I can now contribute some additional info to the "perpetual" honing/stropping wheel maintenance question.
Per my earlier post, the leather on my honing wheel had acquired an excess of paste and oil that made honing difficult – to the point where the grit in the Tormek compound was probably mostly rolling and doing little cutting.
With the goal of correcting this (without buying a new honing wheel if possible), I started by scraping off the surface gunk with the wheel mounted and operating. I initially used as a scraper one of those semi-rectangular flexible plastic trowels typically used to apply Bondo. This got a fair bit off but left something to be desired. The edge of the plastic quickly wore down, and with any pressure the bead or ribbon of oil/gunk that was forming on the edge would get rolled back off and either re-absorbed in the leather or re-distributed on the wheel. I switched to a steel cabinet scraper (dull, with no "hook") which did much better, but I still had to frequently wipe it off to make progress. It worked best to hold the scraper almost perpendicular, tilting it about 5 or 10 degrees in the plane of the wheel (think of that tilt as a negative rake angle). This kept the scraper from "grabbing" or gouging the rotating leather while also minimizing the risk of lifting the leather at the lapped splice where the strip is joined. It also helped to slant the scraper maybe 20 degrees left or right to sort of funnel the remaining oil to and off the side of the wheel. Light pressure is not effective. I was able to use moderate pressure with reasonable success and no damage occurring, but decided not to try heavy pressure.
Overall I removed maybe an ounce (~30 ml) of oil/sludge by scraping. I could have stopped there and had a functioning hone, and this is what I would recommend for others with the same problem. But I didn't stop, and that's why I can offer a bit more info here for the benefit of anyone interested.
Basically I decided to see if I could get all (or as much as possible) of the oil out of the leather, and then start over with something closer to the factory recommended amount of "pre-charge" oil (not sure exactly what the ideal is, but the amount of oil currently provided with newly purchased machines is reportedly about 3/4 oz, so I planned to start small and creep up with that as a limit).
For "de-oiling", earlier posts on this forum had various suggestions in addition to scraping, including: burying the wheel in sawdust; wrapping the leather in an old T-shirt or rag; using solvent; washing with soap and a brush; or running it through a dishwasher.
I was uncertain about using sawdust (could be difficult to clean afterwards) or solvent, so ruled them out.
I first tried wrapping a rag around the wheel, dismounted. This may have worked better with a band clamp, and regular changes of the rag, and giving it more time, but I just did a simple wrap and rolled the wheel about on my workbench with downward pressure. The rag soaked up some oil, evidenced by stains, but not very much. I moved on to washing with soap and a brush, under water. This got the surface film off, but I did not think it was really effective in getting out the deeper oil. Finally, since at least one brave worker previously reported success with a dishwasher, I decided to try that. I also included the larger ring from the LA-120 Profile Hone (which was saturated with oil too) in that dishwasher cycle.
Before you ask, yes, I did have to get approval from the distaff side, but be aware our dishwasher is 12 years old. It still functions fine, but from her perspective any problem resulting from this experiment would mean replacing the dishwasher with a new one, a not altogether disagreeable prospect for her. I was willing to risk it, but your mileage may vary
!
I can't say the dishwasher was a terrific success, but it was not a total failure either. What happened is that:
• The dishwasher itself survived fine, no residual black sludge or oil, so dodged that bullet!
For the standard honing wheel:
• The oil was pretty much gone. The leather was still black, but whatever residual oil remained was small enough that there was no suppleness left. Restating this another way, after drying for a full day the washed leather became nearly rock hard!
• The glue bond holding the leather on the wheel survived - no leather appeared lifted from the wheel (although see below)
• The dried leather ended up with raised humps at the edges all around the circumference – i.e. laying a straightedge across the width of the wheel, the center appeared dished, all the way around, by maybe 1 mm. The width of these "humps" was maybe 3 to 4 mm. Not sure why this effect appeared, perhaps the glue was starting to let go at the edges. Perhaps it was due to my initial scraping technique. Regardless, only limited additional work was needed to fix these bumps.
• The overall dried leather surface was very rough – similar to the surface roughness of perhaps 40 grit sandpaper, but of course without sandpaper's durability.
For the profile honing ring:
• Failed! Unfortunately the leather forming this ring was laminated from two layers glued together. The glue did not survive the dishwasher – the ring fully separated. