Thread: Swarf removal?

Finished honing up a Boker tonight and have a question about how you guys remove swarf from your hones. When I moved over to my 3k stone, I stayed on it for a while and was building up quite a bit of metal to the point where I was reaching diminishing returns on my honing. When it was filling up all I did was run it over my sandpaper a few times to remove it without actually lapping the hone...is that how you do it?

Yep, except I do it with a Diamond hone.
Im still young to honeing, but iv heard to much swarf can damage your edge, which it sounds is what you found? So the suggestion is to rinse your stone regularly.
If my beautiful white Norton 4k is getting black during honeing, ill stop, duck of to the bathroom, and give it a quick run over the diamond hone under the running water and keep going.
Another trick I learnt of Onimaru555 is to use a nagura stone. It keeps your hone clean by keeping the swarf in suspense. Mixed results with the Nagura still not sure if i like to use it. You dont have that crisp edge of a hone with just water.

+Szymon

Originally Posted by red96ta

Finished honing up a Boker tonight and have a question about how you guys remove swarf from your hones. When I moved over to my 3k stone, I stayed on it for a while and was building up quite a bit of metal to the point where I was reaching diminishing returns on my honing. When it was filling up all I did was run it over my sandpaper a few times to remove it without actually lapping the hone...is that how you do it?

Mostly I just rub with my hand then rinse.
A scrub with a green or blue Scotch Brite can do it with
half a drop of soap too.

For mild swarf build up mig honing session, I find rubbing the stone with my hand under running water is enough.

But I always re-lap the stones before each session, just to remove that glaze that they seem to get after they've been used.

I also start by rubbing the hone - I'll pour on extra water, rub the hone a bunch, then wipe the water off. With the Naniwas, this removes A LOT of the black. This will typically keep me going during a honing session (up to 12 razors or so) without needing to do a minilapping with the DMT.

When thru using a hone, I rub the swarf off with a cut up section of a terry towel. That leaves cloth fibers on the hone, but the hone is almost totally free of swarf. In fact, by scrubbing this way, it takes 4 or 5 uses of the hone for any appreciable amount of swarf to build up.

After scrubbing the swarf off with a cloth, I put the hone away with the cloth fibers still on the hone.

I also use a square (about 12" x 16") rinse basin filled with about 3 inches of water. Next time I use the hone, I turn the hone upside down in the basin, and with my fingers wipe the hone surface clean. Usually, the hone comes out totally free of cloth fibers and ready for honing. If a chance fiber sticks to the hone, my spray bottle takes care of it. This process takes 10 seconds at the most.

I have tried about every method dealing with honing. This works best for me.

Anybody see any differences in how easy it is to get the build-up off the Nortons vs the Naniwas ? Any differences in how easy they are to lap ?

Thanks.