When sharpening your knives do you use honing oil, water or nothing?

Teague

Teague

Joined
Jul 11, 2007
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I've been reading The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening, by John Juranitch, and he recommends not using any honing oil when sharpening. What do you do?
 
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You're going to get redirected to the T,M&E forums for this topic so you're going to want to post questions like this directly there next time.

I personally don't use anything because of a sharpening article written by one of the forum members here. He basically says that water and oil tend to cause a stone to be les effective over time and that it works just fine without them.
 
diamond, ceramic, sandpaper, crystolon, india - nothing

waterstones - take a wild guess :D
 
Nothing on the Spyderco rods.
Water on the Edgepro stones.
Nothing on the leather strop.

I would disagree that using water, for example, will reduce the effectiveness of the stones. In fact by flushing the stone with water during sharpening it helps stop the metal being embedded in the stone.
 
I appreciate the expert opinions here. In the book he doesn't talk much about dimond sharpeners. But, I don't think they were very common back then. I'm still a little unclear of some of his ideas. On page 17, he says that stainless steel is four times better at holding an edge than carbon steel.
 
mostly nothing, except i do use water on my water stones. they work better, and not so sneezy-dusty. as far as the steel goes; what stainless vs what carbon?
 
Dry most of the time. There's a stone that lives outdoors on a work table occasionally gets used wet with the water hose.
 
he who say said:
mostly nothing, except i do use water on my water stones. they work better, and not so sneezy-dusty. as far as the steel goes; what stainless vs what carbon?
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He was conducting a test in a meat packing plant with two identical knives except one was "high carbon" and the other was stainless steel." Other than that he never went into any other detail. But, I would guess it had to be at least 440 A or C.
 
some new stainless steels with CPM in their name have the ability to out cut carbon steel blades but not by much and you will pay much more for that performance. As for using lubricant, no, I use ceramic and diamond stones and the only thing oil or water will do is make a mess.
 
I do it all of those ways and others besides. Juranitch is full of crap and doesn't understand how natural and composite stones work. In order for a hone that is a composite of grit to work it has to constantly wear down and expose fresh grit. Oil stones are intended to break down at an optimal rate if wet with oil and waterstones are intended to break down at an optimal rate if wet with water. For short periods of time you can use these hones dry, but then you need to clean and freshen the surfaces with something like a sink cleanser and some scrubbing. The use of oil probably started because natural stones responded well to using that.

Now oil is messy so I experiment with other fluids to achieve the same effect. The right fluid prevents loose grit from caking in the surface of your hone as well as allowing a gradual hone wear (which exposes fresh sharp grit). On natural Arkansas hones for example I like to use rubbing alcohol.

Ceramic hones resist breaking down with fluids and work pretty well dry. I say "pretty well" since their surfaces do get filled with metal residue. You have to scrub them to remove that metal periodically. You never have to do something like that with an oilstone or a waterstone that has been consistently used with its proper fluid.

Diamond grit hones are made more like sandpaper than like a hone. You don't want those to break down since there would be no grit left once the single layer was gone. They are set in a very tough substrate and diamond is incredibly hard so you don't have wear expose new grit, you just keep using the same grit layer. The diamonds are slippery and metal does not stick to them. With a diamond hone you generally work dry and just wipe residue off periodically with a rag.

I like to work with a clean hone that does not have a bunch of loose grit on the surface (its not usually a big deal, just a minor preference). What I often do is hone under running water. This works with a lot of different types of hones if I have made sure that they don't have a residue of oil embedded in the surface. I have used aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, waterstones, diamond hones and even ceramic hones that way. It insures that no grit residue dings or rounds my edge.
 
I use to use water on the SiC stone that I use for quick stock removal, but it got old constantly adding fresh water. I tried it dry once and it did clog but after a certain point if stopped and the stone still works. Maybe not as quickly, but very useable. I now only use it dry but I do rinse it off after every knife. I reprofile alot of knives BTW, I can wear out a 8" Norton Crysolon Pike stone in a month or two.
 
On my Norton IC6 stone, I use Simple Green spray cleaner. I'm telling the truth. I got it from Wayne Goddard. He swears by it. It seems to work well and is not as messy as oil.

On water stones, water, of course.
 
On diamond stones and my Sharpmaker I use nothing. On my strops I use, well, stropping compound. On Arkansas stones I use Buck honing oil. It is a very light oil and works a lot better than most oils. I notice an increase in cutting action with the Buck honing oil.
 
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