Honing oils

[James Nugnes]

So I am going back to natural stone for sharpening. I am not giving up entirely on my TOMZ Sharpener and in fact I like it a great deal. I just want to have a solid sharpening system for when I am away from power and for when I really have to repair an edge.

I use abrasive paper discs from Work Sharp on my TOMZ and its all good. I go from 400 to 1,000 to 3,000 to 6,000 grit. The discs wear quickly but they are not that expensive. I have been using slips to really repair edges and have decided to get full size stones that will comprise a complete Natural oil stone sharpening system. Plus 400 in paper does not seem to me to be anything like the equivalent of 200-400 grit in stone.

I have been able to come into some vintage bench stones and decided what the heck, I would go with those. I will be using a medium India, possibly a soft arkie, a vintage pike lily white and a vintage Norton hard translucent in instances when I am working through a grit progression. However I will take the lily white and leather with compound only when needing something when I am remote from the shop.

I am wondering though if folks think the contemporary honing oils are thinned down in one way or another to be the equivalent of a 50/50 oil and kerosene mix or if folks are mixing either mineral spirits or kerosene in with the oil to make the equivalent mix of the vintage oils.

Trying to compare 30 and 40 year ago experiences using natural stone with today's oils. Looking at and working with this generation of Norton honing oil, I certainly know it is not thinned with kerosene. Nor do I think it is as thin straight from the can as a 50/50 mix would be. In fact straight from the can, these oils seem a tad bit heavier than they should be even for use on contemporary oil stones. More concerned with not gumming up the works on the lily white than anything else and think it best to get as close to a vintage honing oil formula as I can get for use with that stone. By the same token if I end up with a mix I will likely use this mix on all the stones.

Are folks mixing for the most part especially with vintage stones or are folks more often just using contemporary honing oil straight from the can?

Thanks

[ken hatch]

James,

First, I had to google TOMZ Sharpener to figure out what you were talking about so take my post with the normal grain of.....

I use oil stones some newish others vintage, I can't tell the difference between the old ones and newer ones. For the most part I use straight kerosene, occasionally if there is a can of honing oil of some brand on the shelf I'll put a squirt in the kerosene but most of the time not. I agree the commercial honing oils are too thick for me but Norton pays folks to figure out what works best. I just know I've never had a problem with straight kerosene.

ken

[Kees Heiden]

I use WD40 now. Only availbale in expensive spray cans overhere, but it convenient, and on the natural Washita and Arkansas stones I only need a tiny little spritz. So a little goes a long way. I also have some babyoil which is thicker. I am not quite sure what I like better. Make sure you get the baby oil without the fragrants! It is cheaper and doesn't smell so badly.

I have a manmade oilstone, something like an India. It works allright, but it really sucks oil like nothing! WD40 works, but needs to be replenished often. When I need to remove a lot I use this stone first, otherwise I start with the washita. I have kind of a love hate relationship with this stone. I also don't like how it tears a towel apart when cleaning the stone after use. But it works very well.

[ken hatch]

I use WD40 now. Only availbale in expensive spray cans overhere, but it convenient, and on the natural Washita and Arkansas stones I only need a tiny little spritz. So a little goes a long way. I also have some babyoil which is thicker. I am not quite sure what I like better. Make sure you get the baby oil without the fragrants! It is cheaper and doesn't smell so badly.

I have a manmade oilstone, something like an India. It works allright, but it really sucks oil like nothing! WD40 works, but needs to be replenished often. When I need to remove a lot I use this stone first, otherwise I start with the washita. I have kind of a love hate relationship with this stone. I also don't like how it tears a towel apart when cleaning the stone after use. But it works very well.

Kees,

Do you ever have a problem with the WD40 drying "gummy"?

WD40 feels a little heavier/thicker than Kerosene. Both seem to work very well, I've even tried mixing the two, a squirt of each on the stone and when flattening a back seems to keep the stone clean and cutting.

ken

[Graham Haydon]

Baby oil. Easy to pick up with your weekly shop and it's pretty safe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_oil#Toxicology . Other oils are classed as more harmful, users might not have issues with other options straight away but prolonged exposure can be an issue.

If you want old school you can still buy neatsfoot oil but for me it's three times the price of baby oil and the wood being worked wont notice what oil you use..

[Kees Heiden]

No Ken, no problem, but I always wipe the stone clean after use.

