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What's your best LOOKING finisher?

It is a Fiddich stone. Or at least that is what I think :) I have seen a few in pics that had red steaks as well....or at least what I remember. I do like green stones :)
 
It is a Fiddich stone. Or at least that is what I think :) I have seen a few in pics that had red steaks as well....or at least what I remember. I do like green stones :)

I have not seen a Fiddich with the red only the harder Glanrafon.
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That must be what I was thinking of then. They sure look nice to me. I have a stone I bought as glanfaron somewhere around here. Aesthetically no where near as nice as yours there. But it is a hard stone almost like a glass or ceramic. This Fiddich also has that hard glass feel to it.
 
I have two of each both are hard stones, but the Glanrafon feels more ceramic like a Shapton 1.5k but finishes more like a Charnley Forest stone. The Fiddich is hard like a really hard coticule or thuri or jnat in feel and finish. The Fiddich is a lkttle easier to slurry too. Both are really nice finishers and nice looking too, but the Fiddich edges are incredibly smooth.
 
Interesting. I have a number of CF and my hardest hard ones are more like a surgical/trans ark. This Fiddich is quite different and like you describe the glanfaron and like the glanfaron I have as well. Never seen a Coti or thuringian come close to this Fiddich stone but could just be my sampling pool. This fiddich does have backside cut reminiscent of several charns I have from when they all went into blocks of wood it seemed.

You have some nice stones there for sure! Appreciate all the info.
 
Interesting. This fiddich does have backside cut reminiscent of several charns I have from when they all went into blocks of wood it seemed.

You have some nice stones there for sure! Appreciate all the info.

If you are talking about how the bottom is rounded my guess is like the old Charnley Forest stones. This is because they were moulded by a driver blade. Also the labeled Glanrafon interestingly were sold as another sort of Charnley Forest stone even though they are a type of Welsh slate. Maybe it is a Glanrafon can only tell really by feel.
 
Would be interested to see these edges under a microscope. Sort of skeptical when I hear about the amazing 200k or other insane grit ranges. I have had jnat edges from friends that are way too sharp to shave with. I just think that the medium is more forgiving of mistakes compared to stones.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
Guess that's why all the pros use it :frown2:
If you took two years to accomplish this then when did you master all other honing mediums to come to this conclusion. You have only been honing for those two years.
Please tell us how you came to this conclusion.
I have a set of Shaptons I used for an intermediate period of a few months before going back to films. I have a few razors honed on natural by a fellow on the west coast who has been honing for years. His stones cost in the thousands so I imagine he has a good lot. So I’ve used expertly honed jnat edges many times and know how they shave and feel like. With film, I learned to fashion an excellent shaving edge in a week or two. But like stones, film and pasted balsa both have their nuances and honing develops over time like other methods and improves significantly. It is quite easy to make a good loaf of bread by following a recipe but can take months or years to make a great loaf. It took me forty but I no longer eat bread - that’s neither here nor there though. I apologize if I’ve offended anyone in B&B who is selling stones but I stand by my statement. I also find it odd that the “Honing Compendium for Newbies” has been removed and I can’t seem to find it via “Search”. Coincidence?
 

timwcic

"Look what I found"
 
This is about LOOKS remember. Balsa is objectively ugly. It's like sawdust mixed with ragweed. And I'm someone who likes the natural, wood-grain aesthetic.

Now rub some garnet dust on there, then we'll talk.

S&S: Around 0.5-1 micron is where steel becomes the limiter, not abrasive (for the quality of steel razors are made of). That doesn't mean that every sharpening method with particles smaller than 1 micron is the same. There are other things at play than strictly abrasive size.

Once you get in the 2k-5k magnification range with fine enough abrasives, you start to see the honing ripping the steel (microscopically) rather than cutting channels in it the way it does at higher grit levels. It's like stabbing a knife point into a block of hard cheese and chunking it, rather than shaving it with a piece of cheese-wire.
 
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I have a set of Shaptons I used for an intermediate period of a few months before going back to films. I have a few razors honed on natural by a fellow on the west coast who has been honing for years. His stones cost in the thousands so I imagine he has a good lot. So I’ve used expertly honed jnat edges many times and know how they shave and feel like. With film, I learned to fashion an excellent shaving edge in a week or two. But like stones, film and pasted balsa both have their nuances and honing develops over time like other methods and improves significantly. It is quite easy to make a good loaf of bread by following a recipe but can take months or years to make a great loaf. It took me forty but I no longer eat bread - that’s neither here nor there though. I apologize if I’ve offended anyone in B&B who is selling stones but I stand by my statement. I also find it odd that the “Honing Compendium for Newbies” has been removed and I can’t seem to find it via “Search”. Coincidence?

With all due respect, shaving off of one persons Jnat edges does not qualify in any way for you to make even a haphazard guess as to the quality of edges available from Jnats and quite frankly its ridiculous to think so.

You are correct, your honing will develop and can be tailored to something wonderful - this includes Jnats, Synthetic and all other naturals!

To say "far superior" when you clearly have very little experience at anything other than film is simply an uneducated statement. The very statement itself shows lack of experience.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm sure film edges can be great.
So can edges from any other medium.


And yes, its *** ugly in a thread about beautiful rocks to hone on.
 
I'm no Jnat honer, and no film honer. I've got a couple jnats... but they get far less use than my coticules and thuris and pdsos and maybe even arks.


Fact is, I guarantee you a guy who likes films can create a great shaving film edge just as a guy who like Jnats can create a great Jnat edge, just as a guy who likes coti's can make a great coti edge, just like etc.

They're all capable options.

I personally can almost instantly tell an abrasive stropped edge from a honed edge, and I personally don't like the aspect that makes them apparent to me. Now maybe more recent pastes/powders have fixed this, I don't care enough to try them.

That said, I'm not going to say that any edge is always going to beat any other edge.

From a theoretical standpoint, I'm confident that at the extremes of things an Ark edge is going to beat basically everything else out. I still don't shave with an Ark edge daily, even weekly. I'm not a perfect honer, I don't have a perfect razor with perfect steel, or a perfectly formed arkansas (that I know of).

The simple fact is arguing over what's better at this point is like arguing over what flavor of ice cream is better. These things can ALL make great edges in the right hands.

My point was that balsa is not an attractive looking thing. Makes me think of $5 airplane kits and the stained carpet in a mall hobby store.
 
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