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Thread: A silly question

  1. #11
    Senior Member wdwrx's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sailor View Post
    ...
    Now as i got this idea from this thread i will probably have to try it.
    Me too! I've got a crappy little wet-saw that for sure could cut a 1 1/2" or possibly even a 2" stone.

    I'll keep my eye out next time I'm down to the river.
    For what though? Sandstone and slates.... maybe some granite?
    Maybe it's time I picked up a beginner's guide to mineralogy....

  2. #12
    The Hurdy Gurdy Man thebigspendur's Avatar
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    My reason for starting this post was because of the plethora of different honing stones that have been discussed over the past year or so which got me thinking about the very concept of a hone and what a hone is and the way it works. Most of us when we buy something we want to know how it works and why it works right? But what do we know about all these hones we keep buying? Oh the purpose of this is really just my thinking out loud it’s not a guide to hones or a Geology lesson.

    So after all what is a hone? At its most basic it’s a medium used to sharpen an edged instrument right? Well a classic dictionary says “A stone of a fine grit, or a slab, as of metal, covered with an abrading substance or powder, used for sharpening cuttinginstruments, and especially for setting razors; an oilstone”.

    So the basic concept is to have a medium harder than the surface to be honed right? Well the Grand Canyon was formed by running water (with a little uplift help) but the water wore down the rock which is way harder. Also in the days of vinyl records we used a diamond stylus which after 1000 hours of use was worn away. Now how did this soft vinyl wear down a diamond?

    So, you don’t need a surface harder than the item to be honed but now we must consider practicalities. I don’t think anyone would want to spend 1000 hours or 1000 years to hone an instrument no matter how fine an edge will be produced. So we must find a honing medium that is about as hard or harder as the instrument to be honed to speed up the process.

    Let me digress here a little since we’re talking rocks and minerals and synthetic substances. By common usage when you’re in your garden planting a tree and these big hard objects get in the way those are rocks right? Think of a cake. The finished cake is a rock. The ingredients like flour and sugar and eggs are the minerals. So the chunk of quartz is really not a rock it’s a mineral. The chunk of granite is a rock. It contains quartz, mica feldspar. A hone like the Norton 8K is really a synthetic rock. Of course this is a real simplification often times it gets way more complicated however there is a distinction between a rock and a mineral.

    So getting back to the matter at hand here is where it gets interesting because we need to determine what qualities a specific hone medium needs to have, to do the best job and the fastest (relatively). Sure we can pick up a chunk of quartz and it will wear steel but will it produce an edge you would want to shave with. You can use granite but granite has mica which is very soft and over time the hone can develop depressions in it. You can go on and on with different rocks and though they will wear away steel what kind of edge will they produce and why will they produce that edge. A hone like a coticule does a great job because it’s a hard rock and it contains garnets of the right type and the right size and it releases these garnets just right. Many of the Japanese stones are clay based stones and the alumina they have in them is a great honing medium and the particle size is tiny and the stone itself is soft enough so you can develop a slurry and use it very effectively or even without a slurry it still works. It’s all about some very specialized qualities the rock has and it must have a lot of them to do the job we want right? Well it depends what we’re doing and what we’re honing. The more demanding the operation and the finer the instrument the more and better qualities the hone has to have. If you want to sharpen a battle axe you don’t need too much. If you’re the Queens executioner and chop heads off you will need to do many more operations on your instrument unless of course you have a mean streak in you and want your clients to suffer.

    So, why are certain stones so highly prized as opposed to that rock you picked up in your backyard? Of course they are rare but does a stone being rare make it a great hone? It depends why it’s rare. Is it rare as a honing medium or just because it’s rare? A 1 pound chunk of Platinum is pretty rare and expensive but it makes a terrible hone. Many of the Japanese stones are coveted and collected not because they are outstanding hones (they are but that’s not why they are collected and they are so expensive) but because of the patterns on the rock (hone).

    So the aim is to find a great honing stone but which is also pretty common so it’s affordable and it does a great job. But this is easier said than done because the very exacting qualities that make a stone a great hone medium don’t come in common rocks. You can get some Geologic Maps and Topographic maps and do some research to find the right rock associations and do some traveling and then go prospecting and try and find a source but this is not an easy thing to do even for an experienced Field Geologist.

    So this brings us full circle to the rock you pick up in your backyard and figure why I need to spend the cash to buy any one of the stones we all buy. Do we buy them because they are the hone of the month or because they are a rare hone or because they are a great hone or because then we can have bragging rights on the forum or maybe we just like hones and would eat them if we could? This all applies to synthetic hones also not just natural hones or for that matter any honing medium no matter how basic. Do we really know what these exotic and popular hones are comprised of or why they work the way they do (assuming they do of course). Is one hone of a given grit actually better than another universally? Maybe it sometimes is and sometimes isn’t.

    I remember a saying back a long time ago about what the country needs is a good five cent cigar and what we need is an equivalent hone. (Not five cents of course). Does such a thing exist? I’m sitting at the computer as I type and am looking at my chunk of Beryl and another of sandstone. I already know the beryl will do a good job as a final finisher but I would not want to shave off that edge. It’s way too harsh. The sandstone is way too coarse for a razor. Maybe for an axe, I don’t know.

    So what I’m trying to say here is hones are really very common things but good hones are not, however there is a place for every hone and the definition of a good hone changes with what we are going to do with it and what it will be used on.(clear as mud eh?) As we demand more finesse out of a hone that’s where we separate the men from the boys or do we? We almost always sing praises about that 33K or 16K or 12K but how often do we sing praises for a 1K or 4K or lower grit hone? Can a low grit hone be a very rare and quality medium? Can a low grit hone do the job a typical low grit hone should do and leave a relatively fine edge at the same time? Is that possible or are those qualities dependent on each other or are they mutually exclusive and how much would you pay for that? Would you pay as much as for a 1K as for a Shapton 33K?

    So to sum up here and stop rambling what I hope to get you to do is think about hones a little differently and about what they are and forget the hype and mysticism and lemming mentality. Think about why that hone’ s so great and what about it makes it do the job it does before you put down the cash for one.

    Now I’m gonna get my shovel and start digging in my backyard. Maybe there is hidden hone gold back there.
    Fikira likes this.
    No matter how many men you kill you can't kill your successor-Emperor Nero

  3. The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to thebigspendur For This Useful Post:

    basil (08-17-2010), Fikira (11-10-2013), Sailor (08-16-2010)

  4. #13
    Senior Member wdwrx's Avatar
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    well, that worked... got me thinkin' a bit. All afternoon anyways.

    Even dug up an old book, "Handbook Of the Canadian Rockies" and started skimming through it's geology/mineralogy section just to see what might be around, carried from the Rockies on our nearest river. It reads like a gold mine to be honest: quartzite, siltstones, shales and slates. Better chances of winning the lottery than finding a razor hone, but worth the refresher course, and I look forward to ambling along the riverbank looking for "treasure"!

  5. #14
    Senior Member deighaingeal's Avatar
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    I have a relationship with the professors in my university's geology based entirely on their respect of my shaving. When they have reconvened in the fall I may have to pay them a visit. I don't know of many stones that have the quality or consistency of garnet, alumina, or diamond deposits (of course I'd be retired). Maybe the gentlemen in that department could shed some light on this subject. Even if the formation isn't large enough to create a hone from it maybe it could then be crushed, filtered, then reformed into a semi-synthetic stone.

    I guess I'll never know until I ask!

    Big G razor hones? -as theorized by thebigspendur-

    -G

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