[James Nugnes]

Thanks folks

The straight kerosene and the baby oil were a bit of a surprise. The kerosene less so because it is so obvious to me that these honing oils are just too thick and my memory of honing oil from 50 years ago was that it was thinned down right out of the can.

Sorry about the confusion on the TOMZ Massager. Tom is the guy that first started using discarded portable Massager Machines with their slow rotational shafts as a basis for mounting discs and then something abrasive to the discs. I use his Corian discs as I like using the Work Sharp papers and mount them to the Corian. The papers wear quickly but are cheap enough. He does have diamond discs for it and everybody gets a leather strop disc for it. My application is about 75 different carving gouges and another 25 carving knives and the TOMZ is a good machine for that purpose. You can either just strop or sharpen and hone/strop depending on how you load the machine. The slow rotational characteristic allows you to watch the wire edge being formed though it would drive somebody trying to sharpen an ax or even a hatchet on it right up a wall.

But it does not work so well for repairing an edge and of course you have to have access to power to use it. For one thing I don't like anything automated when trying to repair a gouge or knife edge even slow rotational automated. I had been using contemporary Arkie slips for that purpose and more recently high quality double sided bench sized, diamond plates. Never got into water stones but understand why some find them optimal.

Diamond plates just seem to leave you in an odd place with regard to grit progression. There is just something about the feel of the edge against an oil stone that I just cannot get out of my fingers, palms and wrists from all those years ago sharpening against natural stone. Even the little slips feel better than anything else I sharpen against manually though they are just too small unless you really need the various shapes on a slip.

Anyway thanks again. Think I will try a mix of Kero and oil....probably even less than 50% oil.

[george wilson]

Professional shops that I have been in just use kerosene as a honing oil. In fact,they leave their India stones and slip stones in a large coffee can of kerosene.

A lot can be made of ANYTHING to do with sharpening. Too much,in fact. Pages and pages of all aspects of it.

I can tell you that for many years,to make all of the work I have posted here,I just used a can of "lock oil" for sharpening. It was available in the museum's large warehouse. So,I used it. Worked just fine. Lock oil is just a thinned out oil that will run into locks easily when a bit is squirted into the lock. The thin part evaporated after a while,leaving a thicker oil which would stay put on the surfaces where needed.

What would I recommend as an oil for oilstone users? Just plain old kerosene,not mixed with baby oil. All oil does is float the honed particles away from the cutting going on at the stone's surface. Thin oil like kerosene works the best. Any thickening will impede your sharpening as it starts to act like most other oils: a lubricant that is designed to keep surfaces from wearing out. Any thickness of it will make it harder to get your stone to cut due to being lubricated,which is what you DO NOT want. Don't make a big deal out of it.

What am I using now? I don't use oil at all. It is really best if you don't as it keeps oily fingers and tools off your pristine,perhaps soon to be varnished wood. I use a diamond stone to get rid of any nicks I can see quickly. I use water in a squirt bottle,with a few drops of dish detergent in it. We use Dawn in the kitchen,so that is what I use in the shop. After the diamond stone,I use a black Spyderco coarse ceramic stone(still a pretty fine stone by most measures!). Then,a white Spyderco ceramic stone. Recently I indulged myself with an "Ultra fine" Spyderco,but the others have served me for 30 years or so. I am yet to really try it,as I need to really use it for some hours to get the "tooth" off of it that comes from just being made at the factory. And,being a ceramic stone that will never wear appreciably,even that will take some good honing. My final edge is done by stropping on a piece of MDF with LEE VALLEY green chromium oxide buffing compound on it. You need to be careful,as there are green compounds out there that are not pure CrO,and will not cut as fine.

After trying just about every stone out there,including the mess of water stones,I have settled on these Spyderco stones. They don't absorb water,and just a spirt is needed,that is easily wiped off,and doesn't somehow rust your tools (those water stones DID!)

I had museum money to spend,and did do a lot of research on stones,but these are what I have settled on. My tools are plenty sharp to shave you(I did shave a guy during making our movie on harpsichord and violin making. He came in one morning unshaven. All I had was a straight razor I used to cut felt,leaving no fuzz,for harpsichord dampers. He was not cut.) Cutting felt with no fuzz left is a good test of a real sharp edge. Skiving suede leather down from chrome tanned sea ray skin is a challenging job,when you need that ray skin as thin as toilet paper. They used it to cover expensive little instrument cases in the 18th. C..,but they did not have the obnoxious chrome tanned stuff to attempt to skive. It's all I could find these days. It's like planing fuzz down!

