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...