I’ve been spending some time lately trying to more objectively evaluate some natural hones I’ve acquired over the last few months and years. some have explicitly been cut as whetstones, a couple are random stones just big enough to hone on.
I may have asked these questions before, i cant remember if i asked them the same way or even the same thing since i didnt have certain stone experiences before.
I’ve watched a bunch of vids on surface prep, particle size, shape, distribution, substrate, read the diy hone and regular surface prep/finishing threads.
i see some people prep a surface at 120, some at 300, some at 600, some at 1000 and some to ~3000.
I think I also understand there is an interplay of material “issues”, as in at times the honing surface may more be affected more by the cutting of the lapping medium and the base stone hardness and then as the lapping becomes finer the base stones inherent qualities would become more pronounced. and sometimes balance is found by conditioning a surface by either toning it down (steel on ark) or refreshing it (deglazing for example). I think i get its about size, distribution and exposure.
i’m trying to understand how someone decides they will stop at 300 grit for lapping versus 600 or even use 2000 high polishing. (Especially when they are using a “low” mag loupe). Is it just guess/check and shave test subjective experience? Are they honing to a known space (like 12K for example) and then working backwards or forwards, until it obviously regresses an edge? Or doesnt do anything after a certain number of laps? and just spending days testing it?
are folks primarily looking for how low a surface prep cuts before moving it turns to polishing? Or is it where you are looking for it to cut a bevel, act as an intermediate, or to finish?
for example, a question i have is if you overprep a modern hard ark or it glazes over and it’s slowly slowly polishing, would you consider it a finisher? Is it much slower than a surgical black? or would you keep lowering the surface prep until it cuts and you see swarf? Do you need to see swarf on your finishers?
I’ve been working on a 2 semi-random chalcedony pieces (not the ancient ocean jasper) and had them really highly polished finish, and they seemed to be improve a 10K edge but then i recently saw a comment where they talked about surface prep at 300. And it got me paranoid about consistency and objectivity.
so i guess I’m really interested in your test and evaluation process.
is there and obvious tell about what a stone will give up to you as far as capacity and where it works best?
is testing first done for you on a chisel or kiridashi?
I may have asked these questions before, i cant remember if i asked them the same way or even the same thing since i didnt have certain stone experiences before.
I’ve watched a bunch of vids on surface prep, particle size, shape, distribution, substrate, read the diy hone and regular surface prep/finishing threads.
i see some people prep a surface at 120, some at 300, some at 600, some at 1000 and some to ~3000.
I think I also understand there is an interplay of material “issues”, as in at times the honing surface may more be affected more by the cutting of the lapping medium and the base stone hardness and then as the lapping becomes finer the base stones inherent qualities would become more pronounced. and sometimes balance is found by conditioning a surface by either toning it down (steel on ark) or refreshing it (deglazing for example). I think i get its about size, distribution and exposure.
i’m trying to understand how someone decides they will stop at 300 grit for lapping versus 600 or even use 2000 high polishing. (Especially when they are using a “low” mag loupe). Is it just guess/check and shave test subjective experience? Are they honing to a known space (like 12K for example) and then working backwards or forwards, until it obviously regresses an edge? Or doesnt do anything after a certain number of laps? and just spending days testing it?
are folks primarily looking for how low a surface prep cuts before moving it turns to polishing? Or is it where you are looking for it to cut a bevel, act as an intermediate, or to finish?
for example, a question i have is if you overprep a modern hard ark or it glazes over and it’s slowly slowly polishing, would you consider it a finisher? Is it much slower than a surgical black? or would you keep lowering the surface prep until it cuts and you see swarf? Do you need to see swarf on your finishers?
I’ve been working on a 2 semi-random chalcedony pieces (not the ancient ocean jasper) and had them really highly polished finish, and they seemed to be improve a 10K edge but then i recently saw a comment where they talked about surface prep at 300. And it got me paranoid about consistency and objectivity.
so i guess I’m really interested in your test and evaluation process.
is there and obvious tell about what a stone will give up to you as far as capacity and where it works best?
is testing first done for you on a chisel or kiridashi?