Thread: Slurry Dulling

Originally Posted by 32t

In your thoughts the edge reaches a plateau and remains there. I see your point. But then why is this called dulling?

Because of this:

Originally Posted by Razorfaust

The slurry acts on the blade in many ways you have abrasion happening at the the bevel where the stone contacts the steel, or more accurately rides above it on little garnets lets say. You also have garnets bashing the front end of the edge. Steel is being removed from bevel face and making the blade sharper and the stuff hitting the front also is dulling it, at some point an equilibrium of the two forces happens when the edge gets fine enough the garnets hitting the front wont allow any more refinement of the apex. You need to get rid of the garnets swimming around in front of the blade to make any more progress or your just sand blasting the edge. So dilution or even no slurry at all will in fact get you further at this point removing that negative effect on the blade edge. From this point bevel steel removal refines the apex with no more slurry garnets dulling the edge back down. That's finishing the razor otherwise your just spinning your (garnets) wheels

In short, coticule slurry does three things: it abrades steel, it deteriorates the edge and does not break down. Because it does not break down, it will reach what Razorfaust calls the equilibrium of damage done to the edge VS the level of abrasion. By diluting you reduce both the abrasive speed, but also the amount of damage done to the edge, allowing for a keener result.

Deteriorating sharpness is effectively dulling. Hence slurry dulling. It's quite simple.