What's your dream honing setup?

[MileMarker60]

That big LPB is sweet ! I've swore to never sell another LPB if one comes back to me...lol
Took me until this week to fine a nice replacement...lol. It's not a LPB but a nice velvety vintage stone 8.5" x 2.75"

Now to the OP.
I'll leave out bevel cutters as they're a dime a dozen.
I'll take a big (at least 8" long)
1) fast cutting coticule, not to hard, not to soft with a velvety feel.
2) Very fine, fast cutting jnat, not to hard, not to soft
3) y/g or b/g thuri, just change thing up.

 

[danjared]

Love the yellow brick up front.

Yes, it's certainly something special. That La Veinette is one I'd never sell since Bart and Maurice picked it out.

 

[paco664]

is that a "ultimate coticule"???

70% +++ garnet content??

 

[danjared]

That big LPB is sweet ! I've swore to never sell another LPB if one comes back to me...lol
Took me until this week to fine a nice replacement...lol. It's not a LPB but a nice velvety vintage stone 8.5" x 2.75"

Well, if you're really missing it, I'm sure we might be able to work something out if it involves some of your steel.

Now to the OP.
I'll leave out bevel cutters as they're a dime a dozen.

I don't know. Some of the Cretans seem pretty special to me. As far as the Thuringer, I actually got bored with them after a while. I do use a Japanese awasedo on occasion to mix things up, but, in my opinion, they don't have the special feel and finickiness that coticules have.

 

[danjared]

is that a "ultimate coticule"???

70% +++ garnet content??

110% garnet here!

 

[honed]

I all ready have the dream set-up, but I'll PIF to someone else once it gets here


I sharpen stuff for hours every day & I sharpen almost everything that you can put an edge on.
95% of the time I use 4 stones.

Shapton Pro 1.5K, 5K, 8K & 15K

So there is the Right answer to your question. You are welcome.

 

[casus4844]

I'm almost there......

Bevel setter : Chosera 1k ( had a king but the water soaking part turned me off)

JNAT ( Ozuka Asagi Koppa) and a full nagura set Botan, Mejiro, Tenjou and Koma

Currently shopping for a coticule at least 60mm wide... max 75mm... off to the coticule stores and BST

 

[strawinski]

Naniwa SS 400, 1k 3k, 5k, 8k, 10k, 8 Escher, Nakayama Kita Maruka....

 

[Alum of Potash]

Knives and razors: Washita, soft/med Ark, hard Ark, translucent Ark. All of them measuring 2-1/2" x 10" x 1-5/8", preferably "vintage," and perfectly lapped in advance on all six faces (which is to say that of each of the three different face dimensions as given, one side should be lapped to a significantly finer degree than the other, corresponding face, with the lapping progression becoming respectively finer and finer in accordance with each of the stones).

Thanks ouch, as always, for your generosity. Once the stones are ready, please PM me, so that I can give you my proper delivery address (I do move from castle to castle, as you know). And should you have any question on the lapping progression involved, I'll be happy to make some suggestions here, the only caveat being that I insist upon almost industrial-like precision.

 

[paco664]

Naniwa SS 400, 1k 3k, 5k, 8k, 10k, 8 Escher, Nakayama Kita Maruka....

thats more than 4....

just sayin...

 

[SliceOfLife]

He can get the 1/5 and 3/8 combo's but I think it's still 6.

 

[honed]

... and they should be able to handle knives as well as razors.

I'd love to hear a little on just how you guys with the coticules, the J-nats & the superstones are planning on handling anything besides carbon steel & soft German cutlery.
M390, S30v, ZDP-189 or just simple 'ol D2 are all steels I've sharpened over the last week. I donät think you could even put a scratch in any of them using a natural

 

[danjared]

I'd love to hear a little on just how you guys with the coticules, the J-nats & the superstones are planning on handling anything besides carbon steel & soft German cutlery.
M390, S30v, ZDP-189 or just simple 'ol D2 are all steels I've sharpened over the last week. I donät think you could even put a scratch in any of them using a natural

For sharpening my Spyderco Caly 3 (ZDP-189), I use a Shapton GS 1000 followed by a coticule (and just a coticule for touchups). The coticule removes up the scratches without a problem.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I'd love to hear a little on just how you guys with the coticules, the J-nats & the superstones are planning on handling anything besides carbon steel & soft German cutlery.
M390, S30v, ZDP-189 or just simple 'ol D2 are all steels I've sharpened over the last week. I donät think you could even put a scratch in any of them using a natural

Huh? My Watanabe is "63-65 HRC" and I've not found a stone that has any problems with it. Maybe ceramics? They fall between quartz and corundum... so maybe some natural stones would have trouble with them (they may be slightly harder than Spessartine garnets I think)? I think most people hone them on diamond, but I'm not sure (never used one myself)


Some unofficial conversions I'm finding put 7 mohs (quartz) at >69HRC... which is where the HRC scale apparently becomes meaningless... so I doubt you'll find Steel that quartz stones can't cut, and I don't know what stones use a weaker abrasive than quartz.

