Thread: Newspaper as a finishing polish???

I read a tip on another forum that suggested that one way to help you get a good finishing polish after honing on the Norton 4k/8k, would be to place several layers of newspaper on top of your hone tightly, and then either use a regular honing motion (with the edge-leading), or a backhoning/stropping motion (with spine-leading). The rationale is that newspaper has a fine abrasive quality - while it is said to work slowly, it is said to work well nonetheless.

Has anybody ever heard of this before?

More importantly, has anybody ever used this technique before?

Any tips or "do not do" advice about the technique to use this method?

I know that no one will actually know this answer, but I am curious to hear what those of you who have used this technique will say - based on how quickly/slowly this method works, what grit would you estimate the newspaper to be? How much slower "cutting" is this versus a Chinese 12k+ stone?

Been visiting SER?

RT

Yup...I found it as I was doing a search, stopped and read some posts about honing - I know I do not have any honing experience YET, but the newspaper thing, if true, blows my mind...just wanted to check with all of the guys here at SRP. All of the info here has been invaluable.

Keith,

Give it a shot and report back. I understand the results are good!

RT

I have done this a couple of times and results were good, indeed.

Not as good as I have had with chromium oxide - but maybe I didn't do it long enough (as it is said to be slow?)

Looking forward to your results. If you try it - please keep and share count on laps for reference

Cheers
Ivo

There is actually a wheel you can get that some bladesmiths use to polish/strop/hone blades. I ran into one in use in Seattle at the knife shop in the downtown area. They used it to perk up an edge and brighten up the sides of knives. Newspaper will also work and is another way to use newspaper after the entertainment value has ended. Newspaper is also good for composting as it keeps the weeds down as it melts slowly into the soil; torn up for packing material is also good; and rolled up tightly into logs it will burn slowly in your fireplace or stove. It's really more of a polisher than a strop. I don't know what the grit would be but I find the New York Times and the Washington Post to be really abrasive... : )