New Mueller stone and China 12k arrived

Ok so my Mueller and China 12k (and a cheap 5k synth) arrived from Open_razor (ebay name, the one that sells China 12k's for a good price... not 100% upcharged like the other sellers).

They arrived in about a week. Packaged quite well. The darker stone had one lapped surface, lighter one had two. Darker one had one minor chip near edge (relapping would have taken it out quickly, but it didn't affect honing), lighter one had a couple chips on one side, mint on the other. Both came with slurry stones, so I tried the lighter one first. (At this point I have no clue which is which, I expected the China to be in between these two in darkness) and I had forgotten what size Mueller I was getting (and not even asked about the China size).

It becomes apparent the light one is the china quite fast. It's harder than any stone I own except maybe my swaty. After a minute slurrying I have a little tiny bit of it going, so I try the stone. My opinions follow:

Feedback. Why do people say it has no feedback? It's feedback is almost exactly like my Nakayama. In fact I treated it exactly like my Jnat and got a great edge out of it. Maybe it varies? Mine had a sticky, clay-ish grip. Not quite honey (my nakayama gets honey grippy right before it turns bone dry... I didn't let this stone get that dry, was only a fast test).

The edge. If you held this edge and my swaty under a scope I probably couldn't tell them apart.

Speed. Faster than my swaty by at least a little. Again, not as slow as I was expecting. People talk about it like you may as well hone on glass.

General opinion thus far. It's like my swaty but a hair improved in almost every way. It's a little bigger, it's got better feedback, it's a little faster (likely due to having 2 more inches of usable length). Edge looks nearly identical (but I haven't shaved off it yet).


Mueller:

Soft. Got a swampy slurry in a few seconds. It's finer than the swaty and the 12k. I'd place it between my mystery stone and my Nakayama for grit. I can't describe it much more than that as I'm waiting on my Escher so I can compare them against one another. I only did a few passes off the 12k to see if it improved or degraded the edge.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/its5014/blogs/iansammons/IM001566.JPG

http://www.personal.psu.edu/its5014/blogs/iansammons/IM001567.JPG


On a personal note, the china is much prettier than I expected. When wet it draws out these sweeping lines near one edge. Pretty. The slurry stone looks even better, with the same lines covering one side.

What r these 2 items?

A mueller/mst "Natural german sharpening stone, blue/black" (or something like that, I don't speak german) and a Chinese natural sharpening stone (PHIG/China 12k).



Ok, I've done some testing now... Here's where these hones lie in grit ranking (Either my corundum is unusually fine or people are dreaming calling the China natural and swaty's 12k).




coarse carbo < DMT XC < fine carbo < DMT F < xfine carbo < DMT XF < King 4k (8k) < Swaty/ Chinese nat < (Corundum 5k (9k) < Mystery stone < MST natural German) (those three are all quite close) < Karasu Nakayama

Got pics? Which one is bigger? I got my Mueller and Chinese 12K from the same vendor. The Chi-12K was an exceptionally slow hone. Stupefyingly, painfully, torturously slow.

Open_Razor is a quality vendor. Amazing how fast things get to the States from Poland.

They are ~ 8x2x3/4 (Mueller) and 6x2x1 (china)

Maybe I'm just used to slow stones. My finishers up till recently have been a swaty (slower than this china) and an extremely hard and fine Japanese stone (no clue on grit 20k+?) which is also likely slower than this china.

I went to the China off my 4k king (8k) and finished on it in maybe 40 passes (about two minutes). I certainly wouldn't want to go from my 1.2k dmt to it (or even a 4k norton) but it doesn't seem much more work than any of my other hard stones. The Mueller's certainly faster, I guess I'm just patient enough that the slowness doesn't bother me. I have been going 1.2k to 8k on almost all my razors, that is the slowest part of my honing process (and why I was disappointed this 5k stone turned out to be JIS rated).

Pictures are the links in the first post.

Edit: google found a thread about the China stones on SRP where a member says he has two of them, a ~12k that cuts painfully slow and an ~8k that cuts fast. I guess mine is closer to that 8k... I'd put it 9k max, and say my Swatys (both of them as they have been compared and found identical) are right in that range with it. Mystery stone and the Mueller are probably 9.5-10.5k or so.

