Thread: dry honing

Let me preface this by stating I'm the newbiest of newbies. I only joined a few days ago and I'm still shopping for my first razor. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt I suppose.

Utopian mentioned the Spyderco brand and I have a triangle sharpmaker for my knives. It works great. The video it came with also demonstrates how to hone a straighte edge razor by laying the two triangle stones side-by-side on the holder such that the flat sides are up. I assume this will work. Has anyone tried this.

Perhaps I will start a new thread on this.

Dave

Originally Posted by patchmonkey

Let me preface this by stating I'm the newbiest of newbies. I only joined a few days ago and I'm still shopping for my first razor. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt I suppose.

Utopian mentioned the Spyderco brand and I have a triangle sharpmaker for my knives. It works great. The video it came with also demonstrates how to hone a straighte edge razor by laying the two triangle stones side-by-side on the holder such that the flat sides are up. I assume this will work. Has anyone tried this.

Perhaps I will start a new thread on this.

Dave

Bump.....I curious about this as well as I have the knife sharpener as well.

BJ

The only hones that I have heard of being used dry were the natural Belgium hones. Actually, I think Elbonator used to do this with the Belgiums. I have tried it a couple of times, but have been much more comfortable using all my hones with water. I have gotten away from any kind of slurry and the water is working from the coarse stones for bevel setting to the honing stones like the Norton or Shapton and then on the Escher or Nakayama for finishing. I have also tried shaving lather on the little barber hones and that actually worked OK. I tried them dry as well and didn't care much for the results.

Have fun,

Lynn

I prefer lather to water on the barber hones because it overcomes the tendency of water to just bead up and get pushed off of the non-porous hones.

Originally Posted by patchmonkey

Utopian mentioned the Spyderco brand and I have a triangle sharpmaker for my knives. It works great. The video it came with also demonstrates how to hone a straighte edge razor by laying the two triangle stones side-by-side on the holder such that the flat sides are up. I assume this will work. Has anyone tried this.

Dave

Originally Posted by BJC

Bump.....I curious about this as well as I have the knife sharpener as well.

BJ

Yes, the Spyderco Sharpmaker is theoretically capable of honing a razor. However, I think there are a lot of other nuances in honing a razor that makes the Sharpmaker less effective for a newbie.

The stones' width, even together, is quite narrow. This can cause issues with maintaining the unifrom, flat contact necessary for razor honing. The stones can move a little within the grooves on the underside of the sharpmaker's base. Speaking of the base, it will extend out past the stones, and there is not much clearance between the stones' top surface, and the base cradling the stones. You have to be careful that it doesn't roll over onto the curved sides of the coverwhen the base is inverted. The stones may also not be completely flat on each of the three planes of the triangle shape.

Now, what this means is that there may be some hurdles for someone trying to use the Sharpmaker as their razor honing system. Given enough perseverence, and honing experience to address some of the pitfalls listed above, an individual could use the Sharpmaker for honing their stock of razors. I think, though, there are easier products and methods to achieve good results.

Just to be clear for the sake of the original inquiry, Spyderco makes a set of regular ceramic hones that work fine for razors. They have nothing to do with the Sharpmaker system described above. They are plain old rectangular hones. They have the advantage of being extremely flat and should not need lapping for years, if ever. You can see them HERE.

Another option for dry honing would be the DMT hones. I have an E, an EE and then finish on a Spyderco UF and CromOx on a Tony Miller paddle. This works well and no water is involved.