Experience with this Guangxi hone?

[BlenheimBadger94]

Hello again my fellow badgers!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221246709281?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I have found what seems to be a fairly priced 12000 Chinese Guangxi polishing hone. I was wondering if anyone has experience with this seller's products and their quality. Reviews on Ebay seem positive! For a beginner honer, with this setup:

( http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/353620-Beginner-Hone-Setup-Opinions )

Does this seem like a good finishing hone?

Thanks so much everyone !

 

[gary haywood]

I started out with the 4k/8k .. seriously you can get a nice shave of the 8k.If I was you I would learn the 4k/8k and forget a finishing stone ...I would recommend you need a dmt325 for lapping the 4k and 8k, it works so well and leaves a nice honing surface. the 4k needs a serious lapping from new as there grainy and won't work as well until you lap the grainy feel away .... the 4k will swarf up quik so that's why I always hightly recommend a dmt325 for refreshing surface and cleaning flattening etc...master the 4k/8k and once you get a comfortable shave og 8k then and only then you can try afinishing stone wheather it be a 12k manmade stone or natural stone . cheaper option would be some crox on balsa hone after 8k Norton that will work just fine for smoothing out a little more . I now use coticules but I would estitate to have 4k/8kcoticule or j nat or 12k naniwa followed by crox ..... what ever you decide will work with time and practise the 8k Norton will maintain your razor , the 8k is one of my favourites in feel its just so silky

 

[tomjr]

i like the c12k alot but i know nothing of the vendor. u can get a good shave off the 4/8k norton but i like something keener. my first finisher was the c12k and use it still, occasionally.

 

[jpcwon]

CHUGs (Chinese Hone of Unknown Grit) are USUALLY good stones (occasionally you'll get a not-so-great one). They're good for beginners because they're so slow, so it's hard to overhone on them. I don't know about the vendor (I got mine from Poland from razors_pl), but I think $35 is a fair price for the size.

Like Gary said, you'll want to make sure that you can get a good edge off of the 8k before moving to the c12k....

 

[Slash McCoy]

Lap your Nortons well. Then learn to shave off the 8k. Learn the discipline and control it takes to get the best possible edge from the 8k. Learn to hold the stone in-hand so the razor and stone can find each other. Learn to keep the shoulder off the hone, and how to keep from following the exact same track every lap, and how to control the razor with very light pressure. Then on to the next level.

The next level is not a finishing stone. The next level is using the 8k for a finishing stone. First of all, there is the magic of lather. Yeah, lather, as in shaving lather. Slather the lather on your stone, when you have got all you can out of it using just water. Start out with the same light pressure you used with water. Keep refreshing the lather as you hone. Don't be afraid of using multiple hundreds of laps as you SLOWLY decrease pressure. The lather serves as a buffering layer between blade and rock, sort of floating the blade up a little, gradually more and more, so the stone scratches shallower and shallower. At the end, it should feel like the razor isn't even touching the stone. By the end of this process, there will be some swarf and slurry in the lather, so rinse it off and reapply, then go a few dozen more laps. When you master this technique, you will amaze yourself with it. There are variations of this, using various soaps or oils, but lather seems to work best for me, because of its highly variable nature and customizability, adjustability, etc. Lather honing isn't fast, and is maybe not suited for the honer who needs to get a couple dozen razors done in a day or whatever, but it works great for the guy who just wants to hone one or two razors, like most of us who simply hone our own blades.

There are also specialized strokes that many honers use. Some add a few stropping strokes to the finish. IOW, strokes with the spine leading, as if stropping. Some like to finish with 2 or 3 slip strokes, pulling the razor across the hone. This is tricky, because it is easy to "bend" the edge over the edge of the stone. A bevel on the stone's edges can help but you really need to learn to pull it off level. These couple of slip strokes help to tame any tendency to form a fin edge but if improperly done will disappoint you.

Learning to make magic with the 8k does two things for you. It teaches you things you can also do with a finisher for optimizing its results, and it gives you something to base your finisher work on. You start with a great bevel to get a great edge. You start with a great edge to improve it to a superb edge. Honing is a progression-based activity. You don't want to have any gaps in your progression. You don't want your final stages to be playing catch-up, doing the work that could have, or should have, been done by previous stages.

