Thread: For Crying Out Loud

I am still working with my one natural: which I believe is a Welsh Slate. This rock has produced a very nice edge and there is something righteous about rock and steel. Yesterday I was touching up a razor and I felt a weird scratching as the razor passed over the surface. Not being able to identify it, I kept going...
I felt it again, and again, and I stopped. I felt the hone with my finger and felt a speck that didn't really belong there. I looked at the bevel and saw an aberration in the stria, a scratch.
I cleaned the Smiths from the hone and ran a piece of 800 wet/dry over the surface and everything seemed Jake.
Does anyone know what may have happened?
Thanks

Someone at the factory screwed up and let a stray bit of something foreign into your otherwise relatively homogenous piece of rock. Blame a deity, or mother nature, or a dinosaur's ancestor. When you notice something like that, you just have to clear it off and continue on and chalk it up as a learning experience.

I've had the same happen with just about every hone I have - synthetics included. Some days it really drives me up a wall. I've learned to stop and clear the hone if I feel anything snag the blade. Could be some random bit of who knows what lodged in the rock millions of years ago, could just be a piece of trash missed in prep.

Be sure to wash/rinse hones off before use, it is surprising how small a piece of dust or lint can be felt. And if you overlooked that little piece of hair from the HHT that stuck to the blade via static, that feels like honing with a boulder on the hone.

As far as natural inclusions go, sometimes you just have to deal with them. It isn't unusual to have to 'pick' one on a jnat now and then.

Cheers, Steve

I've had that with just about every stone I've had, something gets embedded in there or something works it's way out. You can usually feel that when honing, when I do I give it a few passes with a DMT and problem solved

I don't use naturals but I have had similar incidents with synthetics. I chalked it up to dirty hones. I started giving my stones a good rub down under running water before use and it hasn't happened again.

The key is to stop and deal with it as soon as you notice it. I hone over a cafeteria tray, so I can be liberal with water on the hones. If I notice anything odd, I stop honing, tilt the hone lengthwise, and squirt water so that it washes off the surface from one end to the other. If that does not clear it, then I wipe my hand across the hone a few times. One of those almost always solves the promlem but if it does not then its time for a diamond plate.

The only thing I could add/ask, is if the hone has had it's edges carefully chamfered? It is possible for the razors stabilizer or tang to knock off a flake from the hone's edge. Even chamfered,it is still the most likely place on a hone to release a tiny particle and introduce it under the blade. I have read of instances of a flake being pulled up from the suction effect on a ultra smooth hone and bevel, but have not experienced it personally.

WW243,
The problem with your Welsh Slate might come back.
If you dislodged the speck the problem is gone, but if you sanded off the tip of the offending speck, it will be become exposed again as the hone wears.
I have a 1000 grit King that has this problem. I have encountered several relatively large chunks imbedded in the hone that had to be dug out leaving a hole where the problem was each time.
I quit using the hone several years ago but recently ground off about an eighth of an inch from the surface and have used it on some cheap kitchen knives and it appears to be OK.

Originally Posted by Wirm

The only thing I could add/ask, is if the hone has had it's edges carefully chamfered? It is possible for the razors stabilizer or tang to knock off a flake from the hone's edge. Even chamfered,it is still the most likely place on a hone to release a tiny particle and introduce it under the blade. I have read of instances of a flake being pulled up from the suction effect on a ultra smooth hone and bevel, but have not experienced it personally.

You know, this brought up another minor issue with this hone which may have overlapped with this thread: the hone is 8" long and in the last 5/8's on one end there is some separating of the layers, very fine but in a couple of places this problem can be felt with a fingernail. I have just consciously stayed off the ends of the hone, which I do anyway but I am extra careful on this hone. Having said that, it is possible, but unlikely that I ran over one of these bad patches.
If this last 5/8's needs to be dealt with I can see two possibilities right now: lap the whole hone through the offending area (which does not seem to extend down the sides) or cut the last 5/8's off and have a slurry stone. And, the hone is chamfered.