Interesting. 40 laps my Chi-12K was about as effective as waving the razor around in the air. Additionally, it was quite a bit bigger than the Mueller. Longer, wider and about three times as thick.

But hey, if it works for you, enjoy it!

Is your mueller one of the grey ones? They sell those too (open_razor doesn't carry them though, I asked). I recall some of those were cut pretty thin. My Mueller is one of the dark blue ones (as you can see). It's 3/4" thick.

Most places I've seen carrying the Chinese stone carry it in two sizes. I got the smaller of the two (6x2x1). The bigger is something like 8x2.75x1.5, right?

I doubt size has any impact on which grit you get, probably just the natural variance of the rock is in a 8k-12k range and frankly for $20 a stone after harvesting, shaping and shipping across the world, I don't imagine they grade the stones beyond looking for obvious imperfections.

I finished a razor on the Mueller, gonna shave with it tonight. Tomorrow (or the day after) I'll try one off the Chinese stone. I've been shaving off the mystery stone for the past few days (with a few swaty finishes thrown in to compare) so I'll be able to get an impression of edge feel off these stones. My escher is due in a few days too... wooo. I will probably try the 9k corundum stone as a finisher at least once in the near future as well. Now I gotta stop buying high grit stones and get that darned 3-5k bridge stone to reduce my time on my 8k.

One thing I think is important to bring to notice is that natural hones of that hardness are unusable without a slurry of some sort, usually a piece of the same stone or a diamond hone, I prefer the diamond hone. Another important thing is that japanese and the CH12k will not yield mirror polishes, so looking at a finish is not really a good way to judge the CH12k. Personally I have gotten better shaves of the CH12k than a coticule and I dare say it is probably up to par with an escher, it just takes a lot of practice to get the edge there.

Indeed, slurry seems a big part of making all these naturals work up to snuff. I've managed to get them all to leave 12k+ finishes with some testing and work.

Without it they all leave finishes similar to my 4k/5k synths.

With slurry they get much better results. They're all finer than Swaty at that point.

The escher works with only a little slurry.

The much darker mueller gets similar results but requires a lot of thick slurry (luckily not hard to get).

The China stone isn't quite as fine as either, works with a little slurry, but takes forever to get that much. I don't have the patience or forearm strength to work up a thick slurry to try.

Mystery stone is most like the mueller, though the slurry never really get's thick, I go by color, once it's got a nice pearl white (rather than watery) color, I hone and it leaves a finish similar to the mueller/escher. It also works with light/no slurry backhoning.


Feedback?

China 12k is tacky, perhaps even too grippy. It feels like the blade is being sucked down by a strong magnet. Sometimes it's hard to keep the blade flat with one hand.

Escher is also tacky, but much more manageable than the china. It adds a little audio to the mix and has more of a pushing through mud feel.

Mystery stone. Almost like glass. Luckily it's LOUD, so you can follow your ears.

Mueller. In between escher and Mystery stone for feedback. Makes a little more noise than the escher, but not as much grip.

Jnat. About what I'd expect the Escher would feel if it were twice as wide as it is (My Jnat is 3" wide) and as hard as the China stone. Tacky, feels a little like both the escher and the China for feedback.


Oh and I've noticed that these stones leave more of a misty finish than a mirror, Mem. I judge finish mostly based on the width, frequency, and depth of the scratch pattern.

Figured I'd update with shaving results.

Mystery stone is not a good shaving finish. It leaves the edge a little jagged. You can avoid this with enough care (super-light touch, extra-clean surface, backhoning), but it is not worth the effort. Pretty sure it's a Washita at this point.

Mueller is an alright finisher, but definitely not as good as the eschers.

Coticule finish fits in here.

New mystery stone either is an escher/Thuringian or is a stone that gives a very similar edge. Mystery is a 1.5x7" grey/green stone that tapers slightly (1&7/16" at one end) with a cutters mark (corner cleanly cut out on back) revealing an orange-green interior. Anyway, it and the escher are second and third place for finish. I'd give the edge to my 1"x5" black escher, but am not certain of that yet.

Jnat is the best finisher by a noticeable amount.


There's a crazy looking green stone that I haven't gotten around to testing thoroughly yet, but it is promising.