 

[professorchaos]

The C12K I had was slow. Incredibly slow. A beginner might get frustrated with it, I sure did.

 

[Kentos]

For 35.00 it might be a good gamble. The arguement for getting the skills to get a great edge off the 4k/8k is sound, but adding in a finishing stone as your learn wouldn't hurt. If your edge off the 8k isn't good, going to the 12k won't help much anyway.

 

[Proinsias]

I like the ones I have, as Professor Chaos mentioned they can be rather slow. I found a slurry stone made the stones far more friendly, open_razor selling them from Poland on ebay includes a slurry stone and seems pretty reliable.

 

[smalltank]

IMHO..look for a 15k CNAT..its the stone with the lines in it..not easy to find but they are out there and not much money..still a pain to lap but great finisher and for similar priced as this link you posted..

 

[Brianskeet]

Only rarely use my PHIG, people's hone of indeterminate grit, but it produces a very keen edge if I use my patience.

 

[Gamma]

Some people like them.
I'm not one of those people though.
I would try ONE more if I find one with orange squiggle lines in it. Maybe.

 

[CharlieFoxtrot]

That particular stone looks very similar to the one I own. I have coaxed some of my best edges from it. I recommend not using the slurry stone.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I tried three or four, Gamma. The first 2 (or 3) were mediocre stones. Very slow, finish that was duller than a coticule finish. The last one was maybe a bit sharper than a coticule finish, still I didn't really see a point in keeping it, as I had dozens of superior stones to it already.

They are good cheap stones, but if you have a good not cheap stone already, they strike me as kind of useless. It'd be like buying a King 1k when you already have a magical never-ending supply of Chosera 1k's.


For someone who doesn't have a finishing stone already, though; they can be a good stone for the money. Between recommending a new shaver a 6x2" China nat and a 5x2" Swaty/Apart/similar vintage razor hone, I'd tell them either would be fine and to take the option that was cheaper or required the least lapping.

 

[Gamma]

Ian - didn't I buy one from you? Was supposed to be 13k or something?
That was the one I thought was plausible - relatively speaking.
Hard to use a Chug after finishing on Eschers or whatever...

 

[SliceOfLife]

Possibly. The last one I owned was the 'good' one, and I think I did sell it on bst. And exactly, I've seen one or two guys who said they got cnats that were escher quality finishers... but that's one of those "I'll believe it when I see it", things for me. The stones are so slow, I think a lot of guys test them by using a better finisher and seeing how much the cnat degrades the edge, which is a problematic way to test it for obvious reasons.


Thinking back on it, I think I threw that stone in with a box of junk I sold around December last year. I remember it was a 6x2 with very sharp edges. It even had a bonus slurry spider. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/307220-Look-what-I-just-about-grabbed?highlight=cnat


I think yours must have come from someone else. I was not impressed with any cnats before that fellow, and I doubt I'd ever estimate them (even that one) at 13k.

 

[eaterofdog]

The C12K I had was slow. Incredibly slow. A beginner might get frustrated with it, I sure did.

Too slow. Takes ages to get anything done. Maybe OK if you just want to touch up one razor.

 

[Gamma]

Possibly. The last one I owned was the 'good' one, and I think I did sell it on bst. And exactly, I've seen one or two guys who said they got cnats that were escher quality finishers... but that's one of those "I'll believe it when I see it", things for me. The stones are so slow, I think a lot of guys test them by using a better finisher and seeing how much the cnat degrades the edge, which is a problematic way to test it for obvious reasons.


Thinking back on it, I think I threw that stone in with a box of junk I sold around December last year. I remember it was a 6x2 with very sharp edges. It even had a bonus slurry spider. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/307220-Look-what-I-just-about-grabbed?highlight=cnat


I think yours must have come from someone else. I was not impressed with any cnats before that fellow, and I doubt I'd ever estimate them (even that one) at 13k.

What I do remember is that it was harder than the other 3 I owned but was not what I consider to be a hard stone.
I figured that it gave up an edge that was simillar to or a hair better than what I could get off an 8k.
Feedback was non existent, slurry did nothing, and it had a peculiar odor.