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Honing on Wet & Dry… Oh no…
Honing on Wet & Dry… Oh no…
Recently, in a honing thread, it was asked, if 1k wet & dry could be used in place of a 1k stone and there was a reply, that doing so could ruin a razor.
Now, I have honed on wet & dry, though admittedly it was years ago, when I first began experimenting with lapping film. And as I recall, it worked fine and not one razor was ruined.
So, I had some beaters, that came in a collection, I recently purchased and thought, I would try honing on 1k paper again.
For the test I used a half hollow, Henckel 91, that I had cleaned up on the buffers with 600 greaseless, and Green and Pink rouge. The edge was a bit rough but no, large chips, the edge was fairly straight. I put 2 layers of tape on the spine.
I used 3M, 1,000 grit, wet and dry, and cut a piece to size, of a glass plate. I used just water, to stick the paper to the plate. I held it, to the paper for the first few laps, it then stuck to the plate well, curling a bit at the edge.
The feel was much like a Norton 1k, maybe a bit grittier. After 10 laps the bevel was meeting in the middle, with a nice even stria pattern and a straight edge. It was easily tree topping arm hair, but the heel and toe need some more work.
I jointed the edge on the corner of a 1k Chosera and did 10 more heel forward, X laps, to hone the heel and toe. After a total of 20 laps, (10 more) the bevel was completely set and cutting hair from heel to toe, with a nice, straight edge. The Wet and Dry, is much more aggressive than a stone, but not so aggressive that it burned through the first layer of tape.
I did about 6, more straight laps to lay down a straight, edge to spine stria pattern.
I then marked the mid-point of the razor with green sharpie and honed the toe end of the razor 20 more laps, and looked at the stria pattern with 100X magnification.
The stria pattern on both ends, looked almost identical, if anything, the Wet & Dry end looked a bit more uniform than the Chosera.
I then, honed the razor normally, and after about 20 laps on a Naniwia 2k the entire bevel looked identical from heel to toe. The rest of the honing went without incident and honed easily and well, finished on a 20kSG and stropped on .50 CBN.
The razor shaved nicely, just like an old Henckles should.
The bottom line is 1k Wet & Dry, can easily be used in place of a 1k, it is actually more aggressive, than a Chosera, but the edge was as straight as a Chosera edge. Wet & Dry might be good for repair work. I have found similar aggressive results with film and with the same even stria pattern, probably because the grit is more even on paper and you don’t have to deal with the binder.
The down side is the paper wants to curl, so you do have to be careful with your stroke, but you can do any stroke, to not tear the paper, that you would do, with any 1k stone.
The grit rating, (Stone vs Paper) is not an issue, as the stria pattern was almost identical to the Chosera. See if you can tell which photos are from the Chosera and which are from the Wet and Dry.
So, when you see guys make statements, that just don’t make sense, don’t take their word, try it yourself and see what happens. In this case, 1k is 1k, and if you had a 4/8 or 3/8k stone and were maintaining a handful of razors, you could easily use Wet & Dry, to set a bevel and even do minor edge repair work, use the 4/8k for the heavy lifting, and put off buying a 1k stone.
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