Thread: Dry honing

When I began honing pocket knives in my early teens the rational behind oil on arks, and water on waterstones, was that it acted as a lubricant, and most of all, as a vehicle to carry the particles of metal away. So that they would be suspended in the liquid rather than become embedded in the hone. Oilstones, it was said, would become glazed eventually if used dry. The particles (swarf) are there and they have to go somewhere. I have occasionally hit a few licks dry on a barber hone but other than that I'm a water, lather, or oil honer. My two bits.