[Jim Koepke]

My honing oil is plain mineral oil from the local grocer. The local feed stores carry gallon bottles but the pint bottle works out costing less. If it needed to be thinned, some mineral spirits or kerosene could be mixed in.

It works for me.

jtk

[James Nugnes]

I am somewhat amazed at how thick these commercial oils are...even the Norton. Norton has really been in this business as long as or longer than anybody especially when you consider that they acquired Pike. Though it is clear that for whatever reason Norton went heavy after the whole water stone thing. Must have convinced themselves that was the future.... Heck they still own mines, some of them here in NH that are chock full of natural oil stone that they could easily quarry and sell and they just don't have any interest.

I still have some Norton oil...more than I need....will just mix it at a small percentage with the Kerosene if for no other reason than I can experiment a bit looking for a happy medium in oil : kero. But the more I think about it and read here, even 50% of contemporary oil sounds heavy to me, wayyyyy heavy. 20% might be about all that can be mixed to any advantage over just straight kero if trying to use one mix over a broad range of oil stones. At some point, as suggested by the poster above maybe there is no advantage at all over just straight kero even over a broad range of oil stones.

[george wilson]

All heavier oil does is "push" your cutting edge away from the stone. Use Kerosene for best honing.

When a plain bearing in a lathe spindle gets going,a film of oil will surround the spindle,and it is strong enough to allow the CONSIDERABLE pressure of turning steel without allowing the spindle to touch the bearing and wear it out. That is a LOT of pressure. Your connecting rods in your car operate the same way. Well oiled and using proper oil before each use,there are plenty of lathes 40+ years old that are still in good condition. Not oiled,they will not last long at all.

Being the toolmaker in the museum,I was called down to the maintenance dept. motor shop. They had a 1940s South Bend lathe that mysteriously would not cut steel. It was one of those older South Bends that had no separate(and replaceable) bearings. The bearings were bored right out of the solid cast iron of the headstock. The lathe looked o.k.. They kept it clean,and it was well painted. But,when I put a crow bar under he chuck,pivoted on a block of wood,it would lift up the spindle over 1/8" !! That lathe would have had to have the headstock accurately line bored out to a larger diameter,and bronze bearings made and installed. That is,if the spindle's rotating surfaces had not been worn out,too. And,the cocked over gears in the headstock worn out. Only a competent machinist could have repaired it. They gave it or sold it to someone who wanted to use it for a spinning lathe. I would have had news for him thought!!!

I couldn't figure out why those guys couldn't find this simple fault. No one ever had the sense or caring to oil their machinery. I think I was the only one who ever oiled the machines in our backup shop. And,when I became toolmaker years later,I saw to it that things were properly maintained: oiled,blades changed,etc..

[James Nugnes]

Just unbelievable......if those that had passed on lets say ten years ago....so, close enough to know about the internet and technology generally and have some expectations for it could see how hard it has become TO DO JUST ANYTHING these days, they would likely be laughing themselves silly.

Home Depot's web site says it has 1-K Kero in stock at the stores local to me.....NOPE...all they have is the 1-K Kero substitute. God please take me before I am confronted with even one more substitute product in this lifetime. The web site does not even mention that the substitute is all they have....you would not even think the substitute exists it is so invisible.

This after calling three different McDonalds to see if they were "participating restaurants" for this Nintendo 3DS promotion that my kid wanted to load into his game system.

And of course that was a challenge all its own. Internet had phone numbers for all three local restaurants....all of them wrong by at least one digit in each case. So some numskull that works for the local franchisee tasked with loading that material to their website and keeping it current got it wrong THREE DIFFERENT TIMES!

Tried Verizon information and they have now gone to an effort to have a totally automated number information system. So the system has to recognize the name you are giving it before it will budge and make any effort to find it for you. Had to get a live person on the phone to make any headway at all just to call ACTIVE BUSINESSES. Then when I got to somebody on the phone at those actual locations, in two cases, they had no idea whether they were participating or not.

