Starting My Natural Stone Honing

[Dilbone]

I have found some similarities with my jnat as have been discussed above. HHT can be confusing for sure, and each blade/stone combination seems to read slightly differently for what is truly shave ready for that blade.
I don't do traditional HHTs but treetopping over forearm or leg hair.

My first experience with my latest jnat led to what seemed to be worse treetopping than my coti, but produced a sharper and smoother edge.

I began to notice that the jnat edge doesn't "catch" as many hairs as the coti edge but those it does catch fall much more silently than the coti edge. This "toothy" edge from the coti seemed like it was performing better until it was clear that it wasn't in reality. Reading the treetopping can be tough from blade to blade.

My arm and leg hair is sooooo much finer than my very thick and wiry beard hair that it's hard to see much translation between the 2 as far as the blade's actual performance.

This has been a very interesting read so far. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

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[bluesman 7]

My aim is to get an edge/bevel that is very comfortable to shave with (three passes) but not so sharp as to leave me with little to nothing to shave the following morning.

You do realize that most straight shavers do exactly that with just clean strops.

Nothing wrong with experimenting though. Carry on.

 

[Eastcoast30]

@Eastcoast30 I have a question for you. Do you do a Fool's Pass (ATG upper lip) in your shaving routine and, if so, how do you find it with the edge off the Jnat.?

Because I have a beard, I do not shave my upper lip. But I trim my neck and cheek line in all possible directions without problem.

 

[rbscebu]

Fifth shave with my black-tail off the Tnat this morning. The last couple of shaves with this SR (Tnat with lather) have produced no noticeable change on the Fool's pass so I will now switch back to honing on the Tnat with water only (no lather).

Sometimes I wish that we had an @Doc226 here in the Philippines. Tomorrow I will shave with the clear-tail to remind me what it is like to shave with an SR off a diamond pasted balsa strop.

 

[kohalajohn]

Having a professional honer is handy, but we can all get there with practice.

 

[rbscebu]

Sixth shave with black-tail (off Tnat with water) this morning, three passes (WTG, XTG & ATG). A slight improvement was noticed but still nowhere near good enough for the Fool's Pass when compared to the clear-tail off diamond pasted balsa strop.

The black-tail is very comfortable to shave with, more so than the clear-tail, except ATG on the upper lip. I am guessing that this better comfort is due to a different "scratch" shape on the bevel from the Tnat. If I cannot get the black-tail edge to shave well on the Fool's Pass, I might give a full M7DS a Tnat finish and just use that set's "Evening" SR with diamond pasted balsa finish for each Fool's Pass.

 

[kohalajohn]

Interesting.

I have come to believe that the famed comfort of naturals is due to their having varying particle sizes. Under an electron microscope you see particles of varying sizes.

So the scratch pattern is of varying sizes of grooves. Its looks hazy, or what the jnat folk call a kasumi finish. A photo of a jnat edge of mine is enclosed and you can see a random haziness over the bevel.

I think our skin sense this as comfortable.

Pastes are made with smaller particles and the particles are identical in size. This is all made artificially, so we have control over particle size.

I think having all the particles the same size, as well as small, you can get a very sharp edge. The scratch pattern is tiny rows of identical size. Very machine like.

And our skin interprets that bevel surface as a bit less comfortable.

The pastes sure cut through whiskers though. Sharp sure works.

I don't have trouble with raw skin. I'm lucky, most everything feels comfy to me. The only thing I don't like is a dull, tuggy blade. So my bias is toward sharper.

I do like coticules and jnat, but some days I just want an edge that is as sharp as possible.

This is all so personal.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey. It's enjoyable to follow.

 

[rbscebu]

Seventh shave with black-tail (off Tnat with water) this morning, three passes (WTG, XTG & ATG). Again a slight improvement was noticed. For this shave I did not even attempt a Fool's Pass with the black-tail. I got out the clear-tail (off diamond pasted balsa) and did my Fool's Pass with that.

Using two SR's was a novelty for me and I like it. My shave time increased by about 10 minutes. After the shave I also got to both hone on the Tnat (black-tail) and strop with the pasted balsa (clear-tail). All is good in my little bit of paradise. I think I will keep this two-SR routine going for a while to see how things develop.

 

[Tomo]

Another thing worth playing around with is a hybrid edge. I will sometimes finish or refresh a natural edge with ten laps on 0.1 micron pasted balsa. Similar to how some people use a pasted hanging strop. I find ten laps to be quite effective. It bumps the edge sharpness without loosing the feel of the natural finish. It might give you the little bit extra that you need for the fools pass.

 

[rbscebu]

@Tomo you come up with some great suggestions. That could just about achieve what I am aiming for. I'll give it a go over the weekend. Salamat po (Tagalog).

 

[kohalajohn]

Another thing worth playing around with is a hybrid edge. I will sometimes finish or refresh a natural edge with ten laps on 0.1 micron pasted balsa. Similar to how some people use a pasted hanging strop. I find ten laps to be quite effective. It bumps the edge sharpness without loosing the feel of the natural finish. It might give you the little bit extra that you need for the fools pass.

Tomo, I just posted in the Curse you Diamond Balsa thread, based on your suggestion above.

Very interesting stuff.