 

[Legion]

I'd love to hear a little on just how you guys with the coticules, the J-nats & the superstones are planning on handling anything besides carbon steel & soft German cutlery.
M390, S30v, ZDP-189 or just simple 'ol D2 are all steels I've sharpened over the last week. I donät think you could even put a scratch in any of them using a natural

I only hone carbon steel. Anything else is Mojo deficient.

 

[gary haywood]

i never had a dream hone set up.. I always liked the idea of a ore simple set up .. so thats when i studied the coticules and just loved them for some reason.. this is my choice and what i generaly use nower days ... First up for serious bevel work i would use 1k C or my natural creatan hone that works very well.. my 150x40 std la vainette that is just an amazing coticule and never lets me down... lastly i have a 4x2 bbw combo coticule which is vintage type... i kep that in the bathroom and use it for touch ups every 7 shaves .. thats the hone i purchased from Scott.. thats it for me .. I always wanted an escher and a j nat which i guess are every one s dream hones... tryed them also and sold them on ..

 

[honed]

For sharpening my Spyderco Caly 3 (ZDP-189), I use a Shapton GS 1000 followed by a coticule (and just a coticule for touchups). The coticule removes up the scratches without a problem.

Interesting! Never tried ZDP on anything then synthetics to be honest. Might have soemthing to do with that while it is superhard, it's not that abrasion resistant, atleast not compared to S30v & the likes.
I must try that myself!

Huh? My Watanabe is "63-65 HRC" and I've not found a stone that has any problems with it. Maybe ceramics? They fall between quartz and corundum... so maybe some natural stones would have trouble with them (they may be slightly harder than Spessartine garnets I think)? I think most people hone them on diamond, but I'm not sure (never used one myself)


Some unofficial conversions I'm finding put 7 mohs (quartz) at >69HRC... which is where the HRC scale apparently becomes meaningless... so I doubt you'll find Steel that quartz stones can't cut, and I don't know what stones use a weaker abrasive than quartz.

Hardness has very little to do with it. It is the steel composition. For example S30v & it's big brother S90v is often tempered to less then 60 HRC.
The problem for naturals is the big volume of vanadium and/or chromium carbides in those high-alloy steels. The simply can't cut it.
But a blue steel blade at +63 can be done on naturals. Because it is a very simple steel, carbon with a small percentage of other stuff. No chromium or vanadium or tungsten or any of those things causing a
very abrasion resistant steel.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I'm not sure I follow you.

Moh's scale measures the ability of one object to scratch another, that's abrasion. Are you saying the harder metals in hard steels exist in uninterrupted homogenous groupings large enough that it interferes with honing with abrasives harder than the steel but softer than the heavy metals themselves? Wouldn't that just make it crappy steel?


In other words, if there's a large gap between what hardness is required to scratch the steel and what hardness is required to cut the steel cleanly, this translates to over-brittle steel, which as far as I know is bad.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX-SAZsC6yc

I don't know pocket knives, but this guy finishes his ZDP knife on an arkansas.

 

[honed]

I'm not sure I follow you.

Moh's scale measures the ability of one object to scratch another, that's abrasion. Are you saying the harder metals in hard steels exist in uninterrupted homogenous groupings large enough that it interferes with honing with abrasives harder than the steel but softer than the heavy metals themselves? Wouldn't that just make it crappy steel?


In other words, if there's a large gap between what hardness is required to scratch the steel and what hardness is required to cut the steel cleanly, this translates to over-brittle steel, which as far as I know is bad.

I don't have enough metalurgical knowledge to expalin it better I'm afraid, especially not in my second language.

What I do know is that cutting a new bevel on a 1095 steel (high-carbon, simple steel very similar to that used in razors) knife versus doing so on a blade of the same shape & grind in for example S30v takes at least 3-4 times as long. And they are the same hardness, say 59 HRC.

Yes, some steels form huge carbides, like D2 for example. But if the composition is right the "Matrix" will hold those carbides together.
440C is another steel with huge carbides, sometimes up to 100µ in size.
However, 440C is very easy to abrade, probably no problem on a natural.

This is very complex & I'm afraid I don't have all the technical details, but I am very certain of how it works in reality..

 

[SliceOfLife]

"What I do know is that cutting a new bevel on a 1095 steel (high-carbon, simple steel very similar to that used in razors) knife versus doing so on a blade of the same shape & grind in for example S30v takes at least 3-4 times as long."

You have that reversed. I think you meant to say the S30V takes 3-4x as long.


That's interesting, but I don't know enough about the steels you speak of to really discuss it. I'll say that since I don't use any of the steels you mention as being particularly challenging to abrade, then my list of hones works on the knives it needs to work on.