Knife hones/carborundum stone

[taffy]

Excuse the daft question, but is a knife hone the same as a razor hone and what is a carborundum stone used for?

 

[jtrops]

The hones are pretty much the same stuff, but razor hones are much finer abrasives. To put it in perspective a 800-1000 grit finisher for a knife would be a bevel setter for a razor.

Carborundum is a company in New York that first marketed man made silicon carbide hones. It is also used as a generic term for silicon carbide abrasives. I have a Carborundum barber hone, and I'm pretty sure that's what you'll see referenced on these forums. I know there are other hones by them, but I would suspect most of them to be too coarse for razors.

 

[SliceOfLife]

It depends what you mean. If you mean the 3x1" "knife hones" you get at a sporting good store for $5-10. Then those are garbage. I wouldn't even use them on a knife. A stone you fish out of a stream would work better. If you mean the various knife and tool hones available from places that actually expect people to use them, then excluding a few very rare exceptions they will work with razors, but won't necessarily give an edge good enough to shave off of. If you mean a hone sold as a "knife hone" on eBay, then it's just as likely to be a razor hone as a "razor hone" sold on eBay is. Calling a hone a razor hone is like calling a Gillette a Fatboy. Sellers who know nothing about their product slap it on there because they've noticed that auctions with those words sell for more than auctions without them.

Carborundum is silicon carbide. It's a very hard manmade material (Probably also mineable somewhere. I'm no geologist) that can be produced in fairly uniform sizes cheaply. Thus it is used to make some synthetic hones. I've seen them as rough as ~100grit and as fine as ~10000. There was a company called (I believe) The Carborundum Hone Company. They made hones ranging from ~100grit to ~10000 grit. Basically what I'm saying is that knowing a hone is a Carborundum hone doesn't really tell you much other than its composition.

 

[taffy]

Thanks for the replies, seems a lot of knife stones fall under the same tag as razor hones and carborundum stones also fall under the same tag which is confusing for a newbie.

 

[currentman]

Carborundum is silicon carbide. It's a very hard manmade material (Probably also mineable somewhere. I'm no geologist) that can be produced in fairly uniform sizes cheaply. Thus it is used to make some synthetic hones. I've seen them as rough as ~100grit and as fine as ~10000. There was a company called (I believe) The Carborundum Hone Company. They made hones ranging from ~100grit to ~10000 grit. Basically what I'm saying is that knowing a hone is a Carborundum hone doesn't really tell you much other than its composition.

+1 only use a carborundum if it is marked for "razor use" IIRC, the model numbers marked on the side of the stone should be 100, 101, 102,104