I swear to God it is just no wonder at all why this country is going right down the drain and this time our business "leaders" are as much at fault as the politicians. These guys would not know how to run a business if their lives depended on it. They have no idea how to evaluate risk/reward and how to make value judgements that work. They simply take the cheapest way out of everything, they install technologies they don't understand and worse for which their staunchest proponents also do not understand as it relates to practical application. The plan if there is one appears to be, find some way to deal with the nuclear fallout when it all goes to hell in a hand basket. I have never been so GD disappointed in our business leaders in my entire lifetime and not only because they pushed so many people out the door that actually knew how to grow and run businesses six or seven years ago based on the idea that business was not going to be good for awhile anyway...So why hang onto the people that actually know how to run these businesses, since they are not going to grow anyway. Much much too costly to keep people around that actually know something in a down economy. There is a heck of positive business perspective for you.

The result....I fully expect more than just postal employees to start going postal at some point because there are whole days now when you can do nothing but chase your tail if you are making any effort to be productive as you are literally road blocked at every turn. You go from one screwed up information system to the next, one crummy automated accounting system to the next...one botched up web site to the next, one technologically superior but functionally inferior [to its predecessor] piece of hardware to the next. The only way to avoid it apparently is to sit home on your fat lazy duff and do nothing. Nice job America....well done. I can only wish to climb into my grave sooner rather than later so I can start turning in it.

[Mel Fulks]

I'm sure George is right...But WD 40 smell is tolerated better by wives , so you have better chance of getting by honing at kitchen table.

[Tom M King]

Kerosene is still sold in separate pumps at stores around here, but it's a couple of bucks more expensive than diesel fuel even without road tax on it, and I can't take the smell either.

[James Nugnes]

I really don't remember minding the smell of Kerosene. It is what it is....at one point in time, you could hardly avoid Kerosene and I am just old enough to be in that group. So maybe for some of us it became one of those things you decided to tolerate.

I am going to end up just locating somebody nearby that still sells it at the pump....Call them up to make sure at least somebody there knows they are identified as a source. That should increase the chance of actually getting it there to something like .....oh say 20% and then I'll go try to get some.

[ken hatch]

I really don't remember minding the smell of Kerosene. It is what it is....at one point in time, you could hardly avoid Kerosene and I am just old enough to be in that group. So maybe for some of us it became one of those things you decided to tolerate.

I am going to end up just locating somebody nearby that still sells it at the pump....Call them up to make sure at least somebody there knows they are identified as a source. That should increase the chance of actually getting it there to something like .....oh say 20% and then I'll go try to get some.

James,

We must be contemporaries, During my early years on the farm Kerosene along with coal was our main source of heat and cooking. I buy mine at Home Depot, it is a little expensive per gallon but it is close, the packaging is convenient, and they normally have it. Which reminds me, I emptied my jug today and need to make a HD run for more.

ken

[James Nugnes]

Would be interested to know if your HD is still carrying kerosene or if they only have the kerosene substitute in the store.

The web site does not even mention the substitute and they tell you they have kerosene in stock. Then when you get to the store there is no mention of 1-K kerosene at all and the only inventory they have is the kerosene substitute.

Kerosene was certainly an unavoidable necessity of life when I was growing up being as it was used for multiple purposes. In fact even if homes were not using it for its more common usages, almost every household I knew about (friends, neighbors, our own) had kerosene around because in a pinch you could fall back to using kerosene for so many things. It was a lead pipe cinch that every house had some and I could walk into a neighbor's house not knowing where their spare kerosene was in about 1 minute I would have found their 1-5 gal. can of it. It was that ingrained into our thinking and many of our processes.

[steven c newman]

Wallmart sell the K-1.

Can't stand the smell of the stuff...

Sellers uses a type of Window Cleaner ( Windex??)

I have been trying out an oil from 3in1. Used for air Tools. It is a lot thinner than their "regular" 3in1 oil.

I don't leave things like my oil stones soaking in a can somewhere, too good a chance that the "Shop Cat" will knock it over on his way to catch a mouse.

Gas stations do sell K-1, but it has a red dye in it. FIL used to call the stuff "Coal Oil".

[James Nugnes]

I might be in luck. The "other" home depot that is farther away from me might have kerosene there. There is a wal-mart farther away than that and they might have it as well. It is a bit frustrating that the closer stores don't carry it...especially here in New England where you would think it is more common.

Wish you could get the stuff in 1 gal metal cans. But so far I am only seeing it sold that way by the case, 4 gal. at a time. I hate those plastic jugs.

[Tony Zaffuto]

For my oilstones, I use "Marvel Mystery Oil", which is fairly thin. For the past several years however, I'm using my Spyderco stones, unlike George, without any water (may try), but like George, occasionally stropping. Seems a bit quicker than the oil stones.

