Ever try your razor hone on knives?

[nicepatina]

So recently I tried honing some of my small pocket knives with my coticule, and was shocked by how good the result was. Had my little pocket knives push cutting effortlessly after running over the coticule. Only had a 1k Kong stone used for my knives before stropping but now that I got a legit finishing stone, figured I'd give it a shot on the knives and was more impressed by the result on my knives than on my razor, probably because razor bar for sharpness is of course higher. Lucky for me, my coticule slurry stone came in, so I will use that one for touching up my pocketknives from time to time while keeping my bigger coticule razor exclusive.

My question to you all is have you guys had any pleasant surprises honing knives with any of your razor stones? For me, I can tell you, a la veinette coticule is superb for knife finishing.

 

[JPO]

So recently I tried honing some of my small pocket knives with my coticule, and was shocked by how good the result was. Had my little pocket knives push cutting effortlessly after running over the coticule. Only had a 1k Kong stone used for my knives before stropping but now that I got a legit finishing stone, figured I'd give it a shot on the knives and was more impressed by the result on my knives than on my razor, probably because razor bar for sharpness is of course higher. Lucky for me, my coticule slurry stone came in, so I will use that one for touching up my pocketknives from time to time while keeping my bigger coticule razor exclusive.

My question to you all is have you guys had any pleasant surprises honing knives with any of your razor stones? For me, I can tell you, a la veinette coticule is superb for knife finishing.

I use my coticules just as much with knifes as razors. Some can be blazing fast, and create a nice working edge.
I don't do any bevel polishing, so my razor grade jnat's are mainly used with razors.
I usually don't bother going any higher then 4-6 k with knifes. So those higher grit synthetic razor stone are primarily used with razors.

 

[gbupp]

So recently I tried honing some of my small pocket knives with my coticule, and was shocked by how good the result was. Had my little pocket knives push cutting effortlessly after running over the coticule. Only had a 1k Kong stone used for my knives before stropping but now that I got a legit finishing stone, figured I'd give it a shot on the knives and was more impressed by the result on my knives than on my razor, probably because razor bar for sharpness is of course higher. Lucky for me, my coticule slurry stone came in, so I will use that one for touching up my pocketknives from time to time while keeping my bigger coticule razor exclusive.

My question to you all is have you guys had any pleasant surprises honing knives with any of your razor stones? For me, I can tell you, a la veinette coticule is superb for knife finishing.

Coticules in particular are great all arounders like this. I think a lot of knives can benefit though from using finishers on them, just depends on the application. For things like utility knives I think a finishing hone's edge can get knocked off easily, but for kitchen work even a really well finished knife made of good steel and a forgiving cutting board lasts a very long time and can give truly fantastic performance. Never hurts to try everything on all your stones and see what your mileage is!

 

[Gamma]

People have been using Coticules to sharpen stuff like tools, knives, razors, etc, for centuries. I have a BBW in the kitchen right now actually.

 

[Empire straights]

So recently I tried honing some of my small pocket knives with my coticule, and was shocked by how good the result was. Had my little pocket knives push cutting effortlessly after running over the coticule. Only had a 1k Kong stone used for my knives before stropping but now that I got a legit finishing stone, figured I'd give it a shot on the knives and was more impressed by the result on my knives than on my razor, probably because razor bar for sharpness is of course higher. Lucky for me, my coticule slurry stone came in, so I will use that one for touching up my pocketknives from time to time while keeping my bigger coticule razor exclusive.

My question to you all is have you guys had any pleasant surprises honing knives with any of your razor stones? For me, I can tell you, a la veinette coticule is superb for knife finishing.

Every. Single. Day. I hone knives and tools way more than I do razors. Coticules are amazing(especially coarse, hard ones, they handle pressure) for knives and axes. I occasionally put a chisel to one that's better left to other stones. With the right technique I can find a knife job with the finish my razor stone would impart. On pretty much every single razor stone I got, there's a specific use that edge is good for on some kind of knife. Learning about abrasives and how they work vs how they feel to touch is a really weird subject. Wild stuff.

 

[Tomo]

The Shapton Glass 500 is a phenomenal knife stone. I bought it for really low range razor work like chip removal. It puts a nice toothy edge onto a kitchen knife. It also quickly cuts a fresh bevel.

 

[Empire straights]

Coticules in particular are great all arounders like this. I think a lot of knives can benefit though from using finishers on them, just depends on the application. For things like utility knives I think a finishing hone's edge can get knocked off easily, but for kitchen work even a really well finished knife made of good steel and a forgiving cutting board lasts a very long time and can give truly fantastic performance. Never hurts to try everything on all your stones and see what your mileage is!

