Welch Natural?

[Gissy]

I have found some really cheap welch natural hones with slurry stones on Ebay. Does anyone here use those? I'm mostly looking for a finisher, will these do?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GREEN-NATU...item27c9868388

Sorry for all the stupid newbie questions ;) I'm sure there will be many more from me...

[Wid]

I have the Purple Welsh stone and it makes for a real nice edge.

[SliceOfLife]

That's a green. I think other sellers are selling them as Llyn Idwal or "Welsh Thuringians". Supposedly it's the highest grit of the three. I know of a few people who use them and like them quite well. Most people I know who have thuri's and tried them found them inferior to thuri's as well as slower.

Vintage Llyn Idwal were reputedly sold as replacements for Charnley Forest when they were in low supply. They were reported as similar but harder and slower.


And yes, they should work as a finisher.

[xMackx]

I bought the 8x3 15k welsh thuringian one and ended up getting a really lower end 6-8k hone, the good thing is AJ is a great guy. After I told him he sent me a purple welsh and a different rock to replace the bad one I got. They're good stones for what you get for the money, but my experience has shown you never know what you'll get with natural stones and the price doesn't always dictate quality. If I were to suggest to anyone buy the purple welsh Llyn Melynllyn stone, nice stone.

[Kavik79]

There's an interesting thread on these stones on another site found here
It's a bit long, but after a couple pages it gets into some experimenting with all 3 of the stones this guy offers.

Personally, I bought the whole set of three stones, the "Dragon's tongue", "Llyn Melynllyn" and the "Welsh Thuri". I haven't had a whole lot of experience with them yet, but after just a couple uses my initial thoughts are that the Dragon's tongue isn't really needed in my case coming off a norton 8k, a lot of people seem to think this one is below the 8k mark, despite being advertised as 8-10k.
The Llyn Melynllyn (the purple stone) on the other hand just gave me the best edge I've put on a razor yet. Easily as sharp as coming off my C12k, but smoother.
The "Welsh Thuri"/mystery dark stone.....I haven't had good results with this yet, but pretty sure it's me, not the stone. It improved the sharpness coming off the LM, but made for a very harsh and uncomfortable shave

This guy gets his stone from reclamation yards and cuts them himself into hone shaped pieces. A lot of people are very happy with what they get. A few, from what they say, seems to get lesser quality pieces here and there. I know there's always variations with natural stones, but it looks like this reclamation might cause a little more variation than a batch pulled straight from a quarry.

All in all, I'd also gladly recommend the Llyn Melynllyn as a finisher off an 8k synthetic or similar. The other two types of stones I can't really say for sure at the point, but for the price I still think it's worth the experience of trying them out

[Gissy]

I just read all the 36 pages on the other forum and have decided to go with the 3 stones pack. Thank you to everyone!

Now I just have to wait for monday when my money comes in.

[paco664]

i have all 3.... the only one i really use is the green/welsh slate... i freaking love it....

you will need to learn the stone a bit but it won't let you down...

[professorchaos]

Why yes, I do think Rachel was a natural beauty.

[SliceOfLife]

Wasn't it spelled Raquel?

[professorchaos]

Wasn't it spelled Raquel?

[Gamma]

Llyn Idwal hones are a novaculite stone, and alleged to be comparable to Charnleys.
Llyn Melynllyn was a slate whetstone mined in Wales. The stones sold under that name on Ebay today may or may not have come from the same mines the original LMs came from.

[SliceOfLife]

Vintage LM's are not uncommon. I've owned a number of them. Got 3 right now. Two years ago you could pick them up for $10-30 in 0.5x2x8" size. No one knew what the hell they were. The only time they went for more was when someone mistook one for a black arky or a dark blue thuringian. They're a decently fine slate but nothing to write home about. For the price, definitely a good piece of rock. Certainly better than Cnats in my experience.

