is not a known quantity. Very soft ones can be 9k or less (too soft to give a decent edge but good for metal removal), very hard ones (like les latneuses) can be over 14k (exceptionally good edge but not so good at metal removal). With natural stones there is no such thing as a 'known quantity' only broad guidelines - each natural stone is different.

If you want a known quantity, get a man-made hone of a certain grit.

Regards,
Neil



Not all coticules come with a BBW side - some are glued to common slate, so you don't always get two stones (yellow coticule & BBW).
 
asharperrazor said:
shanky887614 said:
if you were aiming on owning 10-20+ straights then it would be worth buying one
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I'm actually not even sure about that either. And this is why: With each straight razor you purchase, you reduce the amount of honings you need. So, if you own 10 razors, you only need to hone them 1/10 as often. Now, in the real world, this probably won't pan out to an exact 1/1 ratio as rust kicks in and screws up your plans, but for the most part the ratio will be 1/X where X = number of straight razors.
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I hate to be a pedant, but there be a misrepresentation in them thar maths.

You would still need to hone just as often (if not more so, because of the rust effect you mentioned). To illustrate...

Let us suppose that the average straight requires a hone every 100 shaves (having never owned a straight, I have no idea how accurate this is, but this is purely for the purpose of explanation, so please bear with me), and let us assume that the user shaves every day.

A man who owns 1 straight:
After 100 days, the razor will have been used 100 times, and it will need a hone. After 1000 days, it will need to have been honed 10 times. Pretty straight forward (hur hur).

A man who owns 10 straights:
After 100 days, unless he has used only one straight and the rest have been sitting pretty on the shelf, no razor is blunt enough to need a hone. This much is true.
However, after 1000 days, all ten straights will have been used as much as possible before needing a hone (i.e. 100 shaves each), at which point the user will have selected another straight which still had some life left in it, and then used that one up. At the end of the thousand days, therefore, all 10 razors will be blunt, and need a hone.

So whether he owned 1 straight or ten, the man will have needed to perform 10 hones after 1000 days.

Ergo, unless you're planning to sell the razors/stop using them/quit straight shaving before they need another hone, buy as many straights as you want - you will need to hone just as often.

Like I say, I hate to be a pedant, but as someone who studied maths at Oxford and subsequently taught the subject, I cannot resist the urge to clarify a mathematical misunderstanding.

They called me The Mathemagician.

Not really.
 
Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say. 1 straight 100 days, 10 straights 1,000 days. It doesn't matter how many straights you own, buying more isn't going to make a hone more or less worth your money.
 
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