Frankonian Hone?

[Joe Edson]

Anyone know what this Frankonian Hone is?

http://www.olivia-seife.de/shop/hwherren/steine.html

I feel myself coming down with a case of HAD and stumbled across this finisher. Any info on it?

 

[SliceOfLife]

All I can tell is that it's slate. Frankonian makes me think from france somewhere maybe? I've never heard of it before. From the tiny pic they have it could be Thuri, could be Yellow Lake, could be any of a dozen other Slates that don't typically show obvious patterning. Best bet is to contact them and ask where they get those stones from and what they can tell you about them. Then share this info with us.


Maybe check out this forum? Google found it and looks like "Olivia" is a member there. Seems a number of people there have these stones.

http://www.shaveready.com/showthread.php?p=3690


I've only found one other reference to it, saying that it's a German Natural stone. (From Frankonian Region of Germany it seems)

edit: Found a few mentions of it almost exclusively to shaving forums. Appears to be a new German Natural finishing hone that started getting mined recently. Other than "Finisher" I can't find any reports on it. If it is actually as high a grit as she claims (and it may well be, the closeups I've found look quite similar to Thuri's) it should be a nice alternative to the stupidly overpriced Barber cut Thuringians (~6x2.5's)

 

[honed]

Ms. Olivia has a good reputation, both for her soaps & her talent with thher various hones.
She is behind the forum mentioned above.
A very nice lady!
And she makes a shaving cream containing tallow :woot:

I haven't tried the Frankonian, but it sure looks interesting

 

[Joe Edson]

I sent an inquiring email and will relay the information that I receive.

 

[honed]

I sent an inquiring email and will relay the information that I receive.

 

[LessLemming]

Being from Germany I was lucky to be one of the first guys to test Olivias Frankonian.

The Frankonian is named after the region it is mined in wich is:
Das Frankenland, oder Franken (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franken_(Region)) in Germany.

Olivia is connected to a slate mine not far from the original Escher mine.
She experimented a lot with different types of slates and found a very good one for honing.

I have owned one of the first Frankonians ever used for honing and I loved it,
in fact I regret it quite badly I sold it. (I just don´t have any use for it, anymore. Too much finishers, more than I have good razors)

The slate is very, very fine. Used with water only it puts a most magnificent edge on a razor relatively quick.
The edge produced is comparable to Shapton 16k, Nakayama, Esher or Shapton 30k.
I own all of these stones and put them up against the Frankonian.


If anybody is to buy a very fine finishing stone, a Frankonian is definitely an option!

 

[Disburden]

This thread may cause me to spend more money...


Hmmm,interesting...

 

[SliceOfLife]

Being from Germany I was lucky to be one of the first guys to test Olivias Frankonian.

The Frankonian is named after the region it is mined in wich is:
Das Frankenland, oder Franken (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franken_(Region)) in Germany.

Olivia is connected to a slate mine not far from the original Escher mine.
She experimented a lot with different types of slates and found a very good one for honing.

I have owned one of the first Frankonians ever used for honing and I loved it,
in fact I regret it quite badly I sold it. (I just don´t have any use for it, anymore. Too much finishers, more than I have good razors)

The slate is very, very fine. Used with water only it puts a most magnificent edge on a razor relatively quick.
The edge produced is comparable to Shapton 16k, Nakayama, Esher or Shapton 30k.
I own all of these stones and put them up against the Frankonian.


If anybody is to buy a very fine finishing stone, a Frankonian is definitely an option!

You say you sold it, so I take it you prefer one or more of those comparable hones you mentioned to it though? Basically, I have a Nakayama, and several Eschers and am wondering if I'd have any reason to pick one of these Frankies up.

 

[Joe Edson]

Still waiting on a response from my inquiry. Glad you chimed in LessLemming.

Seems like a good alternative to a barber's sized escher for about half the price.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Probably a bit less than half. I don't think I've seen a barbers size go under ~$350 in the past few weeks (but they do usually include a rubbing stone and box).

 

[LessLemming]

so I take it you prefer one or more of those comparable hones you mentioned to it though?

Not necessarily. I have sold a lot of good stones that I liked really much,
just to try something else and figure out those were in fact inferior.
I like to try a lot and therefore sometimes really good stones have to go.

I needed the extra money for a new set (in the end I bought the shapton glass stones with the money) and had too many finishers.
My thinking was not "wich one is inferior" but wich one has the lowest value as a collectibles item!
I probably never am going to come across a Nakayama or Vintage Thuringian at the price I paid for it. But I will probably be able to buy a Frankonian again in a couple of years.
Performance-wise I would not say I prefered one or another.
Sure, a Nakayama gives more velvet feedback and has that hype around it but the Frankonian gave a better polish (no haze or scratches, if I remember correctly).
The edges were outstanding, anyway.
But beware, that Frankonian is an absolute high grit finisher. No room for quite-not-there-edges!
Flawless bevelsetting and polish up to (let´s say) 8.000 is advised.

