The best thing I've done to improve this razor is going back to .5, .3, films followed by 200k diamond pasted balsa.
Manaslu 505 arrived this morning. Was pretty sharp so decided a koma touch up and using my second ozuku as a tomo was today’s honing set up. First time trying to use my ozuku as a tomo. Was slow going but finally managed to get a misty slurry to finish.
They can be had, for a song, if you know what to look for, and are willing to put a little elbow grease into restoring it. ..
I'm gonna be looking... I enjoy mini restorations, nothing major tho. When I first started with straights I was buying old beat up blades, but they mostly all shave well... Still have pitting and watermarks etc, but that is character to me, The only thing that would put me off is a badly chipped blade or a cracked/broken blade.
If 12 laps on Chromium pasted suede, 60 on 200k diamond pasted balsa, 25 linen, and 50 horse count..... pre 1936 merger Geneva Pyramid 7 6/8 @Steveclarkus suggested this brand and true to form, he was absolutely correct.
All the razors were honed on Shapton Glass, most were followed up with CrOx and then diamond pastes (5k & 100k) Rasupur western grind kami 8k, 16k diamond paste Dorko 16k and diamond paste Jerry Stark 8k,16k Koraat 4k,8k,16k diamond paste Wacker 4k,8k,16k diamond paste W&B 4k,8k,16k diamond paste George Wostenholme 4k,8k,16k diamond paste
Honed up a Boker Damascus on my newly cut CO-Nat. It took a keen, smooth edge. Bevel was set on a 400/1k Taidea, then a coticule and progressed through the naguras shown. The 2 largest nagura are different shales from Colorado and the others were picked from a small bed of river rock. I'm very pleased with my experiments!
Really interesting. I’m curious to know how you were able to figure out which stones would make a good nagura/hone? Lol I’d love to try something like this myself but if I do it now I would just be bringing random stones home with me not knowing what to look for.
I got lucky with the stone. I recently was able to get an affordable to me J-Nat and after some use of it, I felt shale should be comparable. In this case the examples I had on hand certainly were. The river rock was a crapshoot, I tried to look for what I thought may be softer types. Not much soft material will last long under running water so pickings were thin. I cut several types and the 2 on the right side in the pic were the best. The light colored stone is a bit hard and barely raises a thin milky slurry, I likely will not continue using it. The red stone, while harder than I would want, leaves a very fine finish on the blade. I’m actively looking for a larger one of that type. If you have a wetsaw, it’s easy enough to cut a few examples of what you’ve found. You can get a good idea of how well they may work when lapping. If they don’t deliver, return them to the landscape or start a rock garden of failed hones and nagura.
I’m pretty familiar with jnats I was just more curious about stones yiu may find locally to use as a hone.
How about a pair of green Fillys in a comparison test of two of the recent arrivals? I just touched them up, they were both already shave ready but a Filly is a good test as the razor is top quality. These stones have both passed the Gold Dollar (and other) test, so the Fillys are appropriate at this point, the stones seem worthy of the Fillys. On the left is a 2-sided stone, nice size and has all 4 corners, on the right, a beefy barber size (‘leather’ in Japanese terms), 140x83 and thick. The larger stone is a little softer but very fine, the smaller harder and also very fine. Both have made super smooth edges so far, so let’s see how they compare. Details in the SOTD thread, but TL;DR, they’re very, very, close, and very good.
Last night I did 12 laps on the suede side of the paddle strop and chromium oxide followed by 50 laps with 200k diamond pasted balsa wood. A finishing touch included 25 on linen and 50 on horse hide from the #50 Illinois strop.
I’m doing a hone exchange with a friend next state over, so I have 9 (!) new stones to test, 3 cotis, 3 jnats, 1 unknown, and 2 oilstones - IOW, a big box of fun! Here are the first 3 tested. On the left, a spotty coti on a paddle, a small hard stone that outperformed its size, a long narrow natural combo coti, and on the right, a Japanese ‘Best’ barber size. All were excellent, but I’d have to go with the spotty coti based on one use each. The razor is a NOS Cape 1372 Swedish Steel, getting it’s break in on this test. All the stones are finishers so there won’t be significant wear to the razor.
I’ve gotta give a big shout out to @Steve56 for loaning me a couple of JNATs. With a Cat 5 Hurricane churning less than 80 miles from me, the meditative focus of dragging steel across a rock has been an absolute Godsend! For those interested, yesterday I took an old Torrey that was dull/tuggy, and touched it up. The stone made relatively quick work of it, and the result was a good edge and a good shave. Today I took an old rat razor that was nowhere near shave ready, made a slurry, and started sharpening. I was amazed how quickly the blade edge became straight, even with the fine scratch pattern it produced. Way faster than my synth progression. Is that normal? It looks good to me under a loupe, but I plan to shave with it later today to give it a real test. Stay tuned...
Yup, fairly normal, a lot of jnats have a lot of grit in them. The slurry cuts fast and removes unstable material/fin and straightens the edge. It isn’t unusual to go from 4-5k to finish on one stone. The stone and setup above was a one-stone hone test. I glassed a Gold Dollar and it failed every test known, TPT, TNT, won’t cut paper or skin (tested very gingerly!). Set the bevel with a moderate diamond plate slurry, then raised a moderate nagura slurry diluting to thin slurry and boom! Just as good as a synth progression. Stones like this one, not so hard, very fast and very fine, are not so common though. Harder stones that can do the same thing after 4-8k synths are pretty easily findable.
