Thread: coticule dust

After picking up a natural combo that the previous owner disrespectfully dished out, I lapped it with course sandpaper dry. When the paper clogged I collected the powder that was cleaned from the paper and continued lapping until flat and true. This process produced a lovely pile of magic dust that I just cannot seem to throw away. Has anyone found a use for this bi-product like an ingredient in a paste, or mixed with a binder to produce a semi-synthetic hone, or to simply mix with water to make a slurry for use with a hone? Any info would be very helpful

Thanks, Slacker

Slurry is commonly used on coticules - it increases the cut speed of the hone quite nicely. You'll want to be sure, however, that you don't have any stray grits from the sandpaper in there.

In order to remove the sandpaper grit, mix the dust with water in a container and let it settle for one or two hours. The sandpaper grit should settle out fairly quickly. Then you can either pour out the remaining slurry suspension or draw it off with a turkey baster. In either case, use care not to draw off the residue at the bottom of the container.

The finest of coticule slurry takes well over a week to settle. You can adjust the settling time any way you want by keeping in mind that the larger the grit the faster it will settle. You can then use the recovered slurry by using an eyedropper (much neater than pouring) to put some of it on the hone.

I don't think it is worth to mess around to make that dust useful. Ron's method may work but again if you have a lot dust . How much dust do you have?
half of bucket?
Sorry this is just One person's opinion.

I personaly collect the dust of stones I lap if there is more than double shot amount of it. Thinking of experimenting with making my own polishing compound for hand polishing blades.

you can always bag it and sell it in small amounts at the closest corner

(may be a risky sport)

Originally Posted by janivar123

you can always bag it and sell it in small amounts at the closest corner
(may be a risky sport)

Well, people already smell and lick their hones. Why not snort them too?

Actually I described how he could deal with his dust. In general one should lap with running water so the "dust" should be dissolved in a slurry.

When I have any significant lapping to do, such as with a newly purchased natural hone, I do the lapping with a DMT plate under dripping water and over a plastic tub in the sink. This allows me to collect the slurry for use for honing later. Because of the DMT plate, I don't need to worry about any extraneous grit.

I am going to have to ask the same question as Sham did...

Why??? It takes all of 5 figure 8's on a hone and you have slurry...
plus you clean the hone at the same time...

To each their own, but I must be missing something on this one

Yea it's not like when they cut precious gems and keep the dust and then reconstitute it. Also if the sandpaper you used was garnet paper the settling method may not work.