Thread: Oil saturated hones

Recently Neil Miller responded to a post regarding Turkey stones said, they may cut finer, when soaked in Olive Oil for a few weeks.

I do recall some stones were sold soaked in oil years ago. What is it that would increase a stones performance by having been saturated in oil as opposed to just honing with oil?

Since the action is all at the surface, I can't for the life of me imagine why this would matter, unless you planned to hone so much in a sitting that you'd erode the hone.

If you're dealing with a vitrified (artifical) or porous stone (natural), pre-loading the stone with oil makes it so that there's always a film on the surface. It makes the action of the stone nicer, and makes sure that the edge is always suspended a little bit from the abrasive.

If you ever find an india stone that's not been oiled, and you introduce oil to it only to watch it disappear, you get a good idea of how effective it is to pre-oil a stone.

On a turkish stone, it's probably just happening on a smaller level and not as abrupt as the oil disappearing into a medium india.