High Grit Stone - Waste of $

Professional indeed? I was thinking of the guys in the fallout this week.

Belgian coticule stones have been around longer than 150 years. Even black Arkansas.
I sharpen & strop my double edge blade a lot as I've used one blade for 2 years worth of shaving.
Usually taking it to my ultra fine ceramic stone for 50-60 passes then on to a loaded leather strop with the green chromium oxide. For 1-200 passes and it looks more convex that the one in Todd's photo. I don't think 30 passes would do much. But the blade is a stainless Feathers. DM
 
Ok... I just worked my double edge blade. Giving it 75 edge leading passes on the ceramic stone, then testing it on cutting newspaper. Making sure I was on track. I gave it 30 strokes on my 15" hard backed leather strop with green compound applied per your recommendations. Then I checked the blade on my 5 o'clock shadow. It will shave these whiskers and very close. I went on and did the other side and will give myself a full shave tomorrow or the next day. Keeping the edge angle is critical with this blade. I'll know more then. The black Arkansas is rated at 1200 American grit.? DM
 
Todd, I don't have time because I don't have anything to prove for or against. I could take one of my straights to my 1k king, and then strop the piss out of it until it shaves. I have done it, and its not effective, compared to the edge I can get by going from my king to my barber's hone, which I may add is not a great one, then stropping. If the edge I'm getting off of those, which others have recreated in their own tests, and has not been considered by them to be adequate, then I'll take their word for it. Compound only razor methods have been tried time and again by folks far more knowledgeable than I. Time and again they say that even a lowly 8k norton will get the job done, and nothing less. This from guys who have stropped on car tires, palms, every kind of leather you can get, every compound known and few alchemical ones I'm sure.

One of the reasons I DE shave is that I spent a few years trying to cut corners and just never got a razor to the point where I could get a decent shave with any sort of consistency or speed. When cash allows there is a naniwa in my future to remedy that.

Now you could be right. you could have found the key that others have missed. But this is not the forum for that, go head to head against pro honemiesters and see what you got. I'm just a shlub in the bleachers. I don't know the first thing about a sharp blade. But when you go against everything I've been told..... That said, its only the mavericks that make great change. So maybe you are right.
 
ToddS said:
I have analyzed perhaps a dozen Belgian Coticule stones, about half vintage, half Ardennes products. The garnets are typically in the 5-10 micron range plus larger inclusions of silica. I personally do not consider this to be "high" grit.
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Was under the impression the garnets in a Coticule are buckey-ball shaped, have a grit rating well below the size as long as embedded in the rest of the stone - hence the "unicot" method of one tool sharpening.

Also, I was under the impression the better black and translucent Arkansas were in the 2k (ansi) range, putting them well into the range of a barber's hone and in the neighborhood of 6k JIS. I also have to imagine there are silt stones similar to Jnats that fall in the range of polishing grade stones. Without too much looking I was able to find local examples in the range of 800-1000 grit just taking a walk along a river gorge.
 
This discussion is like nailing jello to a wall. The goal posts keep moving, and the definitions keep changing. I'm done.
 
gadgetgeek said:
This discussion is like nailing jello to a wall. The goal posts keep moving, and the definitions keep changing. I'm done.
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+1
This is usually what happens when someone who doesn't know what they are talking about starts a thread like this. The OP obviously doesn't understand the different grit rating systems, the different types of sharpening stones, and that grit isn't the only thing that matters.
 
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