Shapton Ceramic Stones and Hone-Rite Gold

[Denny Rice]

I have recently purchased a new set of Shapton pro line ceramic stones and someone turned me on to a product called Hone-Rite gold. Diluted in spray bottle it is suppose to make water non corrosive to the point after you are done sharpening a plane blade or chisel you can wipe clean with paper towel and never have to worry about rust. My question is is this product compatible with my new shapton stones? I know the directions from shapton says just water no soap of any kind but this is a rust inhibitor? Is anyone here using this product and do you like it? Is it worth the 30.00 asking price? Thanks.

[Denny Rice]

Really? Nobody? Come on guys! LOL

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Denny,

With your permission, I will move this thread to the Neander Forum where you stand a better chance of getting an answer.

[Ryan Mooney]

I can't answer the stones question.

I have used honerite gold with my Sigmas and haven't had any problems. It doesn't seem to add any "texture" to the water like soap or anything would so I suspect its ok. It does seem to help with the rust issues although being careful and wiping down with a lightly oiled rag after honing seemed to work about as well for me - but I'm in a really dry climate so ymmv.

[Denny Rice]

Denny,

With your permission, I will move this thread to the Neander Forum where you stand a better chance of getting an answer.

Sounds good. Thanks Ken

[Stuart Tierney]

From my testing, it's fine. No harm done. However, it's not 'plain water' so according to Shapton's warranty requirements, it'll void the warranty. Any problems you have potentially stemming from using Honerite gold in your sharpening water may mean that Shapton will not cover you and you're on your own.

(I care not about such things. You might.)

Also, Honerite gold does change the rusting tendency of water, but doesn't completely stop it causing rust when mixed according to the directions. It will slow down rusting, and the rust that does occur is a 'stain' rather than 'corrosion' so easy to fix, but you will need to remove the water from the blade once it's sharpened, Honerite gold or not.

The stuff isn't fool proof, but it does make a noticeable difference.

Disclaimer here; I was given 2 bottles for evaluation purposes by the maker. I tested it out on all stone compositions I have access to (all types) and gave the results back to the maker.

Is it worth it? I don't know. For me, as my normal sharpening practises do not allow rust to form on a blade (unless I am distracted part way through), it's not worth it. But I have fresh, soft, running water available and as much as I can ever need. I do not 'keep' water sitting around for stones and my main concern with the stuff was whether it was harmful to me if I happened to cut myself and some of the water got into the cut or any residue on a knife would be harmful if I swallowed it. Water is a consumable for these stones, and adding significant value to that water for no tangible net benefit (for me) and possibly causing health concerns means I still have half a bottle of it, un-used.

If I knew that it was 100% mammal safe, but also included a microbial growth inhibitor (seems to do that reasonably well) AND stopped rust from forming completely, I'd be behind it whole heartedly for everyone.

But for me, no, not worth it.

If you can restrict yourself to a single 'pool' of water, your water quality causes rust quickly (water softeners?) or your sharpening practises allow rust to form, then by all means give it a shot. It not cheap, but it makes a large quantity of sharpening water and you only need use it when you're sharpening. Not cleaning and flattening the stones too.

Maybe more than you wanted to know, and maybe a little scary too, but if you think it might be of benefit to you, get some and see what you think.

Stu.

[David Weaver]

A very expensive fix to a problem that doesn't really exist. If you have rust problems, bluing and other items that don't create a moisture barrier are not going to help for long.

Spend $15 on a gallon of mineral oil at an equine supply place, farm store, commercial kitchen store, or whatever, and wipe it on your tools. It'll last next to forever. Beeswax is $6 a pound on ebay, and johnson wax is $6.

You could go through 6 liters of water in a couple of months of woodworking. The MSDS doesn't look horrible, but it's still expensive for what it's offering. There's probably a reason that you don't see many people talking about it despite it being out for a while.

[Denny Rice]

Thanks for the input guys. I called Shapton yesterday and got to speak to one of the guys there. They had never heard of the stuff but I told them I seen the stuff at Rob Cossmans booth and it was something Woodcraft was selling and Rob was using at demos for Woodcraft. The gentleman I had the chance to speak to yesterday said he was friends with Rob and was going to call him in the next week or so. I will keep everyone informed what I find out.

