Thread: Slurry on a touch-up hone?

I apologize if this has been brought up before, but my search of the forums didn’t turn up anything.

As I was working on lapping some of the razor hones I recently acquired, I realized I was basically building a slurry as I was flattening the stone.

I understand that all hones are different, but I began to wonder if anyone had finished a honing progression on a 4K, 8K or higher-grit stone, then worked up a slurry on something like a Swaty to put a final finish on a razor, similar to the use of a coticule. I understand that it’s not the way things are normally done - there’s plenty of finishing stones out there designed for such a task and razor hones are basically for touch-ups. However, being someone that doesn’t have an arsenal of stones to fall back on I’m looking at alternatives.

Would honing in such a manner tend to undo the work that was done on the previous stone, or is it possible that this could be something like a “poor man’s coticule” that would allow a budget-oriented person to start working with an alternative to high-grit stones without the investment normally required?

Feel free to shoot down the idea if it’s been tried and found to give poor results. It’ll save me some experimenting if that’s the case. On the other hand, there might be some people more experienced at honing out there who may want to give this a try as well and report results if it intrigues them.

Just trying to think outside the box for some ways to save cash.

Thanks,

- Mark (S-4-C)

Well we know that a swaty is not normally used a finishing stone but as a touch up hone… but suppose we get a cheap ($12) coticule rubbing stone and rub that on the swaty, the slurry (from the coticule) would cut quickly and brake down to finer grits and give a super fine finish.

Since you invited us to shoot down your idea...

In general, a slurry on a hone makes it cut faster and, at least in some instances, effectively makes the hone cut as if it has a more coarse grit. I'm not certain if this is true with a Swaty, as I have never tried to hone it with slurry, but if it does hold true like other hones with slurry, then you would not want a slurry because it would reduce the ability of the hone to polish. You can use the Swaty as a finishing/polishing hone after the 8k but I can't imagine any benefit to making it cut more coarsely than it does with normal use.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Since you invited us to shoot down your idea...

In general, a slurry on a hone makes it cut faster and, at least in some instances, effectively makes the hone cut as if it has a more coarse grit. I'm not certain if this is true with a Swaty, as I have never tried to hone it with slurry, but if it does hold true like other hones with slurry, then you would not want a slurry because it would reduce the ability of the hone to polish. You can use the Swaty as a finishing/polishing hone after the 8k but I can't imagine any benefit to making it cut more coarsely than it does with normal use.

+1 Wow thanks Ron for typing it so I didn't have to

I would however add I haven't tried it myself, so if you do, let everyone know for sure...

After re-reading yer post I realized that you might be asking something different, I did an experiment using the "One Coticule" honing method only using a Norton 8k instead of a Coticule...
Any stone that you can raise a slurry on that you can shave off of at it's highest grit state will work using this method....It is not consistant nor easy but it can be done
Hope that helps if that's what you were asking...

If you have an 8k or higher grit hone you can do well enough. Your problem may be why they invented pastes

Your question is a rational one but it overlooks the difference in the composition of the hones. We can do this with a Coticule,Eshcer,Norton,Shapton, Japanese, Chinese etc because the binder material that holds the abrasive is so much softer than the binder in the Swaty type hones which are a hard ceramic type. The Swaty binder will not easily change its texture, it will remains coarse much longer, but the aforementioned hones will have a much quicker change because of a softer binder material.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Since you invited us to shoot down your idea...

In general, a slurry on a hone makes it cut faster and, at least in some instances, effectively makes the hone cut as if it has a more coarse grit. I'm not certain if this is true with a Swaty, as I have never tried to hone it with slurry, but if it does hold true like other hones with slurry, then you would not want a slurry because it would reduce the ability of the hone to polish. You can use the Swaty as a finishing/polishing hone after the 8k but I can't imagine any benefit to making it cut more coarsely than it does with normal use.

I may have to disagree...

A hone that naturally produce slurry will constantly have fresh grits coming into the slurry as you hone, so it may or may not cut finer than the stones natural grit.

However if the source of the slurry is from the swaty (or some other stone) then it would cut faster but would NOT cut like a courser hone because the slurry would brake down into smaller grits as you hone… Also because the swaty is hard there would no fresh grits coming into the slurry as you hone.

So slurry on a swaty would effectively cut faster and finer.

Originally Posted by smythe

I may have to disagree...

A hone that naturally produce slurry will constantly have fresh grits coming into the slurry as you hone, so it may or may not cut finer than the stones natural grit.

However if the source of the slurry is from the swaty (or some other stone) then it would cut faster but would NOT cut like a courser hone because the slurry would brake down into smaller grits as you hone… Also because the swaty is hard there would no fresh grits coming into the slurry as you hone.

So slurry on a swaty would effectively cut faster and finer.

I may have to disagree with your disagreement. I did consider that the slurry off of a Swaty might be different from that of a natural hone. I'm just not sure about the speed with which the slurry would break down. On an Escher or a Japanese hone, in theory, the slurry does break down and becomes more fine. I'm not sure of how the slurry of a Swaty behaves as I've never tested it. However, your point about the Swaty being hard and therefore not releasing "fresh grits" is no different than the behavior of some Japanese hones or the Chinese hone.

I've tested slurrys from several different water stones added to the surface of my Spyderco UF ceramic stone. (I think the UF is similar to a barber hone.)

Adding slurry to the UF really kicks up the cutting speed. The added slurry turns black fairly quickly. So for instance, adding slurry from a Naniwa 12K to the UF will result in a cutting rate that is faster than a clean UF and faster than the 12K Naniwa as well. So the method may be useful as a substitute for a coarser hone.

However, my experience has been that the faster cutting rate comes at the expense of sharpness, as would be expected. So the resultant edge is not as sharp as what I could get by going straight to the original 12K. Also, I wasn't able to gain anything by using a diluting process with the slurry.

(A similar idea is to add a little CrO to the UF surface or even give it a shot of diamond spray. I've dabbled with this, but not enough to draw conclusions.)

Reading through the "One Coticule" honing process probably prompted the thoughts that caused me to post this thread.

I admit that I had hoped to read differing opinions on this idea in order to understand the potential benefits and pitfalls associated with attempting such a thing. I'm glad to see that no comments have begin with "Blasphemy!" or the like, and have been posted in a constructive way. Thanks for that.

I had wondered if the binder material would continue to break down into smaller, finer grits as noted by Smythe, but I have no experience to fall back on. Once the idea hit me I really began to wonder if it's possible to create a honing medium on a progressively finer surface (grit?) by diluting a slurry created by a barber hone. If so, they are traditionally much cheaper easier to come by than a coticule or escher.

I had also hoped that someone had already conducted such an experiment so a definitive answer could be provided. Since I've only just begun to get my hands on hones and have little to no experience, I am confident that any of my personal findings would be suspect because I don't have anything with which to compare the results.

When it comes to honing I have no ego to bruise, so I welcome all feedback, whether good or bad. I may try this out on a beater blade as I learn to hone simply to see what happens. I have no idea what to expect, but I hope that it's possible to use these hones for something other than a finisher, if for no other reason than to save money on an Escher / Thuringian / Naniwa / etc. On the other hand, I don't own these stones anyway, so I can't perform a side-to-side comparison.

If this simply seems like nonsense, please excuse the ramblings of a newb that needs more experience with the hones.

Thanks,

- Mark (S-4-C)