Thread: is clay abbrasive?

new idea!

i was reading an article in the popular mechanics shop notes titled "How to make sharpening hones"

it was a simple enough. You mix cement and abrasive particles. By playing with the proportions of the ingredients and the type of abrasive, it was said you could make any grit sharpening hone.

The only trick you need to master it is to make sure the particale size in microns is well sorted. If you have exceeded your target grit with a small percentage of particales your hone will not function the way you want. Thats the art and science behind it all. You can have grit sizes smaller than your target but none bigger.

Its one of the reasons Amplex Diamond paste is more expensive than others. If you examined the stuff under high pwer mag you would see the diamond xtls are very uniform with none exceeding the grit size. Cheaper brands will not have that good a sorting. The same with a ceramic hone. I would think making one yourself would be very difficult.

so would you say that cement is an acceptable choice to use as a binder?

i'm not too worried about particle size