I just had a hankering to try a Carborundum barber hone a few months ago so I picked one up from you know where for $6. Got a pretty rough looking 103, picked that number since I've read via Google that the early 100’s are the best for the most part.
Well, I lapped up one side a bit coarser than the other so I'd have a coarse and fine sort of thing - coarse side with a heavily-worn Atoma 400 and the fine side with a medium-worn Atoma 1200. Coarse side is matte, fine side reflects like glass.
As a first experiment, I heated the hone in the oven on the "warm" setting and monitored it's temperature, saw that it never exceeded 160° F, and coated it with petroleum jelly on both sides until it wouldn't absorb anymore. I allowed it to cool, keeping it moistened with PJ as it went should it need it. Wiped it clean afterward and oiled it, then wiped it clean again. Took a beater razor and did a good amount of light laps on both sides, keeping it cleaned and reoiled and wiped as I went - probably spent about 5 minutes all told. At this point I called it ready to go.
Well, I bread knifed a razor and hit the coarse side for about 2 minutes until it was shaving arm hair up and down the edge, then switched to the fine side and did a few laps of small circles, about 10 laps of half strokes, (all these with pretty minimal pressure, but a little bit) and then about 20 laps of x-strokes with "barely there" pressure. This raised a considerable amount of swarf even though the stone is lapped to almost mirror level. Coarse side I used a bit of oil, enough to wet the surface. Fine side I did the same as I do with my black translucent Ark: oiled with a few drops, spread the oil with a lint-free cloth so the entire surface was barely oiled, then honed. Stropped 40 laps on denim, 80 laps on bare leather. HHT4 up and down the edge no problem, 5 in spots.
Just had the first shave. I almost can't believe how good it was! WTG was truly quite good, ATG was good - not great, but plenty liveable! I compared with an edge from my Kuro slate, and it didn't come anywhere near winning that shootout, but it got much closer than I expected on WTG, but needs quite a bit more smoothness to get even close to the Kuro ATG. I was expecting to hardly make it through the shave with the way I've seen some guys talk about these stones. Quite the surprise to me. Alum block burn on the Kuro side: I couldn't even feel it. On the Carbo side: fahhhkkk! I nearly jumped out of my skin, lol. I'd say probably 4 or 5/10.
So anyone else try these things? I have some scope shots of the edge/bevel I'll add later also.
Built-in Ring Light:
Raking Light:
Edge Lit/Focused:
Pretty sure the deep scratches visible in the raking light photo are from the "coarse" side. The edge looks fairly decent in the dark field illumination shot.
Well, I lapped up one side a bit coarser than the other so I'd have a coarse and fine sort of thing - coarse side with a heavily-worn Atoma 400 and the fine side with a medium-worn Atoma 1200. Coarse side is matte, fine side reflects like glass.
As a first experiment, I heated the hone in the oven on the "warm" setting and monitored it's temperature, saw that it never exceeded 160° F, and coated it with petroleum jelly on both sides until it wouldn't absorb anymore. I allowed it to cool, keeping it moistened with PJ as it went should it need it. Wiped it clean afterward and oiled it, then wiped it clean again. Took a beater razor and did a good amount of light laps on both sides, keeping it cleaned and reoiled and wiped as I went - probably spent about 5 minutes all told. At this point I called it ready to go.
Well, I bread knifed a razor and hit the coarse side for about 2 minutes until it was shaving arm hair up and down the edge, then switched to the fine side and did a few laps of small circles, about 10 laps of half strokes, (all these with pretty minimal pressure, but a little bit) and then about 20 laps of x-strokes with "barely there" pressure. This raised a considerable amount of swarf even though the stone is lapped to almost mirror level. Coarse side I used a bit of oil, enough to wet the surface. Fine side I did the same as I do with my black translucent Ark: oiled with a few drops, spread the oil with a lint-free cloth so the entire surface was barely oiled, then honed. Stropped 40 laps on denim, 80 laps on bare leather. HHT4 up and down the edge no problem, 5 in spots.
Just had the first shave. I almost can't believe how good it was! WTG was truly quite good, ATG was good - not great, but plenty liveable! I compared with an edge from my Kuro slate, and it didn't come anywhere near winning that shootout, but it got much closer than I expected on WTG, but needs quite a bit more smoothness to get even close to the Kuro ATG. I was expecting to hardly make it through the shave with the way I've seen some guys talk about these stones. Quite the surprise to me. Alum block burn on the Kuro side: I couldn't even feel it. On the Carbo side: fahhhkkk! I nearly jumped out of my skin, lol. I'd say probably 4 or 5/10.
So anyone else try these things? I have some scope shots of the edge/bevel I'll add later also.
Built-in Ring Light:
Raking Light:
Edge Lit/Focused:
Pretty sure the deep scratches visible in the raking light photo are from the "coarse" side. The edge looks fairly decent in the dark field illumination shot.
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