Thread: Help with choosing a finishing stone

[quote=hoglahoo;268321]Bart, would you mind directing me to those results?/quote]
They're in a thread called "Scratch Pattern Pictures", in which I ended up posting about my experiments. http://straightrazorpalace.com/246781-post12.html and another post in the same thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/258733-post15.html
All suggestions for further testing are more than welcome.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

And are you and Chris proficient at shave quality consistency? I have the ability to seemingly go through the same shaving prep and process each morning with the same equipment and yet get different results each time!

No, we are not. I like to think sometimes about us, straight razor shavers, as athletes: within certain limits, we have good days, better days and super days.
We do try to keep all things as constant as possible, though: for testing neither Chris or I change our stropping sequence, lathering brand and method, or other shaving variables. And we always compare 2 razors against each other, left side of face against right side of face. When test shaving, I only do two passes (one N/S and one S/N) and skip my usual 3th pass doing touch-ups and additional strokes where needed. I also do most of my test shaves on a 2 day beard, at night when I have plenty of time. If the circumstances are different, I enjoy shaving with one of my other straights.

Best regards,
Bart.

That's great Bart! I'm looking forward to the results as well.

But it really surprises me to hear that you couldn't discern much difference in the edges from your various coticules. Granted that most of mine are very comparable as well, there are still two that define the boundaries; one is just slightly improving on the Belgian Blue and the other is up there with the Thuringers.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

OK, here comes the "troublemaker" ... a lot of these hone discussions remind me of audiophiles arguing about equipment that reproduces frequency ranges that the human ear (or at least mine) is not capable of hearing.

Did you know that Shapton makes all their glass hones in 2 types? They have a separate line of hones specifically for white and blue steel which is used for traditional japanese tools and knives.

And it is true that natural stones all behave differently. Possibly.
I have 3 coticules which behave very differently.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

It really surprises me to hear that you couldn't discern much difference in the edges from your various coticules. Granted that most of mine are very comparable as well, there are still two that define the boundaries; one is just slightly improving on the Belgian Blue and the other is up there with the Thuringers.

It surprised me too. Allow me to emphasize again that we're talking only about the use of coticules as a finisher without slurry. But even so, I can clearly see differences in the scratch patterns under 40 X magnification. But, when it came to actual shaving, neither Chris or I found any real difference in performance of the razors. Maybe someone else could (there goes the audiophiles analogy again) On the other hand, we were perferctly able to identify the razor that was only honed till the DMT1200 level in the first experiment, and the one that was only honed till the blue with slurry level in the second experiment.
With our third experiment (still going on, so it's really too early to tell much) it seems like minor differences are showing up in the feel of that secondary microbevel, but it is unconfirmed whether Chris notices the same differences (which might add some significance to that observation). Even then, the differnce seems only in the perceived keeness of the blade. I called my wife in the bathroom, for close inspection of both face halves after shaving one half with razor A and the other with razor B. She could not see, feel, smell or hear any difference.
Please note also, that so far, we've only compared three coticules, the same in each experiment.
I deliberately chose them out of my collection leaving out the most stray of the dogs.
Something I like about the secondary microbevel method, for the sake of experimenting is that,it really reveals the potential of the final hone. I would like to do another series with the same method, using 4 other stones. Maybe bigger differences will emerge from that.

There's even a more controversial thought that has entered my mind. Belgian hones cut with round particles. This leaves a rather gentle, wavy scratch pattern. Theoretically, if the blue has larger particles, it's possible that it produces a wider but also more shallow scratch pattern. If I understand correctly, the Belgians do the actual cutting with the segments of those rhomboid particles. A larger sphere also means less acute segments. This all leaves me wondering about the capablities of a microbevel from a blue with water only. Something I'm planning to try in the nearby future. If it turns out promising, I'll add one of those edges to the next "double blind" experiment. That's part of the fun of doing this: I can fumble a bit around with the hones, and if I think I'm on to something, it can be fully tested in the experiment.

Thanks for discussing this with me,

Bart.

I totally agree with the secondary bevel thing. There's no use in polishing the entire bevel with a finishing stone if the microbevel is all that matters.

I could see that happening with the Blue, but there are other factors involved like wieght distribution over the abrasives etc., my guess is that since it doesn't really do well with a traditional bevel, it may not make a difference on a microbevel, but then again, you never know till you try.

