Thread: OLD hones scored :)

If the mystery stone is an Arkansas stone, kerosene does a great job of floating out the steel particles.
I cleaned mine with kerosene and a stiff synthetic fiber brush and I was amazed at how much steel came off on the tissue paper I wiped over the scrubed surface.
Don

All sharpening stones should be lubricated while in use, so the pores can float off and not clog the pores of the stone. Special honing oil is available, but kerosene works very well as a lubricant. In an emergency, even water may be used as a lubricant. If a stone cuts too rapidly, it can be tempered by soaking it in a pan of hot petroleum jelly, filling the pores of the stone with a thick lubricant. If the pores have been filled due to improper lubrication, clean your stone by soaking it in kerosene, then wash off the surface with a brush soaked in kerosene. This technique can even be used to reclaim almost worthless old stones that most people would consider useless or have already discarded!

Others already identified them - I'd just like to congratulate on this great haul! Bonus points for taking good care of something dear from relatives!

Whoot just remembered that I was waiting to get a narrow finishing hone to get this one shave ready. I was able to get it clost with my 3" hones. The 3" hone was to wide to get into the uneven contures of this bad boy... plus the 3 others I have laying around with heavy smiles

Well today I put my regular hones aside, Shapton glass, and got out the natural stones to hone with. I started with the Japanese one I got a while ago and determined that it's around 5k ish. I began like I do with the bigger stones, on the table, and soon realized I had a real problem keeping the razor consistantly flowing in the "X" patern. I seemed to always pull the edge up or down off the sides of the hone. This was getting on my nerves because I never had trouble on the big hones. I took a break for a few and plugged in Lynn's DVD to have some background "fluff" going on. Soon as I saw him using the small hone in hand it hit me. It's the only way to keep the hone in constant contact with the edge!! As the slight pressure changes happened with moving the edge across the stone, the stone was allowed to rock slightly to that presure. WHOOT, so back to the hones to give that a shot. Now the Japanese hone is around 8" long it was easy to just knock out a few laps and check the edge. While I was using the Japanese hone I got the faint smell of "creek", a kind of moss scent, triggered many memories Anyway I was checking the scratch pattern to see what was going on. Nice and even, sweet off to the Belguin/Coticule combo. The BB felt nice but nerve racking, thats a small hone and my thumb don't bend that way without protest, going to have to do stretches and such before I do that again. The BB scratch pattern didn't seem much different than the Japanese hone and made a mental note to really look into that someday. Again on the hand this worked SO much better that I didn't even try it on the table.

After the BB I flipped it and tried the Coticule out. I may have to lap it again, cause it seems slippery in spots. A flat edge tells me it's flat so it may be the make up of the stone itself. I can see why people love these hones. They feel great to use, I would not hesitate to get another if it broke up. After the Coticule I went to the HA leather pad with cro2 and did a few laps.

Looking at the edge at 20x showed an edge that was not as super smooth as I got off the Norton 8k and cro2 leather. I thought I was missing something, this couldn't be rougher than an 8k norton... But the edge was very even and crisp looking. So I figured Ok lets give it a shot.



Wow what a feeling, SUPER SMOOTH!! even though it looked rougher it cut way smoother... ya messes with my head to... and I'm not going to knock it...

Anyhow that was my first use of my grandfathers hone, next I'mm get out his razor and hone it on his stone and have a shave on his B-Day