My new natural stone

Eric
I honed a second razor on your stone today, took photos and made a video as I went along. I am posting the video now and the photos later tonight.
To begin with I am totally impressed with this stone and I hope some other fellows will have a chance to use one of these glacial finds. Have you named them yet, I just called it a gray one that looked sort of black. After the honing session I went right in and took a shave, full face and under the schnozzola too, everything nice and comfortable and with a single pass it was close enough, a second would have totaled the job. This is a go-to stone for sure, passed HHT4 & 5's without a lot of effort. With some regularity of use a fellow could dial in this stone, as you probably have alread, and could live with just this one stone. Photos will follow.

Alex

Hi Alex, haven't really named it yet. I really really like the shaves from this stone though, this is the grey slate I posted about a few times in this thread. The edges from this stone are among the best I've ever tried in terms of the total package - that is keenness/closeness and comfort. I do believe it is better than my Celebrated Water Hone Thuringian. I have done a lot of testing and trial and error work with this stone because I like it so much - it can do super-comfortable edges or super-keen ones too. If you dilute the slurry down to straight water it gets very very sharp but still stays fairly comfortable. Very much so considering the keenness. The feedback on straight water is kind of neat too - it has quite a lot of almost draw until the edge is finished, then it slicks up a lot. Almost like a built-in notification, heh. I purposely kept quiet about any methods or procedures so I could get your unadulterated report. I'm extremely happy to see that you like it! I hope you enjoy it and get some use from it - it will be outnumbered heavily by all the JNats, lol.

I plan on PIF'ing one of these soon to repay the kindness and generosity from fellow members that I have received as well.

Great video as usual Alex. Seems like a real nice stone!!!

Absolutely great thread. Thanks to everyone.

Cheers, Steve

Eric
Here are the photo taken during the video. I will hone up another razor and do the water strokes when I can, and will post the results.

Alex

Nice, thank you Alex!

I have been using the stone with great results! I was getting HHT results in the 2-3 range off the stone. Post stropping was easy 5's.

I also really enjoy the feedback it has a nice silky feel. I'm excited to own my own sample.

Awesome, I knew you guys would like this one, lol. I wish I could find where it came from originally, these are plenty good enough to compete with the established stones.

eKretz said:

Awesome, I knew you guys would like this one, lol. I wish I could find where it came from originally, these are plenty good enough to compete with the established stones.

Click to expand...

Eric dont tell me you cant remember the location ;-)

No no Sebastian, you misunderstand, lol. Almost all the stones I find are "travelers," brought here by glaciers who knows how long ago. I only get what I can find, and sometimes there aren't very many of a given type of stone. If I could find the source of the stone I could get plenty enough for everybody. I think I only have a few slabs of this slate about 10" x 15" or something like that, but I haven't gone digging in that location lately to see if I can find any more. In any case I am sure there won't be as much as I would like there to be!

eKretz said:

No no Sebastian, you misunderstand, lol. Almost all the stones I find are "travelers," brought here by glaciers who knows how long ago. I only get what I can find, and sometimes there aren't very many of a given type of stone. If I could find the source of the stone I could get plenty enough for everybody. I think I only have a few slabs of this slate about 10" x 15" or something like that, but I haven't gone digging in that location lately to see if I can find any more. In any case I am sure there won't be as much as I would like there to be!

Click to expand...

I thought something like this Eric, thats why i put that ""
Into the text. But great that you explained it a bit more detailled how you come around searching for the stones! Thankx

Hey Alex, I forgot to ask earlier - the hair in your photo - is it head hair or beard hair? It looks awful big in that photo if it's from someone's head. I checked my scope with a calibration and at what is supposed to be 150x on my scope a hair from my head looks much less than half that size, but a beard hair is closer to being about half that size. The one I posted some time ago was from my head. I think your photos are higher than 315x maybe.

Edit: I measure that hair from your photo at ~80mm on my screen and if it's a head hair that would put it at close to 1300x. If a beard hair, close to 530x.

Here's a beard hair vs. a head hair, to give others an idea of the significant difference, lol. Measuring my laptop screen, the magnification on this photo is 120x or so if you're running 1600 x 900 resolution on a 15.5" diagonal monitor (the photo width would be about 8.5" on your screen if you are at this mag level).

Edit: Nice! I get 370x on my plasma through HDMI, lol!

I also tried a quickie test with the grey slate tonight that I hadn't tried before out of curiosity. Set a razor bevel on a Shapton 1k then went straight to a tomo slurry on the grey slate stone. Did about 5 laps of small circles for the full length of the stone then washed off and raised another lighter tomo slurry. Did a couple more circle laps, then switched to a couple minutes of half strokes and finished off with 10 laps of x-strokes. About 5 minutes all told. A look through a 10x loupe showed that the 1k scratches were long gone, and a quick test shave gave an A+ shave yet again. Looks like this stone can indeed easily and quickly take a razor to finished straight from bevel set no problem.

Oh, forgot to throw my measly scope shots in too.

Built-in Ring Light


Scratch Light


Raking Light


Edge Lit/Focused

I finally got around to lapping the light colored stone from near the beginning of the thread that Eric named eNat. I was honing up one of my razors and as I was going through my Naniwa progression I was using the eNat a little just to get a feel for the stones cutting ability. From what I was seeing in the scope the stone was cutting much better than how it felt which was just a smooth creamy feel. I didn't read any of this thread and just followed an 8k Naniwa SP with the eNat on straight water. I did not count laps, but it seemed in the 40 range. Got a very nice sharp and natural feeling edge and a great shave.

is that the new thuringian , but a cheap one . I cincerely houp it is .

The eNat was nothing like a slate IMO. Since these are found rocks and not quarried, I think there would be no way to produce them economically in any quantity.

bluesman 7 said:

The eNat was nothing like a slate IMO. Since these are found rocks and not quarried, I think there would be no way to produce them economically in any quantity.

Click to expand...

These eNat stones could considered one of the rarer breeds of razor hone culture considering their source and how apparently difficult they are to find. If Eric followed the glacial path from whence they originated he might find a whole mountain of this stone. The only problem would be he might have to incorporate his mine under a Canadian charter. I still use the hone I got from him, it is grit rich and the grit is crispy and really sharp, hard too so a hone like this can last a lifetime.

Alex
aka alx

Finally got a chance to use the internet! I still use my eNats all the time, and the Kuro slate (this is the one Alex has and mentions above) is one of my favorite stones. I still have a few of each remaining after quite a lot of trades and such, but haven't had a chance to get out and look for more in a while. They definitely are hard to find, and are not ever going to be offered in huge quantities by someone like me who hunts them a few at a time. BTW, I am pretty sure the eNat stone is a quartzite. The edge is very dependent on stone finish with that one.

I have been finding of late that the best edges I get are obtained by matching specific razors to specific stones. Some razors the eNat gives a better edge, some razors the Kuro, some a JNat, some a Thuri, etc. etc. The Kuro really does a killer job on harder steel in my experience. Still good on softer stuff, but not quite as good as on the harder steels/razors.