Just for the record and I don't own one .............. but ........


The people who sell the Belgian coticule who should (?) know what they are talking about say that the size of the cutting particles on both the blue and the yellow are the same. There are more of the particles released for cutting on the yellow than the blue.

Also a slurry will release even more cutting garnets on both types of hone.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Audiophiles are an entirely different subject.

We're talking about stones that are used by people in varying fields of interest with entirely different goals in mind, but still come to the same conclusions about how those stones interact with various types of steel.

If the top woodworkers in the world, the most renouned knife sharpeners, professional chefs, and "experienced" straight razor honers all agree that stones from a given geographic area and geological layer have X or Y abrasive qualities, it's pretty safe to assume that they are not making it up, or being decieved by fanciful whims and wishful thinking.

Yes. But it is the claims about needing 12 step sharpening techniques, changeing stones repeatedly and the like. These at least here often seem to be taken as proveable statements.

Besides that, you can't make these kinds of claims without having tried the items in question for yourself. Not to be elitist or anything, but it's common sense that I could never judge whether an experienced coffee taster can trully discern the specific plantation in the specific country and region of growth of the coffee he is tasting, not to mention the factors of amount of roast that the beans had and how long they ago they may have been roasted in combination with how fine the grind was and the time that the coffee took to brew (if we're talking espresso). I could just never make that distinction until I amass a comparable repertoir.

But it is easy to say you can feel the distinction when you know what the distinction is.

Furthermore, what do any of us have to gain by playing into this conspiracy?

I am not claiming any conspiracy. I fully accept the people believe all their statements. So it seems likely that at worst people are honnestly mistaken.

So while you claim wine tasters can taste all kinds of things, and sure they can, but in wine there is also an incredible ammount of false claims as well. The only way to ever demonstrate such remarkable ability to make such perceptions is with well blinded testing.

With conformation bais you can not ever be sure that if you would have said a razor was a particular hardness and when tested you where right, well if you don't keep track of your hits and you misses you can not be sure if you are right.

Originally Posted by Bart

We have purchased 8 new and identical "Double Arrow" Razors. I have removed the smiles on all 8 of them, because honing a smiling blade is more likely to suffer from slight honing inconsistencies.
Then we divided those 8 in two groups of 4. We choose 4 different honing paradigms. I randomize the first group, hone them, and hand them to Chris, together with the used hones. He then hones the group of razors that I will test-shave with. We compare, without knowing which razor was honed with which paradigm, 2 razors per test shave: n°1 with n°2, next n°3 with n°4, n°1 with n°3, n°2 with n°4, n°2 with n°3, n°1 with n°4. And then again. Over a period of 12 shaves, each razor is used 6 times. We use a standardized assessment sheet, judging several performance points. Only after finishing the complete test run, we reveal to each other the used honing paradigms.
Does that sound blind enough to you?
Our findings on the two first experiment runs have been surprisingly consistent. (the third experiment is still going on)

Sounds pretty good.

And by that I mean I could not come up with a better design with out useing even more people or resources.

Long thread: I didn't read of anyone saying this or that one is a bad finish stone. For me at least the secret is to have only a few different stones and only few different razors (3 finishers and 5 razors is my version of few) and get to know them well.

I think if you are going to evaluate a stone, you should shave off that stone. Going on to a paste only muddies the water.

Originally Posted by English

Just for the record and I don't own one .............. but ........


The people who sell the Belgian coticule who should (?) know what they are talking about say that the size of the cutting particles on both the blue and the yellow are the same. There are more of the particles released for cutting on the yellow than the blue.
Also a slurry will release even more cutting garnets on both types of hone.

As a matter of fact, I have asked this directly to Maurice Celis, mine engineer and proprietor of Ardennes Coticule. He said garnet size of the Coticule is within a range of 5 to 15 micron and the Blue Whetstone within 10 to 20 micron. Let's assume that the largest particles define the hone's fineness. That still leaves us with a 33% particle size increment from the blue to the yellow. One also needs to bring into account that there most likely are differences in agressiveness between the garnets.

At the same time, the speed difference between any blue with slurry and most coticules with slurry is so obviously big that they really are to be considered two different hones. A coticule can be put to use as a bevel setter, while that same task would take eons on a blue.

Bart.