Low grit natural hones?

[*stefan*]

Anyone use low grit natural hones for straight razor or other knives?
What are the stones and do you like using them?

I am thinking of stones that give an edge similar to 120#-3000# synthetic.

 

[Sdm84]

Well...honestly the synthetics are better and cheaper and more efficient. For example a soft arkie might be able to set a bevel but how long would it take? My sub $20 king 1k sets a bevel just fine. I know there are many better options out there (chosera, etc., but significantly more money). I am no expert so I will be interested to hear others' viewpoints on this.

 

[David]

I have a striped iyoto and a Hakka. The iyoto is ok but I don't really think it's a good example of its type. The Hakka is really nice for razors and knives, and I generally place it after a 1k for razors and as a finisher or midrange for knives.
I went through the natural bevel setter phase a while back and had fun doing it, but in the end I went back to synths for low range work.

 

[Steve56]

I don't use really low grit naturals, but also have a Hakka and like it but it is hard to justify $600-700 for a bench Hakka when a Shapton Pro 5k will do the same thing.

Viable options for between 1k and finishing are vintage mikawa (they seem to be considerably faster than the current crop of mikawa), a suita, or a fast kiita. I prefer the latter two simply because they're faster than the Hakka.

Cheers, Steve

 

[buca3152]

Ikarashi and striped iyoto here. Both are +/- 2k grit imo. They work. But so does a chosera 1k. I havent used them in years. A bevel is a bevel. You get nothing out of it imo. I set a bevel on a factory gd with yae botan and striped iyoto. 30 minutes. Had to do it once. These low grit stones glaze over and need.constant refreshing and resurfacing. At least the ones i have used did.

 

[David]

These low grit stones glaze over and need.constant refreshing and resurfacing. At least the ones i have used did.

Yeah they're a little bit like a Mogwai....lots of rules and instructions.

 

[SliceOfLife]

The only low grit hones that seem suitable for razors to me are the coarse-med sandstone you come across now and then, but they seem inferior in every way to synthetic Waterstones. The GOOD low grit hones are all oilstones that rely on aggressive use to cut quickly... In other words not for razors.

 

[Jayber Crow]

I 've always wondered, since there seems to be a dearth of them, if low "grit" i.e. fast cutting naturals were used much at all for razors. I say this because most vintage natural razor hones like Belgians and Thuringians have a lot of marks where the edge was jointed. They must have just spent a lot of time back in the day getting an edge. But, they didn't have all those re-runs of "Trapper John MD" to watch either.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I doubt those marks are from edges being jointed for the purpose of jointing them. More likely they were grinding out minor chips, before restoring the edge. That said, yes I think even people who had access to coarser Stones like ouachita's would probably prefer to use things like coticule and thuri for heavy removal on their razors.

 

[147_Grain]

When I was visiting family over the summer, I went fishing with my cousin and ended up fixing up the edge of the knife in his tackle box with a pair of coti slurry stones. The edge was in rough shape - you couldn't open a fish with it, and it had some small chips to boot.

One of the stones was much harder than the other (quartz/chlorite/something inclusions were projecting into the honing plane) so I used that as the base stone and just used the other to raise a slurry. Using moderate pressure, I had the knife in good shape in about 15 minutes while drinking a beer and chatting about my cousin's recent deployment with the Air National Guard. I was amazed the coti slurry stone could work as fast as it did.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah. The Brazilian quartz hones are a sintered barber synthetic that use a 15*15cm coti as a slurry stone to remove chips and bevel on. Coti slurry is no joke if you are willing to use some pressure.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I like a no. 1 Washita for setting bevels.

 

[Steve56]

Stefan, you have something in mind... Tell us about it, inquiring minds want to know.

Cheers,Steve

 

[Gamma]

I like to use a large Botan for bevel setting up into mid-range. Takes time but it's fun and the follow up work is reduced significantly - you wind up, effectively, at (sorta) somewhere around 5k+. But I need to be in the mood for it. Other stones I've had and used for the early work include Amakusa, Ohmura, Binsui, Iyoto, Ikarishi, Hakka, Suita, etc... all can get me there but some can be problematic if one is not careful.
I had a freakishly fast LPB Coti that I could use to set a bevel on a clean blade (no chips) in about 12-15 minutes. I didn't really enjoy that bevel fully but it did work and it was hellishly fast.

 

[kelbro]

I've set many bevels with my white Norton washita and a cool looking old Smith's washita.

 

[rideon66]

+1 on the Botan. I used coticules forever too. Worked great, but a lot of work. In the end of my hunt for natural bevel stones I finally had to agree with everyone else. Synthetic for bevel is just easier and cheaper. There are great natural options though they cost more and require more work. You can use the botan after a synthetic bevel set too though. I do love the botan Toishi and use it to set bevels on special razors.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I had a freakishly fast LPB Coti that I could use to set a bevel on a clean blade (no chips) in about 12-15 minutes. I didn't really enjoy that bevel fully but it did work and it was hellishly fast.

That reminds me of a vintage paddle coti I picked up from The Superior Shave a couple of years back. That thing acts so fast it's scary, absolutely chowing through metal.

 

[kcb5150]

I had a coti that metal rained off of but it went horribly toxic on me out of the blue with large crystalline inclusions that ripped an edge up.

 

[eKretz]

I've got a few very blazing fast cotis (with slurry) too but I usually only use them with water - they convex the edge too much with slurry and it's a pain to get back to the apex with water or even dilution if they're surfaced finely enough to give a good razor edge. I had a Verte that was quite slow but it was easy to Dilucot - sold it 'cuz I like the faster stones better. I dedicated one of the speedsters to knife sharpening where I can get around the slurry issue easily.

 

[*stefan*]

Stefan, you have something in mind... Tell us about it, inquiring minds want to know.
Cheers,Steve

I noticed while doing touch up on kitchen knives with a natural(DT, like 8000#) stone that I do not need to do a lot of lapping after as the stone is rather hard and do not get clogged up. But instead I have spent time on making slurry. But using 2 full size stones, making slurry is a rather fast issue.

Lack of knowledge I was wonder if similar result could be possible also with lower grit, hard stones that do not slurry much, don´t get clogged up, giving good feedback and result.

I bought a coarser stone(by mistake) and tested it on a kitchen knife and liked it. It seems to be a Gotlandssten.

Compared it with Ebi chosera 400# and found the Chosera to slurry more. I got similar result on the edge. The structure looks similar with a Naniwa Superstone 400# in usb microscope. But the Gotlandssten is considered to be a soft hard dens stone and I did not find any information that it is/was used for straight razors. I will test it.

Perhaps there are synthetics low grit stones with properties I am thinking of. Maybe I am thinking wrong, low grit stones may have to be soft to work as cutter?

I really like all the post in this thread, I now know there is several Japanese low grit stones used. And that most BB members use synthetic low grit stones. And soft Arkie is a possible choice but not often used.