It's been a really long time since I've done a honing post. But I figured why not document the honing session I just did. I started with my Naniwa Professional 600 grit then I followed up with my entire synthetic stone collection before heading over to my natural stones:
After the 600 grit I went with my Suehiro 1/3K combo stone which does a phenomenal job. After that I went with my Norton 8K then my Shapton 12K. It took a while but it was totally worth it:
After I got done with my Shapton 12K, I went with my Apache Strata then using my friend Dr. Matt Robins technique, I went with my ILR water stone after I did "X" strokes. Got the tip of my thumb on the 2nd session with the ILR using Dr. Matt's under running water technique:
Next I finished it off with my Shoubandini Type 100 Japanese natural water stone which should put the black diamond straight razor over the top. I barely got the tip of my thumb and it drew blood so I'm more than certain that it's definitely shave ready:
After that I did 10 round trips on my fire hose strop from Keith Johnson's shop TomoNagura over on Etsy. followed by 5 round trips on the scrub leather & 10 round trips on the smooth leather side of my strop. I also did this between each stone so it should be stupid sharp & extremely comfortable. Or at least I hope it will. Once I get back into honing & straight razors, I'll be looking at the Shapton glass stones. While I do love the Japanese natural water stones along with my Apache Strata, I have no idea what the grit is and in my humble opinion, using the "K grit" system is useless with natural stones period. One little drop of water can completely change the slurry along with the results and natural stones are never the same even if they're mined from the same quarry. My Shoubandini type 100 won't be the same as someone elses. That's just how natural stones are period. So my next shave should be very interesting which is a good thing.