There's a third mystery stone that I suspect is a hard arkansas. It's nothing special. Plan to test a Translucent in the near future. (Have one, just haven't tested it yet).

I've been trying to get better edges off the china stone, nothing exceptional yet. It strikes me as a natural swaty pretty much.

Do you know of a high grit synthetic stone that has a polymer or resin substrate? I've got a rock that's similar to
corian, the synthetic stone used in countertops, except the color isn't one I'd think anyone wanted, a muddy beige.

It's in the same general range as black arkansas, but possibly harder abrasive, it cuts and loads slowly and can be used dry without damaging edges.

I'm puzzled if this is some industrial product drafted into honing service or a brand of synthetic that uses some sort of polymer resin substrate I've never seen. Whatever it is, it's very dense and heavy, and the abrasive has a medium bite to be so fine, it actually feels like very fine aluminum oxide, agressive but not quite so as diamond.

It's quite useable for what it'll do, doesn't need soaking and works fine with a few drops of water or dry either..but isn't of any special distinction, it's slow and tedious.

Gotta clue for the clueless? oh, 8x2x1..

I have had Mueller MST grey hone and it is a dirty stone to use.The slurry is the dirtiest of any hone I have used. The stone surface looks like a mirror when wet, but that is about the only good feature of this hone, its looks . It is about a 6K max 7K hone. The one I had was about 10" long by 3" wide. A big hone. But bottom line it was not a finishing hone. Sharpening stone, yes but finishing hone, no.

At that time I owned a 5" long by 1.5" yellow coticle which you could shave off. The Mueller grey Thuringien MST hone was quite poor by comparison.

Mueller also sell some Escher type hones. The stone comes from the same mine that Escher used for its hones. I also had a 6"x 3" blue green hone of this type, The hones MST sells/sold are coloured between blue grey and yellow green. The greener hones are smoother. The one I had was distinctly better than my coticule. Smoother and sharper.

I used all three hones for well over a year before evaluating or advising on the differences.

In terms of price, the huge Thuringien direct from MST and in a box was about 30 euro.

The small yellow belgian was about 45 euro.

The Escher type MST was about 60 euro.

Subsequent to my purchases, I have seen all of these types of hones sold at stupidly inflated prices and I have seen unbelievable claims made by people trying to offload their purchases at a profit.

Anyway for the record I thought it worthwhile to write my observations from lengthy first hand experience.

Yeah the Mueller definitely is below the Coti. Was trying to do an "Improve as I move down" pattern. I like my escher edges better than my coti edge, but it's a big jump from the Mueller to coti.

I'm not sure what you mean by "dirty slurry". It slurrys very very easily, and it's a brackish color, but that's to be expected, the stone's a dark blue/black/purplish color. I agree that it's best role is the stone prior to finishing, I'll compare it against my synthetic alternatives for that role next.

Mitch you may want to start a thread to ask that question in. I don't have much experience with higher grit synthetics. Barber hones are about the only synthetic finishers I'm experienced with.

Thanks for the information on the 12K Chinese from Open_razor. This is right on time for me.

English, I just wanted to suggest you try using the Mueller with slurry start to finish. In my use of both it and Eschers, the edge is better coming off of slurry, rather than thinning it like one would with a coticule. I get Swaty-ish Edge with slurry and Trans Ark/8kish edge without.

I will do that, thank you. I was captivated by the experience in action and blurted it out..

Good luck.

Well, Mueller and China have both been regulated to the Bottom Tier of my finishers with my Swatys. (Basically meaning they're paper weights for me).

They both are definitely shaveable finishes, but come up short of what I've managed to achieve on my other stones. I use the Mueller now and then to bridge from 8k to my finishers, and my swaty's are great for smoothing out my lower grit synthetics, I suppose I'll see if the china works better for that purpose, then get rid of the loser one of these days.

Again, the stone (China) works as a finisher, but I just have too many much better stones to find any reason to use it. If you don't own four hundred-dollar-plus stones, it'd be a good option. So I don't mean to scare anyone away from them. The Muellers are in the same camp, but cost too much (for anyone outside EU) to really recommend them. At the price I paid for mine, your pretty close to getting a reasonably sized coticule... and I definitely wouldn't recommend them over the coti's.