Thread: Unusual materials as related to straight razors

There have been various threads, on this site and on others, with regards to making hones. One of the most promising - and long-lived threads was on another forum. The main stumbling block was mixing the ingredients - after a certain concentration, the solids no longer want to go into suspension, they prefer to cluster together in small 'globs', so some sort of special mixer was required.

I do not recall the end of the experiment - it went on for so long and was of pretty limited appeal to me anyhow, kind of like finding a more involved and more expensive way of re-inventing the wheel. However, I have some training in cementitious products, and the finest mixer was not a tumbling or bladed device, but a pan-mixer with paddles used for making very fine fondue cement.

From one of the old threads I found the glue/potassium dichromate mixture I told you about before (gelatin is used here, but any derivative can be used including the old, proprietary glues like 'Gloy'):-



Note that this is still 'squeezed' to remove excess moisture. An arbor press with a suitable shoe to fit the mould can be used, as can its stronger brother the 'H' arbor press that screws dwn rather than using a hand lever like a conventional arbor press. An old fly press is also suitable, and more easily available (and considerably cheaper) options can be cobbled together from square section steel and hydraulic bottle jacks, like a car shop press.

From the same thread, here is a list of additives and ratios:



There was not really anything else of interest in that thread - it linked to a foodie forum that is no longer extant for further info.

I would imagine that a search of the American Patents Office - which is online - would help. As I said, all of this stuff has been done before, on a large scale. No reason why it should not be repeatable. Hell, Spyderco even produced one of their hones as a 'new' barbers hone, not that it got much use in the razor world. It was very hard, reminiscent of ceramic, and proved (to me, anyway) the ideal medium for abrasive pastes and powders like diamond.

Regards,
Neil