Thread: This will keep me busy!!!!!

the phig you got is the type sold over here by woodcraft, and I believe they originate from woodwell tool. I've had a half a dozen phigs, some from poland, some from china, some from woodcraft. They vary. The ones from woodwell seem to be the most consistent and don't self slurry. The ones I got from poland self slurry and are overhard and chalky feeling, respectively. The overhard stone can be used, and it may be feel and not overhardness, but the soft stone will never be a good finisher as it's the nature of the stones.

You should find that stone with a semi dry slurry to be something similar to a 6k synthetic stone, but the edge quality is different (calmer) on a tool - less bitey because of the slurry dulling vs. deeply grooved apex, and with a light touch with very dilute slurry, it should give an edge that's hair shaving on both sides of the bevel without the need for stropping (very fine). It's a touch stone, I'd say - what it does has a lot to do with how you use it whereas a synthetic stone with abrasive far harder than the steel (and harder than most common carbides) just kind of does the same thing slurry or not.

The "sungari" stone sounds like dense fine silica. It should also have a wide range, and if slurried will probably cut steel harder than 62, but slower quickly. Arkansas stones have abrasive that's presumably the same or similar hardness, but the matrix allows them to cut more effectively (they can be fairly aggressive when slurried and cut steel harder than one would guess). Now is the best time probably in a long time to come up with a sedimentary fine stone as people in europe, USA or Russia will buy and try anything (especially knife and razor enthusiasts). There are a lot of beginners and forum fans who think that they're going to find a magic stone that cuts finer than oxide pigments (there isn't any such stone, but that doesn't keep people from looking). Particles stop around 3 microns in natural stones, and then getting a finer finish is more or less matching steel hardness against the stone (and the stone condition - surface worn, fresh or slurried) and adjusting pressure.

Hi Bernard,

Nice work on the frame saws and planes. They look great. What website did you find the frame saw parts on?

Cheers
Lyndon

After that long post above, I should probably clarify that the polish PHIG stones aren't mined in poland, they're just sold by a few people in poland who sell shaving-related stuff. I'm sure there are other sellers now - that was just who sold the stones at the time (direct from china, woodcraft here in the states -or anyone distributing woodwell tool stuff, or razors.pl and another seller - who sold on ebay at the time and probably off of their own web store).

When you get a whole bunch of stones and don't rely on a particular stone for something specific, then when you get a soft one like I had, you can just use an old coping saw blade or a mostly spent hacksaw blade and cut the stone into nagura (which you always want to be a step or two softer than the base stone so that they release particles easily).

So, it wasn't a total waste. But that's the nature of a lot of natural stones other than very few (translucent arkansas are one that will almost always be the same if they pass light easily, and black stones from dan's will generally be superb, but outside of that.....), you kind of get the stone and then determine how it wants to be used vs. determining what you want to do and then relying on the stone to be exactly that.

Hey Lyndon,

Thank you! It was not from a website. It was from a bloke in China that I met through Wechat. It was a pain to ship + pay the bloke. Had to pull do some jumping and get friends in China to help.

I'll probably get some more in eventually

Regards,

Bernard

Thank DW for your input!! I love it. Learning so much!!