Thread: Reasons I feel hones have to be sedimentary

This is a most interesting thread! Lots of good techie stuff here.

I do agree with Khoas that there are stones much better suited to razor honing than others and I also agree with those that say many different substances can be used. Way back when one of our guys tried using cocoa powder on paper and it worked as a final polisher but it did take a long time.

One characteristic of steel that has not been mentined here is its plasticity and how using a very smooth honing surface will affect the razors edge.
Now that I have opened up pandora's box............

This was my point all along. I guess by HAVE TO I was wrong. Sure you can swim across a lake. Or you could use a boat. One is much much slower and labour intensive, but will work. Or, its common thought here that razors have to be steel. In theory, you can take any of these solid minerals mentioned here and make a razor from them and get a sharper edge... but its not practical. It would be infinitely harder to make, harder to hone (cus you'd have to find something even harder than them), far more expensive, etc. So while you CAN make a jade hone, if you wanted to make 80 jade hones for everyday use, it would be VERY expensive, be hard to manufacture, and would take forever, when compared to sedimentary/metamorphic from sedimentary rocks which lap quickly, can use slurries, and cut quickly. This is probably why hones are abrasive bonded by something, as opposed to the old barber hones which are pure, solid SiC. Works well as a the texture it is given ("Shiny" hones make good finishers, because the smoother the surface, the shinier it is, while higher grits feel harsher in the tactile sense), but is a bitch to make, a bitch to lap, and the quality varies a lot. (Swaty vs. Swaty clones, all were SiC, but the way they were manufactured and the exact recipe etc changes them)
The US spent millions developing a pen with pressurized cartridges that could write in space, in zero g, upside down, etc. The Russians used pencil. Both work. One is more efficient (practical, cheaper, simpler...)

So here is my argument rephrased. A coticule cuts with garnets that are within a certain size range, giving it it's grit. Naniwas, Shaptons, Nortons, all have little pieces of grit that do the work, most of the stone is adhesive to hold that grit in stone form, like grit on a sand paper. The glue breaks down releasing more abrasive to cut.

The solid crystalline rocks that are harder than steel will do whatever finish they are given. For example, steel files. Lets say you made a file out of quartz. If you make the grooves large, it will remove lots of metal= coarse grit. if you make small grooves, it will remove less metal =finer grit. If you polish it, it will smooth/polish metal = finishing grit.

Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Because last time I checked if you lap a Norton 1k up to 325 its 1k, if you lap it up to 1k its still 1k, and if you lapped it with 2000 its still only 1k. If you lap a Norton 8k up to 325 its still an 8k, if you lap it up to 1k its still an 8k, and if you lap it up to 2000, its still an 8k. Because waterstones almost always are bonded abrasive, and the size and percentage of abbrasive determines grit, not smoothness. With something homogenous, single-crystaline and harder than steel, ie a textured surface, ie a jade jasper quartz etc hone, the finish on the surface determines the grit, like a series of steel files getting finer and finer.