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Surface hydration during dilutions

pinklather

Well-Known Member
'Getting some joy now w/ dulicot (sometimes bathicot - thank you Beberlin) :)

When diluting, I'm unsure about indicators that the stone is too dry. If a bevel is true, the leading edge should be undercutting the standing surface water, leaving the surface without standing water, but with a bit of reflective sheen. I'm guessing this is normal. Would it be safe to say it's getting too dry when it loses that reflective sheen?

When adding a drop or two to rehydrate, would that initiate another 'set' of dilution laps? Or hold closer to 15 laps as a 'set'?

For reference, the house/room is heated via woodburning stove - which makes the interior humidity quite dry - typically 30%.
 
pinklather said:
'Getting some joy now w/ dulicot (sometimes bathicot - thank you Beberlin) :)

When diluting, I'm unsure about indicators that the stone is too dry. If a bevel is true, the leading edge should be undercutting the standing surface water, leaving the surface without standing water, but with a bit of reflective sheen. I'm guessing this is normal. Would it be safe to say it's getting too dry when it loses that reflective sheen?

When adding a drop or two to rehydrate, would that initiate another 'set' of dilution laps? Or hold closer to 15 laps as a 'set'?

For reference, the house/room is heated via woodburning stove - which makes the interior humidity quite dry - typically 30%.

Dear mate pinklather i'll repeat again, for me the rule is:slurry will never be thicker than the previous stage ,it can stay same(as thickness) for 10,15,20,25 laps or thinner.If you never
reach the the result that you wish apply more half strokes on clear water before the X .This procedure never spend steel nor returns back .
I hope i add something to your experience.
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
Emmanuel has good advice.

For some additional tips:

-start with enough slurry on the hone. If there's only a little, errors are prone to happen, loose a little water and it's too dry, add a drop too much and it's too big a step. A larger puddle is easier to control, even if that means that some slurry runs of the end.

-for some reason, I find dirty slurry easier to handle than fresh slurry. If there's already steel in the mixture from a bit of bevel correction, the fluid becomes more viscous, which helps it to stay on top of the stone, evaporate less, etc.

- add less water more often, rather than more water less often. Even for keeping the fluid constant, you need to add the occasional drop of water. Diluting means a few drops extra. In the beginning this is a constant worry, but soon you'll dilute without giving it any second thought. The same is true for keeping the slurry on the hone.

- check the speed on water. If the water turns a bit grayish after one set of halfstrokes, the stone can make up for sole neglected keenness during the dilutions stage. If not, you'll need to use a very thin, misty slurry for making up.

- always finish with plenty of clean water. If the stone displays some auto-slurrying, which can be seen by the waiter getting cloudy, make sure to rinse a bit more often. Not every stone is the same in this respect, not even within the same layer.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Thank You Emmanuel and Bart.

As I push slurry to the ends of the stone, the center section gets dry. Sometimes I'll do a small circle at the beginning of the stroke to pick up the slurry at the end and spread some back over the face of the stone. 15 strokes in 30% humidity will have some dry spots (no reflective sheen) in the middle section of the stone.

True, Bart, on the viscosity of the dirty slurry - much easier.

Less water more often sounds promising. I have a plastic squeezable pipette (over grown eye-dropper) that can dispense a fairly consistent single drop. To avoid a dry center, I would have to add this at 7-10 1/2-strokes.

I'm happy to say I got the 3rd consecutive satisfying edge this afternoon. I got a bit - ah enthusiastic with the stropping. The resulting edge was keen beyond comfort. 200 linen and 300 shell leather. I couldn't believe my face, and took a 3" long hair from the lovely bride (her's is almost as thin as mine). The hair was clean but dry. More than 1/2 the blade silently severed the hair on contact at 1.75" from the holding point. The rest made an audible 'tink' sound. I'd want to repeat that to have confidence that much stropping gave that much keenness after finishing on water, but it was certainly a surprise.

Thank You again, Gents. I hope I get to be of help for you in some way.
 
I hear you about the stropping. We usually recommend 60/60 linen/leather, immediately after honing. A while ago , I have tried to find out if I could get by with less. After some trials, I concluded that 60/60 is really the minimum I need to do to be sure of the desired outcome.
At the same time, once arrived, more stropping didn't make further difference.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
60/60 on a strop of what size, Bart? Remember my extra long strop? 40/40 works for me, thankfully. :)

Regards,
Robin
 
Yes it works for me too, but not on the Dovo, which is a short model, and even on the longer strops I own, 40 laps can in in some cases turn out to be not quite enough. Of course, the razor would be shave worthy. It would even be that with 20/20 laps. But I was talking about an advisable lap count that I know will be enough, on all strops known to me and considered serviceable. Enough to not find further improvement if one was to do more.

Obviously, there is a safety margin in that advice to do 60.

Kind regards,
Bart
 
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