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Girls call me Makaluod
A week or so ago I received my first natural whetstone finisher, a Chinese natural whetstone being an Adaee #12000.
This whetstone is huge at 200mm x 75mm x 30mm. I could find very little about this whetstone other than some rather short reviews on AliExpress, mostly from knife sharpeners. It was, however, within my rather limited budget costing well under USD 50 including shipping. Others were going to be in the USD 200 or more range.
Once received, I wanted to try this whetstone out and see how it performed. I chose one of two identical SRs for this, Titan 1918 ACRO T.H-70s, both finished on diamond pasted balsa. The chosen one was lightly bread-knifed on the bottom of a glass tumbler to where it wouldn't even shave my silken arm hair.
Since receiving the Cnat I have spent my time learning how to use it and redeveloping the edge on the chosen SR. Reset the bevel on 3k synthetic, then on to an 8k synthetic and finally onto the Cnat for finishing.
It took quite a while and a lot of time and test shaved to learn the Cnat, particularly with the very hard steel of the T.H-70. By yesterday I thought that I had got it with the Cnat and the T.H-70. This morning I decided it was time to compare the Cnat edge against the pasted balsa edge on the other twin T.H-70.
Just to be sure that the balsa edge was in top condition, I put it through a full balsa progression before this morning's shave; 0.5μm, 0.25μm, 0.1μm and 0.1μm hanging. Both blade's were then stropped equally on clean leather and the comparison commenced.
The did my normal pre-shave prep and commenced a three-pass shave; WTG, XTG + fool's pass and XTG in the opposite direction. During each pass I swapped the two SRs over between the LHS of my face and the RHS.
The results surprised me. WTG and both XTG passes were almost equal in shaving closeness with the two, the Cnat edge being noticeably more comfortable on the skin. The fool's pass showed a difference. The balsa edge was just a little more closer and easier to use in this ATG on the upper lip.
My verdict is that the Cnat edge can give the same shave result as the balsa edge with more comfort. The balsa edge is preferred for tough ATG shaving. I never thought that a natural edge could get close to a diamond pasted balsa edge. I was wrong.
In a few days time, I will do another Cnat/balsa edge comparison using two identical Gold Dollar W59 SRs. These SRs are of softer steel and have a much more acute bevel angle. If I get the same or better results, I will put a Cnat edge on one of each of my four matching weekend SR sets.
This has been fun and has taken my honing knowledge up to another level.
This whetstone is huge at 200mm x 75mm x 30mm. I could find very little about this whetstone other than some rather short reviews on AliExpress, mostly from knife sharpeners. It was, however, within my rather limited budget costing well under USD 50 including shipping. Others were going to be in the USD 200 or more range.
Once received, I wanted to try this whetstone out and see how it performed. I chose one of two identical SRs for this, Titan 1918 ACRO T.H-70s, both finished on diamond pasted balsa. The chosen one was lightly bread-knifed on the bottom of a glass tumbler to where it wouldn't even shave my silken arm hair.
Since receiving the Cnat I have spent my time learning how to use it and redeveloping the edge on the chosen SR. Reset the bevel on 3k synthetic, then on to an 8k synthetic and finally onto the Cnat for finishing.
It took quite a while and a lot of time and test shaved to learn the Cnat, particularly with the very hard steel of the T.H-70. By yesterday I thought that I had got it with the Cnat and the T.H-70. This morning I decided it was time to compare the Cnat edge against the pasted balsa edge on the other twin T.H-70.
Just to be sure that the balsa edge was in top condition, I put it through a full balsa progression before this morning's shave; 0.5μm, 0.25μm, 0.1μm and 0.1μm hanging. Both blade's were then stropped equally on clean leather and the comparison commenced.
The did my normal pre-shave prep and commenced a three-pass shave; WTG, XTG + fool's pass and XTG in the opposite direction. During each pass I swapped the two SRs over between the LHS of my face and the RHS.
The results surprised me. WTG and both XTG passes were almost equal in shaving closeness with the two, the Cnat edge being noticeably more comfortable on the skin. The fool's pass showed a difference. The balsa edge was just a little more closer and easier to use in this ATG on the upper lip.
My verdict is that the Cnat edge can give the same shave result as the balsa edge with more comfort. The balsa edge is preferred for tough ATG shaving. I never thought that a natural edge could get close to a diamond pasted balsa edge. I was wrong.
In a few days time, I will do another Cnat/balsa edge comparison using two identical Gold Dollar W59 SRs. These SRs are of softer steel and have a much more acute bevel angle. If I get the same or better results, I will put a Cnat edge on one of each of my four matching weekend SR sets.
This has been fun and has taken my honing knowledge up to another level.