Long Time Natural Oiler Gets a Set of Waterstones - Observations

[duke762]

About 5 years ago I set out upon a hard journey. To learn to straight shave and hone at the same time. And to make it a little harder on myself, I only used natural stones ......with oil. Mineral oil and WD40 make my world go round.

Starting out with just Arks, I struggled until I added a Coticule to the mix before Black/Trans finishers. Things improved drastically. I still wanted to get a better looking apex than I could get off of my Coti's so I added a unidentified slate I have. Bingo! Cleaned up the apex and off to the Black/Trans family of finishers. Really nice shaves, though I have never used any edge but my own. If you can't feel the edge working and the beard goes away and there's no blood or irritation, something must be right.

I got my first water stone earlier this year. Shapton Pro 1.5k. My bevels, the base of all razor honing, became much easier to set and refine. Love the feel of this stone. I still hate water as a lube, but one must make compromises. I said to myself, "Hey, these bevels and apex look superb. What would happen if I added a 5k "? And then......HAD set in on me. Came out of remission it did. The sale on Amazon just brought it all together.

I posted a question here about what would be a good jump off point to go from Synth to Ark finishers and the response was 5k but an 8k would be "icing on the cake" thank you Dave Sl8r. I like icing, and ice cream too!! And that's how I ended up with a set of Shapton Pro's 1.5, 5, 8, and 12k.

In a cruel twist of fate, I get put on massive overtime at work, and haven't had the time to experiment as much as I'd like but the cool thing is I can now knock out a freaky sharp razor in record time.

Observations

Coming from an oily background, it's really difficult to not reach for the oil bottle when the stone needs lubed. I had to like, put it out of reach to avoid disaster. I still hate water as a lube.

I am now a noob. Out of my element doing unfamiliar things. I watched a lot of video's to see the different techniques.....uhh, no. I'm not counting strokes or doing circles or sacrificing a chicken next full moon. If I can't do this with X's or rolling X's, it;s not going to happen.

Really, and I do mean really freaked out about the amount of swarf that gets trapped in the hone. I'm used to a couple drops of WD40 lifting all crapola away. Same trouble on some of the videos I saw. What really freaked me out was the build up along the edge of the hone where any spine wear transitions to an unworn area. Ewwww

My hard learned, tactile feel, for each stone being maxed out no longer applies. Maybe I can learn the feel of these to tell me I'm done, but for now, magnification is my friend. The 12k is driving me nuts. I can't detect a change in feel.

Assumptions Confirmed

After doing a nice synth progression on a razor, I finally shaved with a razor from a hone with a known grit. My 12k apex was beyond compare to anything I'd seen in my scope before. The shave was.....less than optimal from what I was getting before. Felt a bit ...well unfinished. Kind of course or scratchy and not as keen. When I went from 12k to Black/Trans finish, OMG!!!!! Perfect for my tastes.

Having stones of a confirmed grit also let me know that I had my naturals laid out in pretty good order. My unidentified slate (also known as Bob) improved a 5k edge. No wonder my edges off the Arks was so good.

I knew it would get me. RUST! When you hone with oil and get interrupted or have to quit you can just put your razor down and walk away. Not so with water. One got past me and I put it away with out cleaning and oiling....can you say restore?

The Method to My Madness

By becoming familiar with synthetic water stones, it opens the door to other water stones. Jnat's are now a viable option to me. I still hate water as a lube but maybe it works better on other stones.

All of my oil stones are are bi-lube capable. They can easily be de-oiled and used with water. More options.

It really did me good to see my results confirmed with stones of a known grit.

In Conclusion

I really love to hone on naturals but now I can approach my Ark finisher with an edge that is easily and quickly repeatable.

I still hate water as a lube. Can't wait to have some time to master my new hones.

A natural progression can be done with lot's of practice and patience but there are better faster options.

 

[global_dev]

good write-up. whats your process for the ark surfacing?

 

[Toro Blanco]

I agree great write-up! Many roads to Rome as they say. I started with a full set of Naniwa Choosera line back 11-12 years ago for knives. When I got my first Arkansas stones(translucent and Washita) and the fact I had a great microscope(Leica) I could easily see the grit range of a stone. I could see that on a Arkie, surface prep was a huge factor. It help me cut though the fog so to speak. If it was not for thoose two things my learning curb would have been much greater that it was. Four years into straight razors I have moved on to Naturals almost exclusively but if it was not for the synthetics I do not think I would be where I am now. I have settled on Jnats because of the feel and results I get from honing. I still use my Ark fro time to time and have a couple of nice cotis but a good Jnat is hard to beat. Cotis are fast but I have not found one to rival my top three Jnats and I have had over three dozen cotis. I do have my top thee but I will use my Ark to finish them off.

A known grit reference and good magnification is key to making a improvement! That and a test shave to me are the most important factors in improving! Everything else is speculation or wishfull thinking in my view. Like my teacher said "Show me the Data" not your opinion. Good magnification and a test shave are the best methods I have found. Same thing that Alex g has been showing for a long time.

 

[duke762]

good write-up. whats your process for the ark surfacing?

I follow Gamma's recommendations. Loose grit to flatten and fixed grit (W/D sand paper) to get the final flatness and dressing. Here's his quote from the Washita thread....

Basically, in a nutshell, after much testing and comparing, I've found that a consistently surfaced stone is more important than what grit it was lapped to. Pressure/force rules the cutting action for me. My hardest stones never get lapped past 600x and the softer stones never see finer than 400x, and usually it's more like 140-200x. I did recently take a Transluent a bit higher than 600x, and while it looks nice, objectiverly, the scope shows that it didn't improve anything.

I've lapped my Arks to just about every grit imaginable.This paragraph says it all for me. Gospel right there.

If your Ark is flat, you can just move on to the dressing stage with the W/D. Get 3M, not the bargain stuff. I resurface regularly. I'm a total Arkaholic so my judgement may be skewed. The skin friendly, super keen edge is fascinating.