Hones (Reviews)

Some of you may remember that I had a post awhile ago wondering about the Frankonian hone available from Olivia Seife's website: http://www.olivia-seife.de/shop/hwherren/steine.html I was intrigued that you could buy a finisher there (Frankonian) that was described to be used after an escher. I debated on this hone for some time and after selling off some of my other HAD stones I had some money burning a hole in my pocket that just HAD to be used on an Oozuku from Maxim and the...

3M aluminum oxide lapping films. I've long been a fan of lapping film, as it was the first "hone" I ever used. They can be mounted on a thick piece of glass or a precision granite plate. the flatter and smoother the substrate, the better the results you will get. The films are available in a variety of grits. from heavy-duty 12um, 5um (black), 3um (grayish), 1um (green, my favorite finisher), to super-fine finishing 0.3um (white). It comes in 9x13" sheets, which I can then...

The following review is based on my experiences with the 1000 and 12000 grit stones in their line honing approximately 40 razors with them encorporated in the following sequence: Norton 325 grit diamond hone Naniwa 1000 Norton 4000 Norton 8000 Naniwa 12000 Nakayama Maruichi Stone Both the 1000 and 12000 required lapping before use. Neither needs to be soaked before use, but I find the 12000 to be more thirsty and soaking helps this. These stones come set in a plastic base with...

Escher water hones are known far and wide by straight razor shavers as being one of the, if not THE finest sharpening stone for straight razors. Just like a Belgian Coticule, these are natural stones, which come with a "slurry stone" or small hunk of hone (made of the same natural stone as the escher) to rub against the wet hone to create a milky, abrasive slurry. These stones can be used with - or without slurry. Basically this allows 2 modes - mode 1, with slurry, which will cut much...

Norton 4K/8K This is the most commonly used, discussed and recommended straight razor hone. It is a man made hone – which is manufactured by Norton Abrasives, and created by taking abrasive powder, and creating “stone” by combining the powder with a binding agent. In layman’s terms – think of it like putting sand in a puddle of glue, and waiting for it to dry – of course Norton has this down to a science, and my example was extremely primitive, but you get the point. These stones come in 2...

Chinese 12K This is a stone I am quite fond of… and it always surprises me just how well it works, and for such a bargain bin price. In fact, I am ashamed to admit, I wrote the stone off by and large due to them being so inexpensive – I just assumed they were nothing superlative to speak of… boy was I wrong. In my opinion, if you want a natural finishing hone – look no further than the Chinese 12K. These natural water stones are EXCEPTIONALLY hard stones, almost ceramic like, and are...

This is one nice big slab of sharpening stone- 8x3x1 on a wooden base. Why wood? It may look traditional, but plastic is a better choice for something that gets soaked in water (this stone only needs to soak a minute or two). The Kitayama (North mountain) is sometimes advertised at 12K, but it's an 8K. It's one of the best polish stones available, and puts on a beautiful shine. As nice as the Naniwa 10K? It's a toss up for me. One of the things I enjoy most about this stone is the...

This is a hone I got on behalf of a friend, for whom I'm gathering the tools to start straight razor shaving. Didn't cost me much (ebay!) but postage from America took a while. It's an excellent quality piece of kit- the carborundum company was always well respected in their time as a supplier of the finest quality abrasives. It was a bit grubby, but the dirt cleaned off when I lapped it, leaving a lovely smooth honing surface. It is quite a hard grit, so lapping won't be required for...

The Exide combo is an excellent hone, it does the job quickly and well, and is a breeze to use. I'd recommend it to a beginner over the waterstones, as it is easier to use, much less expensive, and compact. The hone is grey and glittery on the coarser side, and glossy black on the other. I'd estimate the coarse side something like 3-4K in waterstone grit terms. The black side is very smooth, maybe 6-8K, (just my subjective judgement based on the scratch pattern etc), but used with...

I had high hopes for this stone, also from Axminster tools (www.axminster.co.uk) but is hasn't really fulfilled them. It's a broad stone, over 3", so I thought it would be great, no need to do those diagonal strokes. However, I find that the diagonal strokes are the way to achieve the best edge really easily, so this is no benefit at all. When I get a stone, I expect to lap it before use, that's normal, but this one was convex, rather tha concave. That made lapping it down to a flat...

I got this from axminster tools in the Uk (www.axminster.co.uk) as the Norton Combo everyone raves about was just going to be unreasonably expensive to get in the UK. It does the job excellently on an old razor that needs a bit of metal taken off- the 1K side takes it off fast, but does not seem too rough. The 6K side will put a bit of a polish on the edge, but this may take a while after the 1K, especially if honing up a chunky wedge- be prepared to lap the stone DURING use a few...