[David Weaver]

I don't mean to sound rude, but if Rob is selling it, he's not necessarily selling it because you need it. In this case you don't need it, and Stu's attesting that it doesn't even completely stop corrosion makes it a very expensive way to treat a gallon and a half of water. It would literally be just as cheap to buy two full gallons of actual mineral oil, which you would never go through unless you're breaking in airplane engines as a side business.

Presume if you were talking to someone at shapton in the US, it was either Harrelson Stanley or one of his employees.

It may be that woodcraft wants Rob to sell the honerite stuff. There have been various pushes for elixirs that I can recall. Some of them are surface tension reducers, and in this case, it sounds like a corrosion inhibitor instead (and a reference to wiki to the MSDS info shows that the Benzo*** stuff in the honerite is a corrosion inhibitor of some sort).

Stu mentioned that it is antimicrobial (not necessarily that ingredient, but the product in general or at least appears to be - things like that are not great to have on your hands all the time).

Generally, and this is my opinion, a lot of this stuff is pitched to beginners (as Woodcraft and Rockler do with a lot of their tools - extruded aluminum and plastic jigs, etc) because that's who will buy them, but other folks won't. I can tell you as an avid and almost rabid user of shapton pros that there are two things that come to mind with the shaptons to me. A atoma diamond hone is nice to have with them (the shapton lapping stuff is overpriced and it does actually wear out and need replaced whereas my atomas have not), and they work great with water and experience with them will cover everything else.

And a last outside opinion, there are a lot of things that will inhibit rust. Many of them are extremely good at it, like paste wax on tools that sit for months, and cheap mineral oil for a wipe down on often used tools that reside in a humid area, but what a woodworking retailers will sell and pitch you things like camelia oil because they can sell it for $10-$15 for 8 ounces or a pint.

In the past, I have had my wallet open to pretty much everyone, so it's not for lack of experimentation or actual practiced thrift that I make the above comments.

[Denny Rice]

David,
David,

Thanks, you didn't sound rude at all. To clarify Rob was per say not selling the product, I was watching the demo, and noticed the bottle of HoneRite on his workbench. I ask him about it and he answered a couple of questions. My big questions about this product was does it work and was it worth the cash? The only other question was I noticed Rob was using Shaptons "glass" stones and I own the ceramic style stones and I was concerned that the difference in the stones would result in a different outcome than his and would the product effect my stones in a way it would not his. Thanks for everything.

[Jack Curtis]

David,
David,

Thanks, you didn't sound rude at all. To clarify Rob was per say not selling the product, I was watching the demo, and noticed the bottle of HoneRite on his workbench. I ask him about it and he answered a couple of questions. My big questions about this product was does it work and was it worth the cash? The only other question was I noticed Rob was using Shaptons "glass" stones and I own the ceramic style stones and I was concerned that the difference in the stones would result in a different outcome than his and would the product effect my stones in a way it would not his. Thanks for everything.

That IS selling, probably both Honeright and Shapton glass. So far as I know, Rob never not sells.

[John Stankus]

I have recently purchased a new set of Shapton pro line ceramic stones and someone turned me on to a product called Hone-Rite gold. Diluted in spray bottle it is suppose to make water non corrosive to the point after you are done sharpening a plane blade or chisel you can wipe clean with paper towel and never have to worry about rust. My question is is this product compatible with my new shapton stones? I know the directions from shapton says just water no soap of any kind but this is a rust inhibitor? Is anyone here using this product and do you like it? Is it worth the 30.00 asking price? Thanks.

From the MSDS here are the active components
PBTC (Phosphonobutanetricarboxylic acid )
Caustic soda (Lye or Sodium hydroxide)
Sodium polyacrylate
Benzotriazole
Fluorescein


As a chemist what i would expect each of these components would do are
PBTC and Benzotriazole (and possibly sodium polyacrylate) would make a surface coating on the metal. Benzotriazole was a common surface protection agent for copper. Printed circuit boards would be dipped in a benzotriazole solution to protect the exposed copper traces. I am not sure if it is a continuous layer on the surface or does it also act as electrochemical protection (i.e. it is oxidized in preference to the metal surface)

The sodium hydroxide is probably used to adjust the pH to put more of the PBTC and Benzotriazole in conjugate base form to optimize absorption.

The fluorescein is a fluorescent dye.

Growing up we used to add a bit of benzotriazole to our car radiators to inhibit corrosion.


As a chemist I would argue that it doesn't make water non-corrosive but may inhibit corrosion by creating a surface layer for protection or providing something that is more easily oxidized than the tool steel. As to effectiveness your mileage may vary.

