diferent natural stone honing method?

I was tinkering around with the friable grit theory of honing on coticules and I realised i hadnt tred it dry yet...

so i got to slurrying with no water, not a drop!
the idea i had was to grind the coticule dust so fine that it would sort of replace the surface of the coticule and dramatically increase sharpening speed.

The only problem i have is I need to keep my beard for a job in a week, cant shave and cant wait that long to find out how it shaves a beard and i was wondering if the members would help me out and experiment with it themselves and post the results.

it also works on the jnat, after stropping the jnat edge was silently scything leg hair with ease.


I'm struggling for a word for the sharpening dust instead of slurry, shust maybe? lol anyways the shust cuts ore consistent and quicker if refreshed by the slurry stone, still without water.


Your help would be greatly appreciated

kind regards
Alex

EDIT: after making the shust and you start honing with the razor the edge will peel off excess shust.
What i try to is remove the excess from the stone so that nothing is interfering with the edge and the shust covered surface so to avoid inconsistency in the edge

I can't recall who it was, but I know that honing dry on a coticule has been tried and there were threads, at least one, about it. IIRC it was said that the coticule is not porous and that it would not load up ? Anyway, I'd never hone dry on anything but a barber hone. I like the liquid vehicle to facilitate honing, whether it be water, oil or lather. Good luck with your experiment though.

I sometimes wonder who comes up with these terms. Friable grit theory? Sandstone is friable. A coticule is not.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Friable grit theory?

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Would this refer to the feeling that some honers have that the longer they use a stone the finer it gets due to the rounding of the individual sharpening particles in a hone?

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I sometimes wonder who comes up with these terms. Friable grit theory? Sandstone is friable. A coticule is not.

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I dont want to ruffle feathers, FME i rub a slurry stone on my coticule with alot of water for a couple of minutes i'll make a rough watery slurry.
If i put a drop of water on the coticule, rub it till its talc white, i have a smooth talcum powder slurry.

I'm sorry if i've offended anyone but i can only go on my own experience, I've experimented with current theories, some worked some didnt, but for me none of them were consistent enough, but i can always make a broken down slurry on a coticule which changes the honing characteristics drammatically.

for instance, if i hone with water and a coticule, i need my worn out dmt 320 to set a bevel in a set of circles. my coticule with water sets a rough bevel at best. I can set bevels on a DMT, naniwa superstone and jnat, so i can rule my technique out as a cause.
what i mean by a bevel is being able to cut armhair or leg hair with ease without pulling at skin level.

honing dry on a coticule i can set a bevel and slice leghair silently using ONE dry slurry on the stone, the thing is i cant shave my beard right now, but all other tests are more than satisfactory even for setting a bevel this technique is useful.


anyway... back on topic, as for honing on a dry slurry surprisingly enough there is very little blackening of the surface. whether thats a sign of metal removal or not it makes it difficult to tell without water which shows metal removal alot clearer.

a definitive bevel can be achieved after 2 sets of circles and halfstrokes, further honing progressively makes the edge finer on the same dry slurry.
I dont know about anyone else but i was scared sometimes to hone more in case the edge went backwards on water, honing dry shows a very clear progressive sharpening of the edge.


I think the theory's sound, create a very thin layer of dry slurry which gives a very even flat surface to create a super fine edge, from experience it seems like water reduces closeness to the surface of the coticule and creates an uneven edge.
Which is why i think jnat slurrying requires an almost gelatinous nearly dry slurry at the end of jnat honing to create the finest edge, because at that point the edge is as close as you can get to the surface without dulling it on an overly smoothing hone while still using the nearly dry slurry to keep sharpening the edge, creating a smooth AND sharp edge.

which in conclusion is what i'm trying to explain here,

thaks for reading

kind regards
alex

We all develop our own methods that give us the edges we like. That is the most important. There is lot of speculation going on as to why a certain method creates a certain result. Honing particles are microns in diameter so lots of speculation can only be proved or disproved by taking pictures of the crucial stages with an electron microscope. Prof. Verhoeven is someone who published a lot about the science behind sharpening. Some of it may be in the wiki.

OTOH: what the heck, if it works for you it is great!

Alex, Thank You for posting. Anything out of the ordinary seems to draw all kinds of dissent, but staying on the reservation doesn't discover any new techniques.
I have tried one type of dry coti finish that worked okay but not great. I will certainly try the dry slurry on the coti and the other naturals. 'Appreciate your putting the idea out there. Keep experimenting!

I don't know about the "new theory", but many of us finish on natural stones until they are dry/damp. I do this on Asagi, Escher, and Zulu. I recently received a coti that "should" qualify as a finisher & I will finish on it just like the others to determine if it's a keeper or not.

Edit: Just to clarify, I have most likely done 40-60 light strokes on my finisher as it dries/soaks up the water. The razor has been finished on Shapton GS 16K and is just taking on the personality of the finisher being used, it's perfectly shave ready.

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Originally Posted by Kees

Would this refer to the feeling that some honers have that the longer they use a stone the finer it gets due to the rounding of the individual sharpening particles in a hone?

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Friable refers to stones or rocks that are comprised of particles loosely cemented together so if you rub the stone with your hand they particles come off. It's not a degree thing. When a stone breaks down through honing that's not friable.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Friable refers to stones or rocks that are comprised of particles loosely cemented together so if you rub the stone with your hand they particles come off. It's not a degree thing. When a stone breaks down through honing that's not friable.