Of my three Spyderco's, only the ultrafine needed a bit of flattening on an extra coarse diamond stone.

[george wilson]

pro or amateur woodworking practices cannot allow for the cat knocking things over. I just keep our cats out of the shop altogether. Dogs too,since I also have a machinist shop in there,with a number of very sharp metal chips laying about.

But,one night,someone left our stupidist cat in my shop(which my wife has the 2nd. story of). That cat tried jumping out of both front windows,knocking down 2 or 3 of my small parts cabinets and spilling thousands of small screws all over the floor in the process. I'll never have the patience or energy to sort them all out again. I do mean thousands. I'll just have to dig through the little drawers full of screws to find what I want from now on.

As for smell,perhaps odorless paint thinner would make just as good a honing medium as kerosene. I don't see why not,really. Or,just get Spydercos like me and spritz a bit of slightly soapy water on your ceramic or diamond stones. No smell,no oily stuff to get on your work,or possibly give you arthritis. Turpentine certainly can.

[Warren Mickley]

Years ago I used a mixture of kerosene and motor oil for honing. It was nice because I could adjust the viscosity for the best action and suspension of steel particles. I think I used more kerosene in the mixture when it was cooler in the shop.

When I started woodworking full time I had trouble in the winter with coughing in the evenings. Then when I thought to discontinue the kerosene, my cough cleared up right away. I had my sharpening table right near my bench and was sharpening several hundred tools a week. For someone just working evenings or someone with a big shop full of machinery, the kerosene would not be as much of a problem.

There is a reason why we call these stones oil stones. It is because the thicker oil is much better at suspending the steel. If one is satisfied with WD40 or mineral spirits, one might just as well use water, which is considerably cheaper.
Centuries ago workers used oil even though it was probably relatively more expensive then than now.

[Zach Dillinger]

For my oilstones, I use "Marvel Mystery Oil", which is fairly thin.

+1 for MMO. I keep lots of it around anyway for the Model T and it works well and smells great.

[James Nugnes]

Hope this reply ends up in a place where people can view it. Just trying to save people time and aggravation.

Home Depot here in NE and maybe nationwide is no longer selling 1 gal jugs of Kerosene. They only have 1 gal jugs of the kerosene substitute for sale. They now only sell Kerosene, 5 gal at a time, in two 2.5 gal jugs for $43.95 for the 5 gals. They do not stock in on the shelf and you have to ask for it. They keep it in the warehouse under the heaviest concentration of their fire control system. I would not keep 5 gals of kerosene anywhere in my house or even in my backyard shed as I just do not go through it that quickly and don't like the idea of having 5 gals of that stuff in one location.

Walmart has quart containers of Colman branded kerosene. I bought 3 of those just to make sure I had some. They charge just under $6.00 per quart. But you end up with a small opening at the top of a 1 quart plastic container. So pour is probably more controllable and waste is likely not so much of an issue.

Around here, Lowes appears to be one of the few places remaining that will sell 1 gal. containers of Kerosene. You pay less for it than you will pay getting quarts from Walmart. You do end up with that big opening at the top of the container which can be inconvenient for our purposes. Some of us are just using straight kerosene on their stones and I am likely to experiment with a mix of maybe 10-20% honing oil (whatever that is.....food safe mineral oil I suspect) and Kerosene. But mix or not, I can't imagine running through the stuff like water just using it as honing fluid/honing oil ....whatever we want to call this when used for this purpose.

Having just said, "we won't be running through it like water" but having never used 100% kerosene for honing before, the thought strikes me that maybe it does take a fair amount of kerosene to hone. I can't imagine that we would be achieving more than a slick of kerosene across the top of the stone. But how long does that stay a slick???? Can't be that long. So for the guys using straight kerosene, I am guessing you are reapplying kerosene pretty often just to keep the stone slick....is that right?

In fact, I would imagine that as the kerosene dries off, you are left with a little pile or line of very fine metal filings along or just off the part of the surface where you are doing the honing.

Regardless of whether I go get myself a 1 gal jug of the stuff, I am happy to have these small quart containers from Coleman. Even if I buy a gal of the stuff, I am likely to transfer it via funnel to one of these when its empty and use these for purposes of transfer to a mix of some sort if I end up deciding to mix the Kerosene with honing oil.

[James Nugnes]

Used to use Marvel Mystery Oil in my vintage car as well. Yes it is very much thinner for sure than Norton or likely anybody's contemporary honing oil. Red in color as I recall. Not sure I want to dye my oil stones red but the consistency might be just about right.

