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Girls call me Makaluod
This morning I received a Chinese natural (Cnat) by Adaee. They rate it at about 12k. It's a monster at 30mm x 75mm x 200mm with a specific gravity of 2.77.
Why this stone? The only reason is ecause it was within my budget at about USD 50 including shipping. The stone had mixed reviews. Some thought that it was rubbish and other thought that it was the bees knees. With my order, Itold Adaee that I wanted to use it as a finisher on my straight razors and asked them to choose accordingly for me.
Being the impatient person that I am, this afternoon I lapped this Cnat flat. It was pretty good to start with so didn't require a lot of work to lap flat.
I then got out two of my Titan 1918 ACRO T.H-70 SRs. Both of these SRs are in my current rotation and shave about equally as well as each other and are maintained on pasted balsa. I selected one and gently killed the edge on the bottom of a glass tumbler.
The killed SR then had its bevel reset on a 3k synthetic and then refined on an 8k synthetic. From there I took it to my new Cnat.
After about 6 laps on the Cnat with water, the blade started sticking so a couple of short pull strokes. I lightened up the already light pressure and added more water. A few more laps and it was again sticking. More short pull strokes. Weight of the blade only and more water - the same result.
I finally added a couple of drops of detergent to my water. Eight more laps and it was sticking again. That was about as far as I could take it so I finished off with about 6 short X strokes, applied Renaissance wax and finished up.
I then compared the two edges by tree-topping my chest hair with each. The killed-edge SR was definitely not as good as the one maintained on pasted balsa.
Tomorrow I will strop both on clean leather and do a comparison shave. I don't expect the Cnat edge to cut as easily as the pasted balsa edge, although it might. I am interested to determine if the Cnat edge is more comfortable to shave with.
More in about 16 hours (2230 UTC).
Why this stone? The only reason is ecause it was within my budget at about USD 50 including shipping. The stone had mixed reviews. Some thought that it was rubbish and other thought that it was the bees knees. With my order, Itold Adaee that I wanted to use it as a finisher on my straight razors and asked them to choose accordingly for me.
Being the impatient person that I am, this afternoon I lapped this Cnat flat. It was pretty good to start with so didn't require a lot of work to lap flat.
I then got out two of my Titan 1918 ACRO T.H-70 SRs. Both of these SRs are in my current rotation and shave about equally as well as each other and are maintained on pasted balsa. I selected one and gently killed the edge on the bottom of a glass tumbler.
The killed SR then had its bevel reset on a 3k synthetic and then refined on an 8k synthetic. From there I took it to my new Cnat.
After about 6 laps on the Cnat with water, the blade started sticking so a couple of short pull strokes. I lightened up the already light pressure and added more water. A few more laps and it was again sticking. More short pull strokes. Weight of the blade only and more water - the same result.
I finally added a couple of drops of detergent to my water. Eight more laps and it was sticking again. That was about as far as I could take it so I finished off with about 6 short X strokes, applied Renaissance wax and finished up.
I then compared the two edges by tree-topping my chest hair with each. The killed-edge SR was definitely not as good as the one maintained on pasted balsa.
Tomorrow I will strop both on clean leather and do a comparison shave. I don't expect the Cnat edge to cut as easily as the pasted balsa edge, although it might. I am interested to determine if the Cnat edge is more comfortable to shave with.
More in about 16 hours (2230 UTC).