Thread: Hone troubles

you should be able to feel if you are catching anything on the crack.

The abrasiveness of the stone should be the same on both sides.

A few things come to mind:

I can't be certain that the stone has even thickness in all directions. A lot of these don't. If it isn't sitting so the surface is level, it isn't easy to keep your stroke even. You may have to adjust the surface you have the hone on to compensate for unevenness and have the surface level. Or are you holding the hone in your hand.

It may be that you are putting uneven weight on the razor in your stroke. Are you using 2 hands? Also. keeping the hand I use to hold the tang elevated and out helped me even out the pressure I was putting on the razor.

Make sure you have lapped flat using the grid test in the wiki.

Originally Posted by mainaman

that is a 330mate stone, if its purchased from his ebay store then do not expect much.
If you are buying from his website then you might be able to find a good stone but you have to know what to look for. Also the guy is very unwilling to try to find you the right stone, so you might be better off with buying a stone from a reputable seller: Ols School, Alex etc.
Quality stones can be pretty expensive though.

P.S.
I just remembered I have seen a suggestion for a fix that might work for you.
As you suggested make a grove where the vein is and then fill with epoxy to be flush with the surface of the stone.

The epoxy sounds like a good idea to me. Will it wear down equal to the stone, or will the blade be cutting into it each stroke, I wonder. I was thinking of maybe filling it up with a real fine diamond paste or something like that but I dont know if it would completely contaminate the surface of my stone. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Pyment

you should be able to feel if you are catching anything on the crack.

The abrasiveness of the stone should be the same on both sides.

A few things come to mind:

I can't be certain that the stone has even thickness in all directions. A lot of these don't. If it isn't sitting so the surface is level, it isn't easy to keep your stroke even. You may have to adjust the surface you have the hone on to compensate for unevenness and have the surface level. Or are you holding the hone in your hand.

It may be that you are putting uneven weight on the razor in your stroke. Are you using 2 hands? Also. keeping the hand I use to hold the tang elevated and out helped me even out the pressure I was putting on the razor.

Make sure you have lapped flat using the grid test in the wiki.

It sits pretty flat but I have been putting it on a towel for better stability. The blade I started on (half hollow shoulderless) seems to have a little bend to the blade so I was using the swinging x-stroke, maybe I was starting off with more pressure than I was ending with, but the way the stone is wearing I am pretty sure the vein is harder than the stone. Thanks for the pointers.

Originally Posted by Jasongreat

The epoxy sounds like a good idea to me. Will it wear down equal to the stone, or will the blade be cutting into it each stroke, I wonder. I was thinking of maybe filling it up with a real fine diamond paste or something like that but I dont know if it would completely contaminate the surface of my stone. Thanks.

I think the epoxy and the stone surface should be leveled, and the razor will not catch. Diamond paste probably will not work because that will be essentially different grit that you will be running your razor on.

Originally Posted by mainaman

I think the epoxy and the stone surface should be leveled, and the razor will not catch. Diamond paste probably will not work because that will be essentially different grit that you will be running your razor on.

I will level it for sure, just ordered a dmt8xx, but my concern is that while I am honing and the stone is being removed little by little, will the epoxy be eaten away at a similar rate or will I shortly be getting a hump in the epoxy compared to the stone surface, requiring constant lapping? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Jasongreat

I will level it for sure, just ordered a dmt8xx, but my concern is that while I am honing and the stone is being removed little by little, will the epoxy be eaten away at a similar rate or will I shortly be getting a hump in the epoxy compared to the stone surface, requiring constant lapping? Thanks.

I am not sure how hard this stone is, mine is pretty hard and rarely requires lapping. Not sure about yours.

most epoxies are softer than stone and will wear faster so the epoxy shouldn't make you lap more often if that is what you are asking.

will it get gunk (technical term) on your razor? I don't know.

Originally Posted by Jasongreat

I have a couple problems with my hones and am in need of some advice.

First one is, I bought a barber hone(velvet edge) off of ebay and it looks like the previous owner used oil. It is my understanding that barber hones can be used with oil, water or lather so its not a huge problem. It is just that I was hoping to use the water or lather options.
.......................
Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Some lather can have a lot of "fat" in it so not to worry.
Consider using some common detergent when dressing it flat
prior to use. Then just try it with your favorite soaps lather and water.

There are lots of stronger options that you can resort to
but keep it simple

Jason

The kanji in the rectangle reads down SHO HON ZAN HON KAKU HIN meaning correct original mountain original source. And the other kanji reads YAMASHIRO.

To begin with Yamashiro is the old name from the Edo Period for the area west of Kyoto. This is just a poetic use of an old location to suggest or to give a flavor of the past. This area is now known as the Tamba region.

Sho Hon Zan Hon Kaku Hin is again just a way to suggest it is from the original source without really saying what that source is. Most mines still in business will stamp their stones with the name of the mine like Narutaki or Ohira.

Older stones will develop an oxidized skin that will repel water and may create an uneven feel to the stone and this could be what is throwing off your sharpening results. Also some miners use to coat their stones with an egg wash to help protect the finished surface from containments. Not all miners did the egg wash but some did. This will also repel water and my help to create an uneven sharpening surface. Many of these stones will come alive and sharpen greater then you expected after you break through these microns thick skin.

Try lapping the whole surface to break through any old surface layer. It will just take a few passes with a diamond plate or another stone if you have one that is rougher or even sandpaper at this point. You want to get a feel of what is underneith. Since you wore off the ink stamps already you have nothing to loose by going a little deeper.

I call the inclusions that scratch the blade with harder rougher material as toxic. Some inclusions are not toxic. To begin with just try scratching this out with a sharp nail or a scratch awl to just below the surface after you have lapped the stone. If you do this the stone may sharpen your blades just fine. If this works it just means that the stone will just require some maintaince.

The generic stamps like you have on this stone are just an example of a wholesaler having his own stamps made up for him to give the stones a feeling like they fit in some where in the market place. He is not infringing upon anyones copyrighted stamps, but he is attempting to market stones that will become recognizable as his. There is a whole new breed of wholesalers, apart from the miners, who will consolidate unmarked stones from different sources and the try to retail them out with their own stamps. It is a niche market and the internet is the perfect compliment to moving stones. It helps to be able to read Japanese ( I do not but my wife does) if you care about the source of the stones. Like Hon Yama (original mountain) does not mean Nakayama but sometimes it gets interpreted that way. But it also helps if you are looking at the actual stone you are buying before you buy it instead of getting shipped one that you did not pick out as "the particular stone".
I hope this helps. Alx

Thanks Alx your post was very informative.
I tried your scratch it out with a sharp nail trick and the vein is definitely harder than the Jnat and it also seems to go at an angle instead of straight down so I may be able to use the bottom as Old_School suggested earlier. I also had a little idea while re-lapping it, I used the slurry to fill up the scratch I left. Hopefully it will dry and maybe help a little by filling the scratch up with a similar substance, but it will probably shrink a lot since it is mostly water, I guess i'll see. The vein didnt seem to scratch but it definitely was causing the uneven wear I originally had on the stone imo.

The barber hone lost its coating of oil thanks to the easy off, it has a different smell(fumeless my a**, maybe less fumes) but water flows on the surface now instead of puddling up, its still not the pretty red color I think it was originally but I can use it with water now.

Thanks again to you all and your very knowledgable posts.