[Tom M King]

Completely unrelated to honing oils, but I'm going to stick these couple of kerosene stories in here: I used to develop some land on the lake here, and we had some pretty good sized burning piles. I kept Kerosene in an Indian Fire Pump (and water in another one) to get fires going, along with a 13hp Billy Goat blower. Saturn V rocket engines used a combination of kerosene and liquid oxygen to push pretty daggone big things into orbit. With the blower and that kerosene Indian pump, you could easily see how it did it.

When I was about 9 years old on my first scout camping trip, it got down in the low single digits. It was so cold the first morning that the leaders (men) couldn't get kerosene to light to start a fire.

[Tom M King]

They might as well stop putting the red dye in it. It's been a good number of years since kerosene was cheaper than diesel fuel. The red dye also goes in offroad diesel, which like kerosene, doesn't have road tax added into the price. There's a BIG fine for catching red fuel in an onroad truck. I had my pickup checked once, but it's never had red fuel in it. My tractor runs red though. Today here, diesel was 2.11 at the pump, and kerosene 3.69.

[steven c newman]

Had a two and a half car garage as a shop for a few years.....Had a Barrel stove for heat, I also had an old "Kero-sun" heater. used to get a metal can to haul the 5 gallons out to the heater. Heater used 1 gallon a day. Soo, the can was five days of shop time. Barrel Stove ran on wood scraps, yesterday's papers, leaves and whatever else needed burnt. It would keep the area around it about 80 degrees or so. The "Coal Oil" heater would keep the rest warmer than the outside.

Come to think about it....that old shop never had any "mistakes" sitting around very long. Once a month during the winter, I'd take a couple "blank" rounds, toss them into the stove back under the opening for the stove pipe.......POP! All the built up soot ( and worse) got blown up out of the pipe. Worked for me...

[Zach Dillinger]

Used to use Marvel Mystery Oil in my vintage car as well. Yes it is very much thinner for sure than Norton or likely anybody's contemporary honing oil. Red in color as I recall. Not sure I want to dye my oil stones red but the consistency might be just about right.

I use it on my trans ark just about every day. No noticeable dying effect has taken place.

[Kees Heiden]

There is a reason why we call these stones oil stones. It is because the thicker oil is much better at suspending the steel. If one is satisfied with WD40 or mineral spirits, one might just as well use water, which is considerably cheaper.


Or spit! If I can believe the stories, many an old hand spat on his stones instead of using oil.

[James Nugnes]

Well the oils of 40-50 years ago at least as I remember them were much thinner than contemporary honing oils or at least what is sold for contemporary honing oils. I do think it likely that they were at some percentage oil:kerosene or oil and something that thinned them a bit or they were just thinner oils. The current Norton can Ingredients only offers Mineral Oil. So I have to believe it is 100% mineral oil.

I have read posts and threads mainly at the blade or razor forums that mention the oil:kerosene mixes of a bygone era and that they were what was sold commercially as honing oil. That is why I will likely try something like that just for the heck of it as well as trying straight kerosene as some like here.

[James Nugnes]

I bet courser stones might absorb some dye though. The trans ark is a really nice stone...surely the one I got (looks from the box like a Norton from the 70's maybe even earlier,,,,NOS) is really very nice and very smooth.

I got a Norton soft ark of the same vintage also NOS...maybe ten years younger than the trans. Not sure if I am going to keep that one though since the medium india might take me right up to the lily white and then the hard trans ark last.

[Zach Dillinger]

I bet courser stones might absorb some dye though. The trans ark is a really nice stone...surely the one I got (looks from the box like a Norton from the 70's maybe even earlier,,,,NOS) is really very nice and very smooth.



I also use it on my coarsest stone, a combo Norton india. No color transfer that I can see. But I understand the reticence.

[James Nugnes]

Boy, I have seen some used stones for sale that have been dyed so red that they look like somebody has bled on them......hemorrhaging for that matter. Maybe they are using something other than the aforementioned red dyed Kerosene. Could it be the Miracle Oil used as a honing oil that does cause the stone to absorb a bunch of red? I seem to remember it as red in color......something other than red dyed Kero or Miracle Oil?????

