Just a quick one?????

[kev...]

This is mainly for neil but also anyone with honing experiance!

Just a though i had regarding final honing when working with wet and dry papers on car bodywork i noticed that when i use straight water there is fine scratches in the metalwork but if you add a little soap/washing up liquid to the water the finish is a lot finer for that given grit a bit like the reverse of a slurry!!

So the question is could i add a bit of washy to my squirty gun when using my 12k to make it finer????? :?:

 

[Neil Miller]

Hello Kev,

It certainly does work. If you read the instructions on a lot of barber hones, they say something like "...use wet, dry or with lather..." the lather seems to have a sort of cushioning effect that gives a finer edge. It also helps keep the blade on the hone (increases the suction a bit probably) and conversely aids you in obtaining a lighter honing action - pressing down on the razor is bad news, especially on the higher grit hones, and anathema on the polishing stone - you want a really light touch and the lather helps you to achieve this.

Until I started using naniwa ss hones I routinely added a few drops of detergent to my water bottle - not enough to froth it up, but just enough to add a bit of slip. Naniwa recommends against using stuff like that, so after using if for a while on them I stopped doing so - just to see what would happen. It took about a month of using plain water to get all the detergent out of the stones, so perhaps they have a point!

For harder stones, and that includes all the naturals I can think of (with the possible exception of japanese naturals, a lather (just plain shaving lather) is fine.

Regards,
Neil

 

[kev...]

Cheers neil