Thread: Using Oil on Waterstones: a simple question

I can't bring myself to use oil on a coticule. I seem to remember someone saying they got great results with theirs but I'm not going there. Escher labels say to avoid oil or grease so we know to forget oil on those. I have an old Tam that is supposed to be okay with oil or water and I might talk myself into giving that a try someday. Arkies are all I've ever used oil on. I've got a jug of Smith's honing oil I've had forever. Seems to be good but probably just overpriced mineral oil with a different label on the bottle.

Was not to long ago people thought the earth was flat,till they realized you could not sail a boat off the edge

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Was not to long ago people thought the earth was flat,till they realized you could not sail a boat off the edge

I know it's flat; I've seen the sun fall right off the edge of the ocean many times.
Imagine what will happen to a tiny boat when it reaches the edge on the ocean.

Hi

Well i'll just jump into my story...I was honing two razors with my coticule, one to finish with oil and one to finish without. I used the oil first rinsed it and washed it with soap. ( Note my edge was better then just water, not much but a tad better). Then i went on to honing with just water. i noticed, obviously, the water beading and acting strange. Only after a few honing sessions did the water behaviour return to normal and the oil was gone. That was with heavy slurry in use. Also I have a hard greenish Coticule, i have no experience with other coticules but i think from here-say that mine would be of the lesser porus type if there was such a thing.

Anyways the oil did make a difference but the oil did affect my stone for a while too with just one use of oil for about ten minutes. Since then I found that bar soap, and glycerine soap makes a similar difference.(not tested this though) Have not used oil since as i remember reading that "Once an oil stone, always an oil stone".

I would like to see this tested but as everyone else said, I'm not touching my darling coti with grease.

Nathaniel.

I have a question too. If the concept is to give the blade some cushion away from the stone, why not just use lather or detergent instead of oil. I used detergent with Arks for a while & found no disadvantage over oil.
Also used baking soda in water for a long time on naturals & waterstones as well but since shifting to Shaptons abandoned the habit.

My question is not about the performance of using something other than water Oz, as you just pointed out there are quite a few "Safe" alternatives..
I actually don't use real oil on my oil stones, I use the Smith's solution just because I never want to run the risk of cross contamination with my waterstones in the storage trunk.. Honestly oil is messy and the Smith's works as good, anyway that is another thread

I am just really curious whether anyone has done even the simplest of absorption tests, so far it looks like a couple of the guys at least noted some absorption and one is still testing...

I have a couple of Slurry stones, but honestly I don't want to test with one if it has already been done, if the oil does penetrate I don't want to wreck even a slurry stone...

Absorption of oil into the stone would be directly related to the viscosity of the oil and the porosity of the stone. The porosity would generally be determined by time of exposure and the fineness of grit with the lower grits absorbing more and at a quicker rate. With those facts in mind I would hypothesize that you would not need to soak the higher grits (>1k) with oil to realize the benefit as most of it will stay on the surface under normal pressure.

I have never used oil on my waterstones. Water works just fine for me. However, I don't think it would matter much to the steel or the stone. Water is such an effective medium I really see no benefit with oil - just the mess.

I dont use a slurry stone anymore...I did some tests on all my razors and both sides of my combo coti were used with the same number of laps back n forth...2 with a coti slurry stone..2 ONLY on my Coti with oil...I feel the oil "oomphs" the edge up in a good way..more keenness and smoothness to the edges than compared to my coti slurry edges...which were good as well..dont get me wrong..but felt better on oil..hope this helps and is informative to others..

I just saw this stone on ebay with original box, and it reccomeds oil or water.

I have used oil on a Coticule for about 25 razors by now.
Before that I had used it for a bunch of razors with only water with less than stellar results really.

To try to determine any differences, if at all, I used 3 razors I know better than any other I have.
They where all the same brand, size and of little if any wear.

Firstly, the stone, sold to me as a La Dressante au bleu natural Combo, is now back to use with water to no ill effect as far as I can determine.
The return to use with water only does not, however, correlate to the test results as such, it is more a consequence of me preferring to use slurry on Coticules.

As to Auto-slurrying when used with oil, that seems to me to be none to very little as far as I can tell.

The results as to what was achieved in regards of fineness of the resulting edge then;
I do find it to produce a slightly finer edge, but it also takes a wee bit longer to reach the max of the stone.

The difference wasn't all that much though, and I still prefer to use another finisher after the coticule, regardless of use of water or oil to max it out

I've seen a lot of folks using a Thuringian/Escher after a Coticule to really put some oomph in their finished razors, but to me the perfect act to follow the Coticule is a fine and hard JNat.