[george wilson]

Kees,the old Dutch cabinet m aker used a natural coticle stone to sharpen with. Woodcraft used to sell them years ago. He did SPIT on it and hone his Swedish chisels. Fortunately,he took the stone with him when he left!:)

Warren: If you are honing SEVERAL HUNDRED(?) tools a week,yes,you might want to add a bit of oil to the kerosene. (Whose tools were you honing?) I agree,breathing kerosene fumes all the time might not be good for your lungs AT ALL. Kerosene heaters make my eyes burn. Can't stand them.

Someone tell me,WHY wouldn't odorless paint thinner work with or without oil added as a honing oil? It might be less harmful than kerosene,though I'd try keeping both off your hands as much as possible. I'm able to hone my tools without getting my hands all oily,at least back when I was using oil.

[James Nugnes]

I wondered about using something other than Kerosene as well but just did not want to start down some investigative path that just had me trying this one and then that one when I had not even seen what straight Kerosene was like and then Kerosene in a thin mix with something less than 50% oil.

There might be some magic to Kerosene. I have generally found that substitutes developed to replace the old standbys replace them in one aspect without replacing them in all aspects. So for example, I would be willing to bet that since Kerosene substitutes are marketed as a replacement to Kerosene in Kerosene heaters I am willing to bet they do that job just fine but might do other things as well.

But paint thinner, odorless or otherwise I would think would do as well. Has Kerosene just been passed down by generation and is that why it maintains its lofty position as a honing solution or is there something "real" there? I don't have the answer for sure.

[Kees Heiden]

Maybe the spit was more of a carpenters trick? Outside or on a jobside it might have been easier then carying an oil can. I have heard and read the story many times.

[James Nugnes]

I did not want to start a new thread for this question...sort of in the same vein of the original thread question.

I had a few email exchanges with the acknowledged oil stone expert in these parts. You guys all know him. He "guests" here and does some really nice youtube videos. Anyway I figure I have taken enough of his time. But one thing he mentioned prompts this question.

He favors WD-40 in a non-aerosol spray as a honing or sharpening oil. Clearly it is thinner than the Norton Oil which is I guess all Mineral Oil at some weight or another. Lots here use Kerosene, some using Kerosene mixed into a contemporary honing oil. Some like the Lasky.

So he mentioned that the WD-40 does leave a film or residue on the stone which is the part of the WD-40 mix that would act as a metal preservative if used in a more common WD-40 application. Wondering if the guys here that do use WD-40 have noticed that or if he is just so keenly aware of stuff regarding his oil stones that it was noticeable to him. If you guys using WD-40 do notice it, is it something that builds up that you have to deal with at some point....is it tacky or sticky? I would have thought the stuff would just dry off from the surface of the stone....but maybe not.

Glad my mounted 7" x 2" Pike lily white arrived safely. I usually do not favor mounted stones but I am actually glad this one is mounted. Just saw a 6" unmounted go for pretty big money on ebay. Glad I did not have to bid on that one though the guy that got it did not do too badly all things considered. It did look flat. Mine is dead flat as well and is really an NOS stone more than it is a used stone.

Anyway any added info on the residue left on oil stones when using WD-40 as a honing oil appreciated. I guess I would be most interested for one in the question about whether it is tacky or sticky. I have pets in this house and that means I have pet hair in some seasons hard to deal with. Would not want pet hairs stuck to the surface of these oil stones and wondering if the residue leaves you with that kind of issue. I do wrap any oil stones I have that are not mounted in a box in parchment type paper to protect them and to not wear out the vintage NOS boxes for them. All the oil stones I have I purchased NOS. They are all 30-40 years old at least but came to me as unused stones.

[Mel Fulks]

He says it's good ,so I use it. There are some slight differences in how these things work, I was using Ballistol which is mineral oil based but emulsifies with water. The idea was that I could control the viscosity and it worked well in that regard,but the stuff is such a good lubricant that it decreased the cutting. So I'm back to WD40. Many of us here are interested in minutia so here is my own useless contribution....Was wondering how much old soaked in oil might change specific gravity on natural stones. Took an old Washita checked SG then cleaned it with detergents and xylene soak. SG lost .1 . James ,shorter more helpful answer is wipe of the oil after use.

[Patrick Chase]

My final edge is done by stropping on a piece of MDF with LEE VALLEY green chromium oxide buffing compound on it. You need to be careful,as there are green compounds out there that are not pure CrO,and will not cut as fine.

