Hones and Hone Acquisitions

Discussion in 'Straight Razors' started by Steve56, Mar 21, 2019.

  1. Timwcic

    Timwcic Well-Known Member

    A pair of Arkansas Washita stones. A 7” Washita and a 6” Lily White. Washita stones are a versatile hone. Depending on service preparation, they can be as course, equivalent to 300 grit or lapped and burnished to be equivalent to a 7000 grit hone. When that fine, can be used as a finisher to get a “cowboy shave” out of a straight. The Lily White can do the same but this one shows how artistically beautiful a stone label can be. Another lost art that has disappeared with time

    991FE400-5750-4795-8D1C-71A6BD620EF9.jpeg 2FCE2D30-8D57-4B8D-90FC-2825885BC2B4.jpeg B4855074-E0FF-4730-9541-240D88B577C4.jpeg 583E1F44-77B6-4358-BF62-5FDE6A721199.jpeg
     
  2. joamo

    joamo Well-Known Member

    Freshly cut and lapped KS-Nat It's a finisher with slurry, not my best finisher, but pretty good for a found stone.
    [​IMG]
     
    Keithmax, Steve56, AGHisBBS and 3 others like this.
  3. SammieM

    SammieM Well-Known Member

    My first JNAT and the naguras. It is a lv5 Okudo Asagi Tomae. It put a crazy smooth and sharp edge on my ERN extra hollow...
    5D733E10-DEC3-4BE0-9956-78F0DDFC2AC4.jpeg
     
    Leclec13, Keithmax, Steve56 and 6 others like this.
  4. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    9FCD1911-8307-4641-879E-02F80687FE8A.jpeg D378EB73-4440-45F0-950A-303573617F55.jpeg

    Won an auction for a couple. The iro colored stone is interesting, it will be fun to see what I have when it arrives.
     
    AGHisBBS, Keithmax, Leclec13 and 3 others like this.
  5. DaltonGang

    DaltonGang Ol' Itchy Whiskers

    You always find some nice stones, @Steve56 .

    .
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2019
  6. Leclec13

    Leclec13 Well-Known Member

    Where are you guys finding decent jnats?
     
    Edison Carter and Keithmax like this.
  7. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    I buy some out of Japan at auction, but there’s really no description except the images, it's pot luck.
     
    Edison Carter and DaltonGang like this.
  8. Leclec13

    Leclec13 Well-Known Member


    From what I understand jnats stones shapening qualities are iffy at best, then tack on shipping
    you must be a gambling man. What do you do with the lemons? I see you already have a Nakayama door stop....
     
  9. CastleShave

    CastleShave Well-Known Member

    MetalMaster
    Watanabeblade
    Japanese Natural stones
    Chef knives to go
    Tomo Nagura
    The Japan stone
    Aframes tokyo
    Rock n Razors




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
    Edison Carter and Steve56 like this.
  10. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    i wouldn’t say that the sharpening qualities are iffy, but maybe a better statement is that there are a multitude of qualities available. Some are better for knives, some are better suited for razors, and so on. A few are duds, but not many. A more common problem are stones that are too hard to please knife people yet not fine enough for razors. A diamond plate can work with these for knives and tools, but they’re in kind of a no-mans land. You can also generate slurry from them with a diamond plate, mop up the slurry with a paper towel and use the towels to polish just about anything, gold and silver plate, fountain pens, your stove, etc. Some can make good slurry stones if you cut them up.
     
  11. TestDepth

    TestDepth Well-Known Member

    Never thought of using the slurry to polish other things... thanks for the idea Steve.
     
    Keithmax, Edison Carter and Steve56 like this.
  12. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    E92B917E-0A30-4170-960B-81C05A182B54.jpeg

    Hey Tom, It’s quite versatile. I usually slurry a softer kiita or uchigumori. Make sure the paper towel doesn’t have grit in it, some do. A soft cloth or paper towel with slurry on it is safe for gold wash on razors, and not much else is. I clean my razors of soap scum after shaving with one of these wipes after one spritz of distilled water. Over years it will polish the steel a little but not so much that it upsets the finish on the steel. And I haven’t had an issue with gold wash yet, but don’t I overdo it on the gold wash. It doesn’t take much slurry to work well. Probably any tenjou suita would be good too as long as it isn’t really hard.

    I’m going to try it on chamois at some point.
     
  13. gssixgun

    gssixgun At this point in time...

    Supporting Vendor
    Just a quick heads up

    The Zulu Grey has a special going right now 50% off and some extras,, info on site

    I have no affiliation, I do use one and I have been happy with mine for quite some time ...

    https://www.zulugrey.com/
     
  14. Edison Carter

    Edison Carter Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the notification. Quite a bargain.

