Diamond powders for honing

[mannyshaver]

So a coworker of mine told me of an interesting idea for sharpening razors. He claims this is how he sharpens his knives and wood working tools, since I am working in a cabinet shop i dont doubt him that much but he has told me to try this.

Make a slurry with diamond dust or powder whatever the correct term for it is and mineral oil and place the slurry on a piece of thick glass and proceed to sharpen the way you would normally do it for the application.

He is claiming that you can get really nice and sharp edges even build bevels with this method.

I know you can use the diamond paste on your cotton strop but could you really just buy some different sized powders and hone a razor.

Or should you just use a lapping film or would you just make a lapping film of paper and this powder on it.

If this is the case I might get back into getting myself some straights

 

[buca3152]

Lapping film sounds better than the glass plate and dia thing. I don't know anything about that. But lapping film will offer you inexpensive way to keep your razors sharp. I like stones better but there are many who maintain and hone on film. See many posts on here on how and where to buy etc.

 

[professorchaos]

I experimented with something similar using a Spyderco UF and diamond sprays. Mixed results at best.

 

[Kentos]

I experimented with nanogrit (under .1 micron) CBN and Polydiamond sprays on my noname Jnat. Nicely polished bevels, but, hard to say if it was worth the extra effort.

Then thing about sharpening planes and chisels vs a razor is the difference between removing wood from wood, vs. whiskers from skin. Now if you were removing skin from skin...

 

[rollie]

Whilst traveling, I just strop on the news paper.
I will definitely say that you ?can get about a month with newspaper.
,But yes, you can do better with stones, linen, leather.

 

[SliceOfLife]

There was at least one and probably more than one vintage barber hone that did just this. You were supposed to take abrasive grits, wet the surface of the glass hone, and put them on it to hone on. No idea how well it worked, but they've come up on eBay a time or two.

 

[Fish Slayer]

Loose abrasives on a glass plate should hone, but lapping with loose abrasives will have a different action than lapping with fixed abrasives (like a stone or film). I believe that the fixed abrasives will work faster.

Another consideration is possible cross contamination between grits, unless you have a different glass or lapping surface for every grit. A few grains of larger grit abrasive could ruin a lot of work with the finer abrasives.

Another thing that you would have to watch for is the wearing of your lapping surface as the loose abrasives will be working on the lapping plate as well as the razor. Stone users have to periodically lap their stones flat, Lapping film users must replace the film periodically. I would think you would have to either replace your lapping plate or flatten it periodically as well if working with loose abrasives.

Frankly, I see little advantage to lapping on glass with loose abrasives. There may be subtle differences and an experienced user may or may not be able to coax a little more out of an edge with them, but starting off, I would recommend more traditional methods, if nothing else for the advice and help that you can find on this site. There is no shortage of members that are accomplished at using water stones (name the brand and somebody will sound off), coticules, JNATs, lapping film, slates, barber hones, etc.

If the cost of stones is too much to start with, lapping film should not be more expensive than a set of different size loose abrasives.

 

[BakerAndBadger]

I experimented with nanogrit (under .1 micron) CBN and Polydiamond sprays on my noname Jnat. Nicely polished bevels, but, hard to say if it was worth the extra effort.

Then thing about sharpening planes and chisels vs a razor is the difference between removing wood from wood, vs. whiskers from skin. Now if you were removing skin from skin...

How about wood from skin..... Ouch!

 

[BDF]

Good post.

Agreed about the loose particles rolling around between two hard surfaces- that is not really any viable type of abrading but rather would be more akin to beating up the leading edge of the smaller part (razor) against the larger part (glass plate). Generally lapping seems like that is what is going on but in reality, one or both of the materials has to be soft enough to actually embed the particles at which point they abrade away at the other surface. A typical application is a brass drum lap which is coated with silicon carbide and the rotated inside an existing hole; what is really happening is that the brass is soft enough to have the SiC embed in it and actually lap or 'sand' away at the material the hole is in, usually hardened steel or similar.

Brian

Loose abrasives on a glass plate should hone, but lapping with loose abrasives will have a different action than lapping with fixed abrasives (like a stone or film). I believe that the fixed abrasives will work faster.

Another consideration is possible cross contamination between grits, unless you have a different glass or lapping surface for every grit. A few grains of larger grit abrasive could ruin a lot of work with the finer abrasives.

Another thing that you would have to watch for is the wearing of your lapping surface as the loose abrasives will be working on the lapping plate as well as the razor. Stone users have to periodically lap their stones flat, Lapping film users must replace the film periodically. I would think you would have to either replace your lapping plate or flatten it periodically as well if working with loose abrasives.

Frankly, I see little advantage to lapping on glass with loose abrasives. There may be subtle differences and an experienced user may or may not be able to coax a little more out of an edge with them, but starting off, I would recommend more traditional methods, if nothing else for the advice and help that you can find on this site. There is no shortage of members that are accomplished at using water stones (name the brand and somebody will sound off), coticules, JNATs, lapping film, slates, barber hones, etc.

If the cost of stones is too much to start with, lapping film should not be more expensive than a set of different size loose abrasives.

 

[rollie]

I haven't used lapping film, but I'm certain that film would give much more consistent results.