John

[Daniel Rode]

I don't want to pile on or defend Rob Cosman and I have no interest in this particular product. I always lightly oil steel tools, so it's not a concern for me.

However, I've been watching his subscription based hand tool videos for the last month. One of my concerns was whether it would be a series of infomercials. Turns out that he rarely mentions or highlights any specific products. Even the planes he uses are a mixed bag of older stanley's, LN and WR planes. So in this case, he's not selling...

...mostly, not selling ;)

[Winton Applegate]

I would come at this from another direction . . .
for the most part I use A2 blades on Shapton Pros (and Nortons and Kings before that) and I have no rust problems with just plane, hard, water.

If you are sharpening 01 steel blades then you will have rust problems , quite a lot actually, but then you don't need shaptons and you can simply use the Washitas or Arkansas stones with oil or one of the other elixirs such as Magic Mineral oil or kerosene or paint thiner or . . .

you see . . .

PS: I wouldn't want wax on my blades clogging up my water stones though. Would come into play when taking a pass on the flat back of the blade.

What do I know ? I live in the high desert.

PS:
John S.

Thanks for the chemistry lesson. I learned something.

[Jim Neeley]

I don't want to pile on or defend Rob Cosman and I have no interest in this particular product. I always lightly oil steel tools, so it's not a concern for me.

However, I've been watching his subscription based hand tool videos for the last month. One of my concerns was whether it would be a series of infomercials. Turns out that he rarely mentions or highlights any specific products. Even the planes he uses are a mixed bag of older stanley's, LN and WR planes. So in this case, he's not selling...

...mostly, not selling ;)

+1, Daniel.

I've been a member of both workshops since their inception, rapidly approaching 2 years. Fifty-two weeks a year, five classes a week, 30 minutes per class would be 130 hours/year so my membership is perhaps 240 hours of learning from Rob. Add to that the 5-day, 12 hours/day hands on class I attended of his in Seattle in August gives me about 300 hours total of watching Rob in action and working directly with him. During this time I've watched him use / test / evaluate quite a range of tools and equipment. Some he really liked and some went to the wayside.

For anyone who does not know this, Rob is a proponent of a hollow ground primary bevel on a coarse grinder, a secondary bevel using about a 1000 grit stone, with a tertiary bevel using 16k or so, both traditionally Shaptons.

Trend sent Rob a two-sided 320/1k diamond plate for evaluation a year or so ago. To evaluate it he began swapping back and forth between the 1k Shapton and 1k Trend plate during various episodes, getting a feeling for each. During a workshop one day he picked up the Trend and we could see the beginning of some light rust on the bottom surface where some moisture had gotten trapped.

Shortly thereafter Rob showed that he was trying some Hone-Rite in his sprayer, as a preventative measure with the Trend. Along the way his blades would get the protection as well. Additionally, since he uses the fine Shapton after the Trend and uses a single spray bottle, the Hone-Rite goes there as well. This all started a year or so ago.

Above I mentioned being a member for approaching 2 years. The 240 hours above translates into about 480 thirty-minute episodes and I do not believe an episode has passed where sharpening has not occurred. The Hone-Rite goes back about half of this. watching these videos in high-def I can see the surface of the stone very well and can attest that there has been no apparent damage to the glass stones (or rust on the diamond plate) from the Hone-Rite. Personally, I picked up some Hone-Rite when I attended Rob's class in the Seattle Woodcraft store in August, use it in my sprayer (I'm experimenting with a mix of diamond and Shapton myself) and likewise have seen no damage.

Is it some magic elixir? I do not claim that. I do know that I've got (at least for me) a lot of $$$ tied up in my hand tools, I too have researched the chemicals and see some anti-corrosive properties and 6 quarts of liquid for my sprayer will last me a LONG time. I see it as a bit of cheap insurance.

Just my opinion, YMMV.

Jim in Alaska

[David Weaver]

Hopefully, the rust on the trend plate was rust from swarf and not rust on the plate itself. The trend plate was an entirely separate issue discussed here earlier, it's one of the products that in my opinion goes into the category of better for the seller than the buyer.