The LV compound also contains quite a bit of aluminum oxide. They changed the related product page (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=32984&cat=1,43072) a few years back to say as much, and also reworded it to saw that the "average scratch size" is 0.5 microns (as opposed to claiming that the particle size is 0.5 um).

[Patrick Chase]

OT, but...


Completely unrelated to honing oils, but I'm going to stick these couple of kerosene stories in here: I used to develop some land on the lake here, and we had some pretty good sized burning piles. I kept Kerosene in an Indian Fire Pump (and water in another one) to get fires going, along with a 13hp Billy Goat blower. Saturn V rocket engines used a combination of kerosene and liquid oxygen to push pretty daggone big things into orbit. With the blower and that kerosene Indian pump, you could easily see how it did it.

Most modern orbital rockets still use highly refined kerosene (RP-1) and LOX. The alternatives are either uneconomical (LH2 + LOX) or toxic (UDMH + red fuming nitric Acid, UDMH + nitrogen tetroxide). The UDMH-based bipropellants are storable (non-cryogenic) and hypergolic, though, which makes them very attractive for some applications.

[Kees Heiden]

I haven't detected any residue from WD40 yet. But I wipe the stones clean after use (if I don't forget).

[James Nugnes]

If the residue is not tacky/sticky , I just don't think I will care about it....nor care about trying to remove it. If it attracts hair, dirt and what have you, that would be a very different story. No interest in having the stone surface attracting gunk.

[James Nugnes]

Decided to put some WD-40 on my Norton bench sized trans Ark just to see how it felt on the stone and try to learn something about this residue thing. There is a film left on the stone even after wiping it down. But it is not more than a film. Can't see how it can hurt anything. Plus I have to think that the WD-40 can be the stuff you use to wipe down the stone after sharpening,

I do think you want to use something else on your tools to keep them corrosion free for the same reason you don't want to use WD-40 on your garage door opener springs, pulleys, rails and wheels. If your tools are often exposed to humidity or dampness, you want to use one of the dedicated corrosion preventatives on them. Thanks for your help folks.

[Patrick Chase]

Warren: If you are honing SEVERAL HUNDRED(?) tools a week,yes,you might want to add a bit of oil to the kerosene. (Whose tools were you honing?) I agree,breathing kerosene fumes all the time might not be good for your lungs AT ALL. Kerosene heaters make my eyes burn. Can't stand them.

Kerosene isn't particularly toxic, but it is known to be a respiratory irritant. What Warren describes (a cough after continuous exposure combined with cold weather, which is also a respiratory irritant) seems consistent with the known impacts to me.

[michael langman]

Working in machine shops, garages most of my life, kerosene in a coffee can and the stones submerged. Take the stones out of the cans in the morning, and put away at night.
The kerosene would get old and have a pleasant smell to it, but then again the whole shop did.

[Kees Heiden]

Lo and behold, the WD40 indeed leaves a film on my Arkansas stone! I can't readilly detect it on my Washita and absolutely undetectable on the India. It feels a little slippery, but it doesn't avoid the stone to do its work.

[Warren Mickley]

I sharpened two carving gouges this morning. One took 35 seconds (9.7 millihours) the other took 45. For each i used three Arkansas stones plus a slip stone for the flute and leather strop. Because I used honing oil and not wd40, I did not have to add oil to the stones, just used what was already there. Because I used oil and not some thin liquid, I did not have to clean the stones afterward. The oil can get quite black but since it suspends the steel it is still effective. And I have used the stones many times, without cleaning them.

[Frederick Skelly]

I sharpened two carving gouges this morning. One took 35 seconds (9.7 millihours) the other took 45.

9.7 millihours? Warren, you made me spit coffee all over the monitor! Too funny!

[Mel Fulks]

Wd40 can dry like varnish but it's only an issue on things that go unused too long.

[Patrick Chase]

I sharpened two carving gouges this morning. One took 35 seconds (9.7 millihours) the other took 45. For each i used three Arkansas stones plus a slip stone for the flute and leather strop. Because I used honing oil and not wd40, I did not have to add oil to the stones, just used what was already there. Because I used oil and not some thin liquid, I did not have to clean the stones afterward. The oil can get quite black but since it suspends the steel it is still effective. And I have used the stones many times, without cleaning them.

This is spot-on and reinforces a reaction I had to some of the other posts: Just because the oil is turning black and making the stone look messy doesn't mean it isn't working to prevent loading. IMO you have to judge more by results (speed of honing) than by appearance. I personally prefer thinner oils for subjective reasons, though :-).