Thread: Using Oil on Waterstones: a simple question

Everyone needs to stop worrying about oil and tap water and just start licking the stones! Lol.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I was just thinking about this thread the other day as I was reading in another Coticule thread that guys were suggesting only using distilled water on their "Babies" because Chlorine in tap water or heavy meatals in Well water could infiltrate the stone.. That brought me back to thinking of this thread.. We have a huge variation in thoughts about our Coticules..
Some say they are impervious, others think anything but pure water can change them.. Interesting very very Interesting!!!!!

LOL - Voodoo!! Mere voodoo lol!

when i use oil for the final stage i wipe the blade and can see black residue on the paper. when i use just water and wipe nothing on the paper. so the residue should be on the surface which causes not to reach the limits of coticule.
what do you think?

Originally Posted by Disburden

Everyone needs to stop worrying about oil and tap water and just start licking the stones! Lol.

If that's anything like licking toads we'll become a bunch of stoners.

Originally Posted by linguist

when i use oil for the final stage i wipe the blade and can see black residue on the paper. when i use just water and wipe nothing on the paper. so the residue should be on the surface which causes not to reach the limits of coticule.
what do you think?

It sounds to me like you're generating more swarf with oil than with water, which means your coti is cutting more with oil. Try a thicker oil, which will cushion more between the blade and the stone, and you may not get the swarf any more. Try also water with a tiny bit of Ivory dish soap in it to break the surface tension, therefore reduce the water's cushion between blade and stone, and you may see swarf again.

Does your coti usually darken its slurry? Not all do.

with water slurry darkens on the bevel setting process only. at finishing i do very light and slow strokes. with oil the black residue is very thin like the edge when wiped. i reach the max keenness with oil. maybe water evaporates and metal particules stick on the surface instead of in the oil.

Test that out, wipe the hone before it's dried out all the way.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I was just thinking about this thread the other day as I was reading in another Coticule thread that guys were suggesting only using distilled water on their "Babies" because Chlorine in tap water or heavy meatals in Well water could infiltrate the stone.. That brought me back to thinking of this thread.. We have a huge variation in thoughts about our Coticules..
Some say they are impervious, others think anything but pure water can change them.. Interesting very very Interesting!!!!!

I thought distilled water leached minerals out of things. And it became acidic if let sit. Using hard water may deposit minerals in your ROCK. Probably pretty hard to clean mineral deposits out of a mineral deposit.

Originally Posted by JamesT

I thought distilled water leached minerals out of things. And it became acidic if let sit. Using hard water may deposit minerals in your ROCK. Probably pretty hard to clean mineral deposits out of a mineral deposit.

All these things are true, but would happen at such low rates that we wouldn't observe them in our lifetimes, at the temperatures at which life familiar to us is possible.

Distilled water, because it has nothing dissolved in it yet, is a slightly better solvent than hard tap water.

If you leave a tray of water out on your counter, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will dissolve into it and turn it slightly acidic. Over hundreds of thousands of years, such acidic water could dissolve away caves in limestone. I don't know if there have been any caves dissolved into the formations from which coticules or slate hones are mined.

Hard water, and you won't find harder water than the stuff dripping off stalagtites, can indeed deposit dissolved minerals as it evaporates. And we can in fact see that happening in our own sinks, tubs, etc. if we draw from hard-water aquifers. I suppose if you left your water hone partway exposed in a tray of hard water, with the desert wind blowing across it, would end up with a bloom of carbonates and whatever else, the way clay flowerpots do, as the water evaporated from its surface and left the dissolved stuff behind. And that's why I don't leave my water hones outside, partly exposed in a tray of hard water, in the desert wind.

But I really can't imagine, under normal use, hard water having any effect on hones or honing.

Now Jnats, those exotic things, may be a different story altogether. I don't have any and don't think I'd even want to look at some of them funny. I'd probably import meltwater from Mt. Fuji, just to be sure.

Originally Posted by roughkype

Test that out, wipe the hone before it's dried out all the way.

i tested it with 50 light laps w/ water and i couldn't dedect any residue but clear water on tissue paper and both the stone. but w/ oil little bit keener. do you think the residue is not the metal but any kind of oxidation? i use J&J baby oil.