It is cleaned up and lapped now. Can not wait to give it a dance. I will keep u updated. It is alot smoother surfaced than i thought it would be. i wonder if it would work with water and what a slurry would be like and if it breaks down finer as i have heard. this is the first one i ever held so there will be much to learn. i will enjoy the journey. i know it is an oilstone so it think i will use oil as that is the way u are suppose to. But i will always wonder if and how it would work with water.
My new keen kutter lily white washita
- Thread starter tomjr
- Start date
If you wanna use oil..2-3 drops of mineral oil with do just fine..water tends to be a finisher for blades..but you could try it with a slurry stone..yea sounds weird I know...
I have a Pike's lily white and a Norton no. 1 and have only used them with oil. They are porous, so after lapping, I soaked them in oil for a couple of days to saturate them and prevent the build-up of swarf. In both cases, bevel setting is most curious--it both sharpens and polishes at the same time. Setting bevels with either, I am mowing down arm hair like a mid-range stone afterwards. Out of curiosity, I tried an HHT off the no. 1 (which was the poor man's lily white) and it was severing the hair with a plucking sound all along the blade's edge. Normally, I use Dan's honing oil. Norton's "food safe" oil is also possible, although I would avoid straight mineral oil as it is thicker. Dan's is probably a 1:1 blend of mineral oil and kerosene (the old-time method), which I have also used. Following the old accounts, raising a slurry has been pretty much out of the question in my book, the same being true with the arks. That said, when I lapped the Washitas with water on wet/dry, in both cases, I found that it was advantageous to create a slurry by chamfering the edges of the stone (which quickly knocked off the sandpaper's abrasive) and then use this slurry to lap the stone's surface to conclusion.
Frankly, I don't see the prejudice against oil. My kitchen counter tops being fragile soapstone, I lay a folded paper towel on the edge of the counter, place the stone on it, add a few drops of oil to stone, smearing this across the surface with my forefinger, and then go to town. There is never any mess there, which is not the case for me with water stones. I use a dedicated wool or felt rag to wipe the oil stone at the end, the rag being stored in a dedicated ziplock bag afterwards.
Edit: thanks for the pix. Looks nice. The label of my lily white came off cleanly, but the Norton no. 1 label, I covered with fingernail polish, so as to protect it (it was already kind of beaten up). So far, this has been working well. But when it comes time to remove the fingernail polish, who knows?
Frankly, I don't see the prejudice against oil. My kitchen counter tops being fragile soapstone, I lay a folded paper towel on the edge of the counter, place the stone on it, add a few drops of oil to stone, smearing this across the surface with my forefinger, and then go to town. There is never any mess there, which is not the case for me with water stones. I use a dedicated wool or felt rag to wipe the oil stone at the end, the rag being stored in a dedicated ziplock bag afterwards.
Edit: thanks for the pix. Looks nice. The label of my lily white came off cleanly, but the Norton no. 1 label, I covered with fingernail polish, so as to protect it (it was already kind of beaten up). So far, this has been working well. But when it comes time to remove the fingernail polish, who knows?
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I also have a Pike Lily White. It is a great stone, and perfect for razors (in my opinion). I often set a bevel, and take it up to "technically shaving" with this stone, then finish on a CNat or other higher grit stone. I use only straight mineral oil on it and haven't had a problem with it. I appreciate that it doesn't have any odor, and is completely food safe. I would be interested to see if you can get better results than what I get (maybe in the 7K range).
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