cotedupy
Guru
Ah, this is very interesting! TBH a lot of what I said above was more in relation to knives than it was razors, though the same kind of principles should apply. Some of my old Turkish in particular seem a little bit too inconsistent for good razor finishing, but a couple would work well I think, so you've inspired me to give a proper whirl later. And your stone does certainly look very consistent, with none of the rougher lines running along the length, so is exactly the kind of Cretan I would have thought to be a good razor candidate. It really does look like a gem that stone .@cotedupy I need to eat my words....
I took the razor back to the stone for an extra 100 zero pressure passes and today I had a very close and comfortable shave.....and I think I can still improve it! (aren't novaculites slow?)
Big shout out to Oli, this stone will now come down from the shelf to live on the bench.
As you've noticed to get something like this to work well as a razor finisher, requires a bit of manipulation. Turkish/Cretan stones are actually incredibly fast for how fine they are, so you do need to try use them as slowly as possible to get them to finishing level. Super light passes, trying to burnish the surface a bit &c.
The same actually applies to stuff like translucent arks - if you rough the surface at 140 grit or something they'll cut amazingly quickly... for about 90 seconds. But if you take up to 800 and then burnish the surface with a knife or chisel, they effectively pretty much stop cutting metal, and work insanely finely and slowly.