Thread: Using oil on a stone

I am interested if anyone regularly uses an oil on a stone?

If so, what stone and what oil?

I personally have used nothing but water and slurry.

I recently saw a video of a barber using oil on his coticle and was wondering if there is a difference in edge refinement?

Thank you
Phil

I use mineral oil on a Dragons Tongue hone, it works well. I have been told that sewing machine oil would be better and that mineral oil is too thick but I've yet to try it. I wouldn't put oil on my coticule though, but thats just me.

I've used sewing machine oil on my Arkansas hones quite a bit. I've also used Smith's Honing Solution with some success.

I have the tendency to use oil with oilstones(arkies, CF, etc) and water with waterstones(belgians, thuringians, etc).I have seen vids of old timers ussing oil on coticles and have seen coticles for sale that were used with oil, but I have never done it myself, I cant see what the advantage is.

If you use oil on your coticule it will just rinse off the stone. Unless you use a lot of it every single time I don't see how it will soak into the stone much as they aren't as porous as other stones. My vintage coticules read to use with oil OR water for a great edge.

I actually like the finish of coticules on oil or lather a LOT better than just water, they seem sharper/finer/whatever you wanna call it, imho. I;ve used mineral oil but it's a little thick, sewing machine oil is thinner and I like it best.

I bought a barber's lot awhile back on eBay where I was convinced the stone included in the lot was a vintage thuringian (size was 7 x 1.5", which is a pretty standard cut for those). When I received the lot, the stone was actually a coticule so coated in oil that you couldn't see any yellow on it.

I lapped it and have only used it with water and it leaves a great edge, but maybe those old time barber's were on to something with using them with oil.