Thread: pastes and honing

Can a razor be honed start to finish using only pastes?? and if so what type of pastes would you use to set a bevel. A buddy of mine on a different forum claims a razor can be honed without a hone? just pastes

I know dovo makes several pastes. Red, black and green. Also a yellow that serves as a leather conditioner. Of course diamond sprays work too

They all work to a point but I Doubt you could set a bevel with paste alone.

You may be rights and I agree with you but there are guys that say you can do it.

Im sure it can be done. There are pastes in all micron sizes. I think that the flexibility of the substrate would have a lot to do with the finished edge though. A yielding surface may not be the best to use although Im only guessing.

yea I've seen claims on that other forum where guys say you can set a bevel with paste. The question is why would you want to do that even if you could? Kind of like taking a bike ride across the us and using a single speed bike instead of one with multi gears.

I'm no honer but the glaring question for me is. Why would you:-S ??? Can't see the point when fantastic hones and dmt's are available. And to be honest the price isn't all that prohibitive.

I've set bevels with pastes on some molding hand planes. Never on a regular knife or razor though. It can be done, but it is time consuming. You embed the pastes into heavy leather and secure the leather into a sturdy board. Then you do a back hone motion until you get a wire edge. Breadknife it to break the wire edge and take a few more strops to clean up the break. Then move to the next smaller paste. I usually start with coarse automotive valve grinding paste, move through medium, fine, and extra fine valve paste. After that I don't make a wire edge anymore and then move to the red rouge, CrOx, and finish with diamond sprays.

It takes me about an hour to set a bevel and sharpen a plane iron with pastes. It only takes about 15 minutes to sharpen one with the proper profile stones.

I'm sure it could be done with a razor (better tape that spine), but a stone is faster and easier.

If you have the proper tools for a job, they should be used. I could walk to work, and it is not really that far, but I have this thing called a car so I use it. I would be concerned about building a convex profile into the bevel with pastes. Using pastes eventually does have that effect, but I wouldn't start an edge that way.

Originally Posted by Airportcopper

Can a razor be honed start to finish using only pastes?? and if so what type of pastes would you use to set a bevel. A buddy of mine on a different forum claims a razor can be honed without a hone? just pastes

It can be sharpened without a hone, but it cannot be honed without a hone,,,