I find testing a stone on a knife makes it much easier for me to read the character of the stone vs starting with a razor.

 

[Steve56]

As far as finishing knives goes, yes, I’ve tried them. A truly great razor hone is a waste on a knife, for a reason, except as noted below. A razor hone edge is too ’sharp’ to bite into tomato skin, etc. No teeth. I prefer a suita or coti for veg knives, or no finer than 5k synth. If your knife edge is not cutting well, push harder, a pot roast never complains. You can’t push harder if your straight razor isn’t cutting well. Well, maybe once, lol.

There is an exception, as with all things JNat, and that’s if you are in a sushi competition to slice a shrimp one cell wide. Or to float a wood plane shaving on air that’s so thin that you can see through it. Then a razor hone might serve your tools well. But no, not for ordinary mortals doing ordinary things. A Ferrari is nice, but maybe not the best for a big grocery run or a trip on the unpaved backroads.

Choose the right tool for the job.

 

[PLANofMAN]

If a stone will set a razor's bevel, it will finish a knife. I use my mid-range razor coticule to sharpen all my kitchen knives. I generally use Washitas for chisels and plane irons though.

For all I know, this was used to sharpen scythes and swords centuries ago. Seems a shame to reserve it for use only on razors, especially when it will sharpen VG10 as quickly as normal carbon steel.

 

[nicepatina]

If a stone will set a razor's bevel, it will finish a knife. I use my mid-range razor coticule to sharpen all my kitchen knives. I generally use Washitas for chisels and plane irons though.
View attachment 1641130
For all I know, this was used to sharpen scythes and swords centuries ago. Seems a shame to reserve it for use only on razors, especially when it will sharpen VG10 as quickly as normal carbon steel.

Nice, I am guessing, many of us razor guys are also knife guys as well. Yeah my spyderco dragonfly in vg10 in particular sharpened really well with my coticule too.

 

[PLANofMAN]

Nice, I am guessing, many of us razor guys are also knife guys as well. Yeah my spyderco dragonfly in vg10 in particular sharpened really well with my coticule too.

I owned many Thiers Issard knives before I ever owned a Thiers Issard razor. My preference these days is for carbon hand forged Japanese knives, but the vast majority of blades in my knife block are still French, albeit mostly stainless.

There is a fine line between stones for razors and stones for knives, with a small range of overlap. Also, some stones perform differently when used with heavy pressure vs. the light pressure used for honing razors. Once you get above the 6k grit range, you are just burnishing the edge on a knife, and not really making it any sharper than it needs to be for most purposes. The exception is sashimi knives and other knives used for sushi, which will happily take an 8-12k edge. That being said, there's little point in using an expensive natural water stone like a Thuringian on a knife. You'll dish the stone quickly, and it will take forever to sharpen, and you'll be able to shave off arm hair when you're done, and it probably won't cut a tomato, but will slice through meat like a hot knife though butter.

We act like the high grit synthetic stones were made for razors. They weren't. They were made for knives and tools. I think the Suehiro 10k is the only synthetic stone purposefully made for razors and scissors. If you go on the knife forums you'll see what they use, which is mostly synthetic stones. They also talk about Belgian Blue Whetstone, Yellowlake, Dalmore Blue, Tam o' Shanter, Washitas and other Arkansas stones. Just about every rock that's less than a finisher works on knives that are below a certain hardness. Coticules are a bit special. They are loaded with garnets, which are just slightly less hard than diamonds, and a hard coticule will sharpen just about anything. So will a soft coticule, but a soft coticule will kick up grit (slurry) and dish quickly under a knife's pressure. The saddest thing in the world is a soft coticule with large garnets. Razor guys tend to like harder coticules with lots of tiny garnets, which is why vintage stones tend to be rated better than modern stuff. There's a definite bias of opinion on this. It's not that the stuff being blasted out of Ardennes is any different than the old coticules, but generally old soft coticules got used up, so proportionally, more of the old hard coticules survived to modern times, in my opinion. Knife guys like hard coarse coticules, and you'll see lots of razor guys bending over backwards to try to make a stone work for razors that really ought to be a knife stone instead. It's the dirty little secret of the coticule world. La Veinette coticules generally tend to be fine enough for razor finishers. It's the other coticule veins that can be a bit hit or miss.

I don't use the old stone I posted up earlier as a razor finisher. It's a fantastic knife stone, and a good pre-finisher for razors. It could probably be finessed into being a finisher, but I have a good finishing coticule, so I don't have to try to push that stone to the upper limits of it's grit range.

No two natural stones are identical (though translucent Arkansas stones come pretty close in consistency), and every stone is capable of producing a better edge than the dumb monkey rubbing a bit of steel on it is capable of producing.

