Thread: Hone with... Growth?

After I got back from my weekend trip, one of the girls was quite helpful and assisted me in laying out and photographing my various loots. She then brought my razors into my shop, and took one of the stones I picked up and washed it, as it was quite grimy and left a rather thick blackish residue on hands. Well, this morning I saw that it had developed... growths on it. She says she just used warm water, no soap. Any ideas? Is this bad for the stone? Should I go soak it in oil for a while?

Ok, so I simply washed off the .... growth, and started to lap this stone. I noticed that there is a thin slick of oil forming on the sandpaper and water I'm using, so my guess is that this stone was used with oil instead of water way back when. That would mean that the growth probably came when the protective coating of oil was washed off, and all the fine metal shavings corroded on its now damp, pitted surface resulting in growths of various oxidized metals....

Does this mean I should lap it with oil instead of water, and should use oil instead of water when using it to sharpen?

Yuck! You are not planning to use that on a razor are you?

I have no idea what it would do the the hone, but I'd soak it in bleach for about 15 minutes to make sure you're not transfering any of that stuff to your face (and potentially open wounds).

Mark

You should display this and tell people that
it was from the barber shop on the SS Titanic

John

Since the growth doesn't look like mushrooms, I'd probably disinfect it...

That looks like a 2-sided hone or a hone mounted on a substrate. Is the side facing forward in the first photo a hone? It looks too coarse to use on a razor. It looks more like something to use on a lawnmower blade. I'm not trying to be insulting. It just doesn't look like a razor hone.

Yeah, it's a two sided hone, and one side is quite coarse. I was planning on using it to sharpen some of the larger semi-sharp iron and steel tools I have lying around in the shop. I picked up another hone at the same time that lapped quite nicely. It's super smooth, so being new to the world of hones and razor honing I have no idea what I'll do with that one. Probably mail it off to a honemisters to inspect and tell me if I should use it on a razor or not. The smooth one, not the strange growth covered coarse chipped and slightly curved one.

This one looks like a barber hone to me.

JoshEarl has seen and lapped a lot of barber hones. Might be worth a PM...

Ok, new thoughts about the growing hone. It has produced growth each time it's gotten wet, and I'm starting to doubt that it's just from metal shavings embedded in the hone itself. My current thoughts are that it could have a crystal structure in it, and the compounds that make up the structure are water soluble. Therefore, I should avoid getting it wet, and instead coat it in oil of some sort, as well as use it with oil, or dry for honing.