At any rate, most diamond plates, if they are milled steel backed, have some sort of lacquer or oxidized surface that doesn't rust that easily. I've not had any diamond hone (including two "best" sharpening stone diamond hones from china - which is where the trend is from) that's rusted, but all of them have had rusty swarf on them (which is a condition thats relieved as easily as honing a tool on them).

re: the comments above, it's my suspicion (we're never going to have retailers and promoters tell us about their conversations of what to promote and what not to) that since Rob is now promoting for woodcraft instead of lie nielsen, he will be promoting products he never would've promoted at lie nielsen just like he promoted products at lie nielsen that he probably would not have promoted if he was selling his own line of stuff at that time. He's got to put food on the table, that's his job.

It's kind of comical that when you go back to woodcentral's archives in 2008, you'll find that Rob was telling folks at the time that the only chisel he'd found that would stand up to 17 degree bevels was the lie nielsen chisels. There was a discussion some years later (after the LN promotion ended) that they didn't actually hold up that well at 17 degrees (I think all of us could find that out pretty easily).

My ears will perk up when he's using and praising product that he doesn't sell and that woodcraft doesn't sell (or better yet, that a competitor sells). Otherwise, a lot of the things that will go across his bench will have an SKU at woodcraft, and that is, in my opinion, precisely why they are going across his bench. Like the trend plate - there is no reason that anyone should buy a made in china monocrystalline diamond hone for $145, it shouldn't, in my opinion, even be promoted to people when there are two-sided flat made in the USA monocrystalline diamond hones for half as much.

I believe that's the beef that most people have with product association with Rob - the items change with the parternship. If you examine someone like Warren Mickley who has no power tools and works wood for a living, you'll find a very short list of accessories. That's not good for the seller, but good for the buyer if the buyer so chooses to go that route.

[Jim Neeley]

It's kind of comical that when you go back to woodcentral's archives in 2008, you'll find that Rob was telling folks at the time that the only chisel he'd found that would stand up to 17 degree bevels was the lie nielsen chisels. There was a discussion some years later (after the LN promotion ended) that they didn't actually hold up that well at 17 degrees (I think all of us could find that out pretty easily).

My ears will perk up when he's using and praising product that he doesn't sell and that woodcraft doesn't sell (or better yet, that a competitor sells).

David,

Can I offer you an update?

Even today, Rob promotes Lie-Nielsen as making the best US-made chisel today and recommends them to his students.

Also still today, Rob maintains some of his L-N chisels with primary bevels at 17* and others at 25*. The 17* are used for paring and working in softer material, such as aspen or poplar (e.g. drawer sides), while the steeper angles are recommended for chopping hard material. As you are no doubt aware, when working in soft material, the shallower the angle the more likely it is to cut cleanly and the less likely it is to crush the stock.

To be clear, he does not propose 2 sets of chisels. To be specific he recommends against getting whole sets as he sees it as an unnecessary expense but rather to get the ones that you'll use such as perhaps 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2", adding in others (perhaps 1/8" or 3/4") based on the types of work you do.

When asked about Japanese chisels on the forum, he indicated that he doesn't use them / hasn't found the need and hence has no real opinion of them, good or bad.

Juswt my $0.02... YMMV.

Jim in Alaska

[David Weaver]

That brings up a different problem, and that is that the solution always seems to be one of buying. i haven't seen anyone anywhere else specify 17 degrees and it's certainly an arbitrary target that is pointless to aim for if a chisel holds up at 20.

17-19 or so is a bevel angle for razor manufacture, and one of futzing and tippy toeing around when using any chisels in wood.

[Jack Curtis]

...I believe that's the beef that most people have with product association with Rob - the items change with the parternship. If you examine someone like Warren Mickley who has no power tools and works wood for a living, you'll find a very short list of accessories. That's not good for the seller, but good for the buyer if the buyer so chooses to go that route.

+1, in complete agreement. And it's so tedious when a couple or three of Rob's acolytes come and profess his godliness, we have to repeat these conversations ad nauseum.

[Jim Koepke]

And it's so tedious when a couple or three of Rob's acolytes come and profess his godliness, we have to repeat these conversations ad nauseum.

No, we do not have to repeat these conversations. To prove it, that is all I am going to say. :p

jtk

Okay, just one more thing… Ad nauseam is one thing, but to carry on this conversation would be to add nausea.

[Mel Fulks]

I suspect that the product is one of the additives commonly added to the water that is pumped over knives while being ground in moulder knife grinders. They are usually referred to as coolants,but also prevent rust on the machine. Not good for your skin.

[Dave Anderson NH]

While personal opinions are fine, this thread is beginning to drift in to the area of bashing. Let's keep it on topic folks.

Enuf said.