Thread: Rookie mistake leads to STAIN

I had a bit of a mishap last night and I thought I'd share it with everyone in order to hopefully save someone else the pain of what I just did. A bunch of my razors were starting to pull and so I thought I'd get a little assembly line going and give them all a touch up on my barber's hone. Had them all lined up on a towel so I could go from one razor to the next, and save some time and effort. All was going great until I didn't DRY THE RAZORS OFF after I honed them - I wanted to hone all the razors, then dry them all, then put them away. Well I realized my oversight when I noticed a little white mark forming on one of my best blades, which was a spot of dried (hard) water, underneath which was a BLACK STAIN.

Not the end of the world, but it's one of my nicest looking razors and it was a real pain to have to learn that lesson the hard way. So, to all the other honing rookies out there: ALWAYS DRY YOUR RAZOR IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOU HONE!

I'd be actually interested in knowing how the most experienced honers and honemeisters do when they hone several razors at a time?

Do you guys have a particular trick to avoid that?

Originally Posted by christophe

I'd be actually interested in knowing how the most experienced honers and honemeisters do when they hone several razors at a time?

Do you guys have a particular trick to avoid that?

Couldn't you just dry each razor off as you finished it?

Originally Posted by christophe

I'd be actually interested in knowing how the most experienced honers and honemeisters do when they hone several razors at a time?

Do you guys have a particular trick to avoid that?

Very simple, every razor is dried right after it leaves the hone. This is the only way.

Yeah...never try to work on more than one razor at a time.

I've learned this the hard way on a few knives too :/
even though it buffed out, it's still something that shouldn't have happened in the first place :P

I'm pretty sure my Sensei, Oz (onimaru55) recommends putting a small amount of bicarbonate of soda in the water spray bottle he's using. Apparantly it's an old Japanese trick. Caveat: I could be completely wrong here so apologies in advance if I've got my wires crossed!

Not sure whether this will completely eradicate the problem, but as gugi said, the only way to properly prevent it is drying those suckers off completely after honing.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I always have a forest of paper towels at my disposal to dry the blade off at regular intervals during honing, prior to checking edges with the loupe.

I do use same trick as our water is awfull. Tea spoon of soda bicarbonate and immediate towel.

I'm too OCD to leave water on any blade for any period of time that could cause corrosion. Blades are constantly wiped dry during honing & even during shavetesting especially when more than one blade is involved.
Bicarb or even washing soda is ok on old style waterstones like Kings or Nortons & it's ok for naturals.
It is a really bad idea on Shapton Pro's & maybe other ceramic type modern stones as it can dissolve the binders. Detergents are another nono on Shaptons, well certainly on the Pro's, I can't remember the instructions for the GS stones. It is an old J sword polishing trick to prevent rust but to be honest I never use it now as it's too easy to use it on the wrong stone by accident.