Charnley Forest show off your Charnwood

[rideon66]

I promised myself, no more Charnley Forests ... but then I saw this one. Haven't had time to try it yet, but the signs are good: obvious inclusions but small and not affecting the cutting surface much.

Nice stone. I have to stop myself all the time. Just let a really neat looking one that was calling to me go. I had to turn off the machine it went for a little less than I was going to go too. Trying to save some money for razors to use on them too.

Let us know how this one works out for you. I haven't had one I didn't love yet. Still hoping for a soft knife version one day.

 

[rideon66]

Green

 

[ambiguous]

Green

View attachment 1019067 View attachment 1019066 View attachment 1019068

Very nice dark green stone- I have one very similar that is a great razor hone. Do the inclusions cause you any issues? Was this a local find?

 

[rideon66]

Very nice dark green stone- I have one very similar that is a great razor hone. Do the inclusions cause you any issues? Was this a local find?

It came from across the pond. The whole thing feels as smooth as velvet. Excellent razor stone.

 

[David]

The DiaFlat is slow go with this charn. Time to pull out the SIC and get this over with.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Word of warning. I ran into the same problem with charns a couple times. Unless you’re removing serious depth, cleaning up the pitting that SIC powder leaves can take almost as much time as the lapping would have. They pit something fierce.

 

[David]

Ah. Thanks for the warning. You can see how much I have left by the little oval in the center. It doesn’t look like much but it’s a pretty hefty dish and this is a really hard stone. I’ll keep at it with the DMT. The hardest part is doing it with an 8 month old trying to crawl up your leg.

 

[rideon66]

I have done both ways. Very slow and almost impossible at points on some without the help of sic powder, but it works just takes alot longer. When done with sic powder I then run up through the levels of w/d sandpaper to finish and didn't seem too bad..

Should also mention the times I used sic the stones had chips I needed to remove so it was more than just dishing

 

[kcb5150]

New one. Pretty painlesss to lap.

 

[David]

Man these charns are all over the place aren’t they? I would have guessed that one would be on the harder side of hard. Lots of personality with these stones.

 

[rideon66]

The color is never a true tell, but in thinking back to the days when these stones were relished that color and cut was said to be the best. Well back then I think the faster cutting stone was considered the best and usually faster goes with softer in these stones. When I first saw it I thought like you David, but then I thought about it.

 

[kcb5150]

This one eats metal in a hurry... It's also really tactile. This may well become my go to knife stone as it is a true one stone solution.

 

[rideon66]

The DiaFlat is slow go with this charn. Time to pull out the SIC and get this over with. View attachment 1019144

David did you ever finishing lapping this one?

 

[David]

David did you ever finishing lapping this one?

Yes but forgot to post pics. I’m traveling now but will post pics when I’m home. It was a small notch below hard ark hard.

 

[SliceOfLife]

In finish or hardness? If finish, that's a very fine Charn. I've had some decent ones, but nothing that approached what an Ark can do.

 

[David]

In hardness. It’s pretty fine but painfully slow. I may rough it up a bit with 220 SIC to see if I can speed it up a bit.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah, I almost think that's the limitation of these charns... the ultra-hard and fine ones get so slow that they bang up the edge too much to really get the kind of result that a good Ark can. Arkansas are really incredible at what they do at the top end... maybe even unmatched among oilstones.


I've held onto one or two of the ultra-fine/hard charnleys in case I ever clue into just what they do right... but so far, the soft ones are the choice ones in my book... pretty much never grab the harder charnleys over a nice ark.

 

[kcb5150]

Ever have a harder turkish oilstone? I had a softer one I unloaded recently and while the cut was jaw dropping it never got the edge where I wanted it. It was almost like a coticule with bad slurry dulling issues.

 

[kcb5150]

This kahki colored charn is 70% as fast as that was but it gets an edge sharp enough to shave arm hair easily.

 

[rideon66]

Yes but forgot to post pics. I’m traveling now but will post pics when I’m home. It was a small notch below hard ark hard.

Nudge nudge wink wink.