Thread: Small cracks in hone

I have a little devil and there are multiple small cracks in the face of the hone. Is this normal or this a cause for concern?

I don't know what kind of hone a little devil is, but I hear that some hones are not affected by small cracks, as long as the crack isn't straight and the entire edge doesn't hit the crack at the same time. But, I've never had a hone with a crack in it either.

Could you post a picture or scan it?

Here's the original ebay listing

Barber Shop Razor Hone UNUSED Condition Still in Box - eBay (item 270333450503 end time Jan-27-09 21:06:04 PST)

And here's the hone after one use

Flickr Photo Download: hone

All I did was put some soap and lather on it and once it dried off I saw these cracks.

If you don't feel the cracks when honing, it should be OK.

Are they on both sides? You could try to lap them out, but it looks like a barber hone, and those can be hard to remove a lot of material from.

It looks like the lines are in the stone and not on the surface. I have just purchased an older combo barber hone that had tiny chips at the edges. I had good luck with my Norton lapping stone in getting those out and lapping the face of the stone. Took a while but the grid lines went away. Finished with the DMT 1200 grit D8E, now that was hard cause the stones stick together when lapping.

I wonder what would make it do that. It looks like most of them are pointing at the same corner.