Btw. Slurried the stone doesn´t even cut half bad and not rough either. I didn´t experiment with slurry that much

 

[Joe Edson]

Well Ian, you know as well as I that we are both going to probably end up with one of these if all the info is as it seems.

How bout this, we just split the cost of one hone and find someone to cut it in half for us. That way we each end up with a roughly 5-6 x 1-1.5" stone.....

 

[SliceOfLife]

Well Ian, you know as well as I that we are both going to probably end up with one of these if all the info is as it seems.

How bout this, we just split the cost of one hone and find someone to cut it in half for us. That way we each end up with a roughly 5-6 x 1-1.5" stone.....

Sounds like a great idea to me... but how much would the cutting cost, eh?

 

[Joe Edson]

Sounds like a great idea to me... but how much would the cutting cost, eh?

I was just kind of kidding as I don't know anyone who can cut stones. Wouldn't imagine it would cost too much though if Olivia gets back to me I'm going to ask if maybe they can sell em that small or possibly can get one cut in half.

Hopefully I'll get a response next week. From what I've read it sounds like she is connected to the mine somehow so maybe they can do smaller cuts at a more reasonable price.

Edit: Also just noticed that if you click on the more information link right under the stone on her webpage, this is what it says "To be used after the Escher, gives a wicked edge. More info to come"

I must say that just intrigues me more.

 

[Disburden]

Edit: Also just noticed that if you click on the more information link right under the stone on her webpage, this is what it says "To be used after the Escher, gives a wicked edge. More info to come"

I must say that just intrigues me more.

Same here!

 

[LessLemming]

Well guys, cutting a stone or getting it cut is NOT a problem.
I recently had a Chosera 10k split in half to lower the cost!


You will have to look for a local stonecutter ( I don´t really know the english name for it, it is a person that makes things out of stone like tomb- or gravestones).
Usuually cutting a small stone like this is done in no time.
Give him 10 bucks for a nice cold beer and he will probably be satisfied!

You can talk to Olivia about that, she may be able to select a stone appropiate for cutting it in half.
By that I mean a thicker one, so you can cut it to half the thicknes but keep the surface.
You might have to glue it to wood for support

 

[Chimensch]

Well guys, cutting a stone or getting it cut is NOT a problem.
I recently had a Chosera 10k split in half to lower the cost!


You will have to look for a local stonecutter ( I don´t really know the english name for it, it is a person that makes things out of stone like tomb- or gravestones).
Usuually cutting a small stone like this is done in no time.
Give him 10 bucks for a nice cold beer and he will probably be satisfied!

You can talk to Olivia about that, she may be able to select a stone appropiate for cutting it in half.
By that I mean a thicker one, so you can cut it to half the thicknes but keep the surface.
You might have to glue it to wood for support

If the stone is 3" wide, I would have it cut lengthwise because a 1½" wide hone is really good for razors. I took my hones to a guy who installs marble tile and he did it for free.

 

[honed]

Still waiting on a response from my inquiry. Glad you chimed in LessLemming.

Seems like a good alternative to a barber's sized escher for about half the price.

Any updates

 

[Joe Edson]

Any updates

No, I sent multiple emails and joined a forum she was a member of to PM and never heard anything back.

I posted this over at SRP and it seems to get mixed reviews. Some like their escher better, some the frankonian.

We'll see if HAD flares up anytime in the future.....

 

[SliceOfLife]

Eh, at that price I'm not willing to take a risk on it myself. My experience is that peoples opinions on stones vary a lot, even among the most experienced. And I certainly wouldn't drop $100+ on the review of a dozen razor honers. I've gotten burned a few times in the past by trusting guys saying "X hone is a great finisher" or "As fine as Y" or whatever. There are a few guys who you can see go way above and beyond what the average for testing is, and I'll trust data from them, but if I don't already know a guy, and have inspected and shaved off an edge he's honed, then frankly I've learned to assign exactly zero worth to his opinion of a stone for finishing razors. There's a flip side to this. The whole Coticule argument earlier this week. People with hundreds of stones used making comments that were completely removed from reality because they refused to learn the stones properly, and then backing their statements solely with their experience. It's like a guy who owns a Ferrari dealership and test drives all his standard transmission cars, but can't shift, so he declares that Ferrari's can't go above 50mph (or whatever they'd top out at in first gear) and points to how many he's driven as his proof.

I don't mean to insult anyone with this stone, you may be excellent honers and the hone may be just how you describe. It's simply a matter of caution for me based on my experiences where other people (not you guys) reviewed stones without really having the experience to properly describe them, then I bought them and was stuck with a stone that didn't do what it had been bragged about to do, and I didn't feel right reselling to someone else who'd expect that from it. I'd say this sort of thing has happened more recently in the brush forum over low priced brushes than here though.