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That's what I understood friable to be, the particles braking down as the pressure of the blade comes down on it, making the slury particles smaller and the edge sharper and smoother (with naturals). Maybe it's not the right term, but the OP and me understood the same thing. I read friable stones from this and other knife forums. So as I understand it, friable is a breakable slury that gets smaller with time and pressure from the honing (at least in the honing circles). Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm always willing to learn! Double O

That's why I said it's not a degree thing. You can take a massive chunk of basalt which is pretty solid stuff and rub it with aluminum oxide and it will break down but that's not friable in any way shape or form. I'm talking geologic definition of friable here. I guess you can coin something any way you want and common usage can have a different connotation than technical.

What you guys are talking about is really abrasion.

The best way i've found is adding a drop of water, making slurry until theres little water left, leaving it to dry for a minute say (the slurry should flake off) honing 2, 3 sets, rubbing with a slurry stone to clean the swarf, and repeat 2 or 3 times usually until the edge is mirrored (the bevel can achieve a quite impressive mirrored edge this way)

you still get the same signs of suction and sometimes squeaking from the edge, the only difference being is that the mirrored edge does seem to indicate a good edge which is not always the case with water.

I apologize big spendur, I dont know what happens when i make the coticule talc slurry but it definitely feels smoother and finer, whether its the cement holding the cutting particles together or the cutting particles themselves it makes a more pleasant honing experience :)

kind regards
alex

edit: a bevel can be set with the dry slurry much quicker and consistently than on water and still use the same dry slurry to finish.
to clarify i say dry slurry but there's NO water at all so not so much a slurry as a dust cover of cutting particles and the stone is the flat surface to hone on, sort of like crox on balsa.

This sounds like an interesting experiment! I like playing around with my naturals and will give this a go as well. I'm surprised that a coticule would give a mirror finish. As I sold mine, I'll give it a go on my BBW instead.

i havent tried it on a bbw yet but jnat and coticule can get an edge popping leghair tips before stropping, a really important part is refreshing the surface with the slurry stone to clean the swarf off.

regards alex

So I kind of want to resurrect this discussion.

When I received my first coticule years ago, I actually did this as a way to rectify some pretty terrible dilucot edges. My results were very good--but is it that different from a proper dilucot edge? I can get mirror edges now just off the coticule, but it does take forever. Very interesting.

And… how are the shaves?

I remember the edge being able to shave, but this was back when I had approximately zero idea what I was doing and couldn't compare a good edge to a bad one. I remember Lynn's edges being fantastic --I can't answer your question because the context with which I reviewed the edge was not optimal -- I do remember it being a significant improvement over my early dilucot attempts, better HHT (we all ready established HHT is about as useful as a typewriter), better polish, e.t.c. I've become acquainted with my coticule now, but I'm always looking for something because I'm obsessed. It was a strange edge, I do remember that. It was like a highly polished haze. Very strange. I'm sure under a microscope it looked like Omaha Beach on D-Day.

I don't feel like rehoning any of my razors at current, but I have an incoming 6/8 clauss coming in. I'll give this a whirl and report back on the shave. I was hoping other people would chime in with more experience with it.

As an aside, I smell new comer bias.

I've never tried dry powder slurry, but I used to have real good luck with my Coticule by first setting the bevel with a 1k stone then working the edge first with a Coticule with heavy slurry then a medium slurry on the BBW then plain water BBW then plain water Coticule. All the lap counts vary depending on the edge

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Originally Posted by rodb

I've never tried dry powder slurry, but I used to have real good luck with my Coticule by first setting the bevel with a 1k stone then working the edge first with a Coticule with heavy slurry then a medium slurry on the BBW then plain water BBW then plain water Coticule. All the lap counts vary depending on the edge

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Same deal. Hasn't failed me as of late.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rodb

I've never tried dry powder slurry, but I used to have real good luck with my Coticule by first setting the bevel with a 1k stone then working the edge first with a Coticule with heavy slurry then a medium slurry on the BBW then plain water BBW then plain water Coticule. All the lap counts vary depending on the edge

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I cleaned up a lot of bevel sets with a slurried BBW and then moved on to the slurried coticule. Never went back to the BBW. That sequence never occurred to me.

I tried it a while ago, but more as surface preparation than as a honing method. My idea was that it seemed to leave the surface much smoother, and (hopefully) therefore would somehow yield a better finish on the razor. To be honest, I don't think it made much difference. I find coticules too variable to tell. Perhaps it did, but my coti was having a bad day, perhaps it didn't, but my coti was having a good day. Perhaps it might have, but I was having a bad day. In the end, I went back to the old circles under running water, which is the way I always finish now, and contented myself with the fact that predictability is more useful than unpredictability, especially when dealing with temperamental stones.

As to how it works for honing, I noted it does change things, but was better used in pre-finishing stages. However, if you find a method that you think yields superior results, as compared to our usual uni or dilucot, then I would be happy to try it.

I don't hone on dry slurry, but I do have a smooth polishing JNat that I like to use dry with the lightest pressure for a dozen circles/ellipses and a half dozen x-strokes. A honing friend suggested I try this and it does boost HHT. The jury's out on how useful this really is, but I spoke of it with Takeshi-San at AFramesTokyo and he immediately connected the technique with removal of the fin that Iwasaki talks about.

It's fun to try and talk about different techniques and it's OK to try stuff that doesn't work out. Just re-hone the razor, mo' honing is mo' betta.

Cheers, Steve