I finished my Welsh Slates with 320 grit. This provided good cutting power, and excellent finishing. I did finish it with much higher grit, at first, and the results weren't as good. The finish was too glossy, without cutting ability. The same thing happened when I tried to use the provided slurry stones. So, take my experiences with the Welshes as you wish, but they are thought to lap. The gold thing is, once you lap to 2000 grit, and figure out it isn't working out, it's easy to lap it with lower grit paper, and change the cutting ability. Keep going to a lower grit, until you find your desired results.
You know, I read this and started wondering if maybe a re-lapping was in order. So I whipped out the SIC and stones and went back down to 320 like you stated. I must admit finishing on ALL these stones was much faster and I got better results. I didn't touch my Arkies though since they came from Dan's perfectly lapped and are already notoriously slow. Thanks for the comment, as posted above this is about learning for beginners like myself and all input will be welcome and some will even be implemented.
Coticule showed up in fine condition, just waiting on the Welsh Slate and the Thuri from Germany now.
I may indeed have a hone for you after this wraps up. I wont give you any door stops, but will be a pretty decent piece of stone.
Please let me know. Getting started on the ground floor and these things add up! Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
Slurry = Water/Oil plus Stone/Hone particles Swarf - Water/Oil plus Stone/Hone particles mixed with steel particles Basically, Slury is before you start honing Swarf is after you start honing Semantics and Technical BS But you asked heheheh
Ok....so here's the line up. We will be testing Dan's Surgical Black Dan's Translucent Rozutec C12K B. Coticule 15K Welsh Ozuku JNAT and last but not least a genuine Thuringian if it shows up in the next couple weeks from Germany. All of these stones will be required to finish a Gold Dollar 66 that has been set on a Shun 1K, and then further honed on the 6K side as well. I know it's no chosera, but it's still one fine whetstone.
So, I just got the 15K welsh and put it through its paces a little bit. At first glance it's a nice stone. I lapped it to 1000 grit, then backed it off to 320. I put the GD66 i've been playing with all week on it. Within a few minutes with slurry I was getting good stiction. I thinned it out over the course of about 10 minutes and finished on water with extremely good stiction. End result after stropping is an edge that pops HHT the entire length of the blade without having to even try. This one may be a serious contender. I cant wait till the last of the stones show up. I kinda wish I had a digital microscope. So I could really see whats going on. I'm really excited about the JNAT coming in a few days.
So here they are. 1 jnat 1 welsh slate 12-15k 1 coticule 1 rozutec 1 C12K 1 Ark Trans 1 Ark Surg Black. These are all my under $100 finishers. Lets let the games begin. Help me out here with guidelines. I will set a bevel on each GD66 with my SHUN 1000/6000 Whetztone bring the edge along on each razor to the 6000 side. Once each razor is finished to my satisfaction at 6000 grit i will finish each on a seperate stone getting the best edge i can outa each stone as a beginner. Then i will do HHT tests and finally i will shave with each razor and report on comfort. Anything Im forgetting? The top photo is the JNAT Ozuku I picked up for $69.00 Beautiful stone. Lapped easier than any others that lead me to believe it's a soft stone but it sure is a fine soft surface. Seems like I'm gonna fall in love with this stone. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
Just an observation: not all stones behave the same (i.e. number of stokes and amount of pressure required), particularly when you delve into the realm of naturals. Some razor steel seems to blossom under a certain stone and seem unresponsive on another. Natural hones do require an investment in time to gain experience to really 'break the code.' I'm not describing anything 'magical'—but merely expressing my own experiences over time when honing a variety of razors upon differing stones/hones. Synthetics are by far the easiest to get the hang of, as the results are fairly predictable—but variances will and do occur based upon the user's experience in honing.
Och Aye the Noo..I Sold a Translucent Arkie & Said to the Guy I was Getting around a 20 K Edge from it..Cutting a Long Story Short..He Couldn't Get Nowt Out of the Very Same Stone..Go Figure.. His Touch & Feel was Defo Different from Mine.. Billy..
Yeah, I think that may be part of what I hope to find out also. Which if any natural stone is the easiest (for me) to achieve a DFS-BBS with little to no irritation. I'm glad you pointed out though YMMV. Just because I might have success with any one particular stone doesn't necessarily mean someone else reading this will have the same said success. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to slurry any of the stones. Maybe I should spend a week on each stone sharpening shaving and dulling the edge each day in order to really give each one a chance to show me a glimpse of it's possibilities. Right now I am prepping the GD66's grinding the support and rounding the toe and heal on each. Then I will get to making sure the spines are all nice and flat. I want every razor to have the same chance in this. I'm just doing it for fun, I really needed a hobby and Honemeister appeals to me. I put on some nice classical, drink a bourbon and coke and work on butter knives
