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Griffith Shaving Goods and 1Stone Black Shadow Slate

I mean, A fast stone is probably in the 15-30 range... but we usually talk about 30 passes being a very fast stone, 50 laps on a razor is like a minutes worth of honing. To contrast, the prototypical "slow" finisher back in the day was a CNAT, and I remember people suggesting you START at 300 laps and go from there.


My general rule (for finishing, not touch ups), is that if it takes more than 100 laps to get to a shaving edge after my 8k DMT, I consider it not an ideal razor finisher... now Arks kind of get a pass on that because while in some cases you may want to go over 100 passes you can pretty easily get an excellent edge with less if you adjust technique. Aside from arks; there's not anything that comes to mind where the edge improved if I went past 100 laps. I really only made the rule for myself because people/hone advertisers love to claim that their junk stones just need more laps because they're so ultra-super fine; and there's no end to it. Some of them would sell you a brick and tell you it's a great finisher, but you need to do 100 more passes than whatever it was you did. Because "Oh it's really fine" is the marketable way to say "It's a crap hone that doesn't abrade worth a damn". Just like "Only needs 3-5 passes, more may create a wire" was the 19th century way to say your barbers synth had a bunch of janky oversized abrasives in it.
For that reason... I don't really worry too much about razor finisher SPEED. If it gets things done in 10 laps instead of 100... hey, awesome. But if another hone gets me a better edge in 100 laps than that one does in 10 (or 100), I'm gonna prefer the one that gives me a better edge.
 
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I just had a shave with my first Black Shadow edge. This was a nice experience. It was both smooth and more the sharp enough.
I only have one other slate, and this felt almost identical. So, I would say it's a typical good quality slate.
For anyone who wants to dip their toes into natural stone, this is definitely something to consider. It was capable of taking an ok coticule edge to a slightly higher level.
 
Matt recommends finishing on somewhat dry slurry and said that if the slurry gets wet, you can get stiction.

Hello, brand new to using using stones and been trying read up as much as i can bf i give these a go. Is there anyway to describe a dry slurry to help me get a better idea of what is needed.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
Hello, brand new to using using stones and been trying read up as much as i can bf i give these a go. Is there anyway to describe a dry slurry to help me get a better idea of what is needed.

A wet, or thin slurry will run off the stone pretty quickly when you tilt it up say 30 degrees. A heavy, or drier slurry will run more slowly. You’ll get a feel for it pretty quickly
 
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