    How would a Zulu Grey fit in with your normal procedure with other stones?

    Thanks, as always.
    Bill
     
  15. gssixgun

    gssixgun At this point in time...

    Supporting Vendor

    It is a similar finish to a Thuringen / Escher slightly harder stone take about 50% more laps to get there

    I use it after the 8k to 10k jump off, light slurry from a worn DMT 325
    I like it for many of the Solingen and American razors


    If you have a Quality Thuringen you don't NEED it

    I do rate it as the best of the "New" stones being sold the only "New" stone I have found better is @HolyRollah 's Apache Strata I tested,,, but all Stratas are not as good as his :)

    The Zulu's seem pretty consistent..
     
  16. Edison Carter

    Edison Carter Well-Known Member

    Thanks Glen.

    Trying to evaluate how much $ I choose to spend on the last small percentage. ;)
     
    gssixgun likes this.
  17. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    Jnats arrived yesterday morning, big, thick beefy stones that are about 1-1/4” thick (30mm).
    7B234E50-A325-4135-9EEC-3B5825566B0A.jpeg 68DA5CBC-C133-4021-8286-E4952ADA8E73.jpeg 1CD0B9E2-9E4F-4186-9F15-59E9C855D6AD.jpeg F69BF6E5-6358-4863-A02D-D32163D28005.jpeg

    They arrived early enough for some testing and a shave, both razor grade. The iro needs clear water strokes, the irregular koppa is a little harder and finer and makes a good edge on thin slurry. I used the iro on slurry as a pre-finisher for a Grelot and it works well, pretty fast stone on slurry, and fast is what you need to clear 4-5k striae.
     
    speedster, Keithmax, Leclec13 and 3 others like this.
  18. DaltonGang

    DaltonGang Ol' Itchy Whiskers


    Those are big slabs of a stones. :happy088::happy088:

    .
     
    Edison Carter and Steve56 like this.
  19. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    Well I am going to be poorer, lol. I picked up a small (~4” long) oddly shaped koppa that’s almost surely Nakayama, with the idea of maybe cutting razor slurry stones from it. Fairly cheap as these things go. Then I see a nice barber size karasu that I like the looks of, and the bid was fairly low so I bid on it. Karasu always go fairly high, and this one did too compared to a grey stone, but really not too bad. It has some tells on it that I like. But I thought that I’d missed it, not getting a confirmation email for some time and an odd message about ‘zero yen’ auctions on the bidding page. So I bid on a third that also has some nice tells. And wouldn’t be as dear. That one wound down with me as the high bidder and too late to back out, when - drumroll, you guessed it - I get the confirmation on the karasu. So I have 3 that will get here sometime, probably between Christmas and New Years.

    CC11A464-2804-4A7A-9767-72DE5B44CDF4.jpeg 122B0B9F-72B0-4F39-83E3-2057BA1F9158.jpeg 29991493-695D-44C7-A547-D47E734D5C3E.jpeg C00E2740-BAE5-427B-A361-2358BE21EDCF.jpeg
     
    speedster, Keithmax, Leclec13 and 3 others like this.
  20. Timwcic

    Timwcic Well-Known Member

    This is a interestingly found stone. Depending on light and angle, a vintage black or blue-black hard Arkansas from Norton. It was a gift from a old-timer Doctor at the teaching clinic. Always angling to find a CG, we were talking about antique medical equipment with hones part of the conversation. During my last visit, this was gifted to me from his medical collection with the promise I would give it a good home. He stated it was used by him “to give the final edge conditioning to his medical knifes”. Very cool and unexpected. What I received is a 5 x 2 x 1/2 stone with the oak case in a low mileage condition, a bonafide surgical-surgical black. I have a few hard arks, but this is the darkest in my collection. I lapped and it was a bear. I lapped a 8x2 trans at the same time. The trans, with 160% more surface area was finished in half the time. I little sucker is hard. When done, I gave it a few test drives and has been giving great results. I always considered my translucent’s to be my finest but this one is rewriting my understanding. It is small but mighty. It feels, if this makes sense, to be less toothy with the smoothest feedback. Like honing on greased glass. After a few hundred strokes, getting a smooth shaving edge that is as good as anything I have

    A528E19E-6FC7-44A4-936B-21CAAB5E4B1D.jpeg FA5CF3C3-8FC9-402A-89B2-7D8CA588269B.jpeg 2F3B98DC-0B84-4B26-AA3E-34AC36DCDFC3.jpeg D42B6FDD-C379-4C2A-824B-5BA85B04930F.jpeg
     

Share This Page