 

[Empire straights]

As far as finishing knives goes, yes, I’ve tried them. A truly great razor hone is a waste on a knife, for a reason, except as noted below. A razor hone edge is too ’sharp’ to bite into tomato skin, etc. No teeth. I prefer a suita or coti for veg knives, or no finer than 5k synth. If your knife edge is not cutting well, push harder, a pot roast never complains. You can’t push harder if your straight razor isn’t cutting well. Well, maybe once, lol.

There is an exception, as with all things JNat, and that’s if you are in a sushi competition to slice a shrimp one cell wide. Or to float a wood plane shaving on air that’s so thin that you can see through it. Then a razor hone might serve your tools well. But no, not for ordinary mortals doing ordinary things. A Ferrari is nice, but maybe not the best for a big grocery run or a trip on the unpaved backroads.

Choose the right tool for the job.

I like to have a scalpel sharp blade on skinning and fellet knifes. But I agree with your statement. If I'm working with really soft wood I like chisels the same way(either none or very, very tiny teeth). Knives finished on something like a fine charnley or la lune or something similar, is garbage for veg cutting. Washitas and medium llyn Idwals are hard to beat though.

 

[Empire straights]

The Shapton Glass 500 is a phenomenal knife stone. I bought it for really low range razor work like chip removal. It puts a nice toothy edge onto a kitchen knife. It also quickly cuts a fresh bevel.

I've been tempted to get one of these, or the 1k.

 

[Empire straights]

If a stone will set a razor's bevel, it will finish a knife. I use my mid-range razor coticule to sharpen all my kitchen knives. I generally use Washitas for chisels and plane irons though.
View attachment 1641130
For all I know, this was used to sharpen scythes and swords centuries ago. Seems a shame to reserve it for use only on razors, especially when it will sharpen VG10 as quickly as normal carbon steel.

That's precisely why coticules are my favorite all around utility stones. Those garnets will cut anything except diamond and do it very quickly.

 

[marv]

I use natural stones for knife sharpening. Coticule is already a widely used stone. For centuries they have been used for tools such as razors, knives and chisels. But my preference whether to use it or not depends on what type of knife it's sharpening.

I use synthetic stones for work such as bevel setting or when I want to remove a chip from the edge. There are not many natural stones with efficiency that I can compare with synthetic stones under 1000 grit and I find their marginal benefits to be low. When it comes to sharpening knives, synthetic stones are very successful at 1000 grit and below. Especially in carbon steels and non-high metallurgical steels.

If I'm sharpening a butcher's knife, the point I'd stop there would be no more than 1000 grit synthetics. because that knife will cut 200 animals a day in the slaughterhouse and the edge must be resistant to this. It should be suitable for sharpening steel use. For the vegetable knives I use in the kitchen, my stop is 5000 grit synthetic. Alternatively, a BBW or Coticule can be used as you mentioned. Or Aiiwatani, Wakasa Tsushima Black Ocean etc. Crete stone is very popular in my country also some Arkansas and some novaculite based stones like Charnley Forest are very good finishing stones for knives. What is important here is the purpose for which you are sharpening the knife. If you want to cut the lettuce in the air, then you can finish it with 10,000 grit synthetic or fine natural finisher, but you should not cut meat with that knife. In addition, European type knives do not have very high quality steel for top grit synthetic stones. Generally, steels such as Krupp 4116, T5, T7, 440 are used. Wüsthoff, Zwilling, F. Dick, Sabatier etc. It is also unlikely that these steels will be able to protect the edge in high grit stones.

In summary yes, I use natural stones. But I decide according to what purpose I will use it.

 

[Herrenberg]

I saw a mention of translucent arks working really well for deburring knifes, so I tried it, and it worked perfectly.

So now I use translucents very frequently for that, if I am finishing a knife on a Washita or soft Ark, and am already in "oil mode."

 

[cotedupy]

A Ferrari is nice, but maybe not the best for a big grocery run or a trip on the unpaved backroads.

The Ferrari in your analogy here Steve is presumably the knife stone? Full of raw speed and ineffable power.

The slow and highly specialised razor hone might then be akin to something like a milk-float perhaps...?

 

[Steve56]

The stone, choose the grit for the task.

 

[cotedupy]

The stone, choose the grit for the task.

Just joshing ya!

 

[buca3152]

My kitchen knives get a 325 dmt. One and done. My santoku gets a 1200. I have however refined them up to a shapton 30k and stropping with paste etc, lapping film etc. it's easy enough to do, I have all the stones etc but I haven't found a reason to. I prefer a toothy working edge. But don't let me spoil your fun. The tomato cuts better with a little tooth.