And Dragons tongues were selling for $20 new and boxed in that same size from a couple online stores (not eBay) a couple years back as well. Several people tried them and most shrugged them off as a slow razor stone where there was no reason to use a slow stone (4-7k). If you dig, you'll find a bunch of threads about them.

I really don't know where the demand for these stones from shavers (outside of the Llyn Idwal, which actually are a bit hard to find vintage) suddenly came from. Someone's good at manipulating the conversation on shaving forums perhaps.

[xMackx]

Vintage LM's are not uncommon. I've owned a number of them. Got 3 right now. Two years ago you could pick them up for $10-30 in 0.5x2x8" size. No one knew what the hell they were. The only time they went for more was when someone mistook one for a black arky or a dark blue thuringian. They're a decently fine slate but nothing to write home about. For the price, definitely a good piece of rock. Certainly better than Cnats in my experience.

And Dragons tongues were selling for $20 new and boxed in that same size from a couple online stores (not eBay) a couple years back as well. Several people tried them and most shrugged them off as a slow razor stone where there was no reason to use a slow stone (4-7k). If you dig, you'll find a bunch of threads about them.

I really don't know where the demand for these stones from shavers (outside of the Llyn Idwal, which actually are a bit hard to find vintage) suddenly came from. Someone's good at manipulating the conversation on shaving forums perhaps.

The demand came from something called HAD... hone acquiring disorder. lol

[SliceOfLife]

I mean it's a bit odd. When I was testing out the Yellow Lakes, I'd mention them and get "ehh, slate." responses. There was no discussion of Cutlers greens years ago. No one cared. They're not a razor stone was the attitude, why worry. Now Yellow lakes and Llyn Idwals are the hot thing right when someone starts listing massive amounts on eBay. Also, right as people are starting to flood eBay with Llyn Idwals, often times with "Is this the Legendary Cutlers Green!!?!!?!??" in the description, I find fairly recent threads of people on another forum where people are gnashing their teeth over how exciting the prospect of getting a cutlers green is. Seems like a very good marketing strategy in play. Reminds me of awhile back when suddenly another forum had a half dozen OMG Frictionite 00! I NEED ONE OMG OMG OMG! threads, then a cache of 20+ 00's (what good timing) started appearing on eBay from one seller.

By contrast. When 330mate started selling his random small hones I remember it being a bunch of cautions, a very few people who had experience with 330mate giving opinions, and gradually a few other people taking a risk hesitantly usually against the guidance of others. Similar level of investment, completely different attitude seen on forums. It seems manipulated.


Edit: What I'm seeing is more of an "other forum" thing. This forum is less concerned about hones as a whole, and seems a lot more metered and delayed in the reactions to them. But googling these stones brings up a lot of other forum threads that are puzzling in the way I describe. There are a few guys posting reasonably (A neil Miller post I saw somewhere comes to mind). But overall it's just way more talk than you'd expect particularly around straight razors. I don't see any knife or tool forums getting interested in these stones, but razors, they've become one of the most talked about stones.

[Danricgro]

Or perhaps people bought them and they work so now they are talking about them. Doesn't seem strange to me.

[SliceOfLife]

Lots of stones work. There are guys leveling stones they dug out of their backyards and they work. LM's stones weren't unavailable. They weren't even hard to get. They came up more often on eBay than Thuringians (and as mentioned far, far cheaper). Assuming the current stone is the same quality as the vintage stuff, it's a decent finishing stone at a good price. But it was a decent finishing stone at a good price two years ago as well. Apparently then it just wasn't good enough that it became a stone people recommended alongside Coticules or Jnats or Eschers or Film or Pastes or what have you. Suddenly becoming available from a handful of sellers thus making it a profitable stone coincided with it becoming a regularly spoken of and recommended stone.

[Kavik79]

I don't know that it's all that new, all that sudden or all that strange. I was first looking into buying these stones based on forum discussions almost a year ago, from the same seller that I just finally bought them from a month ago.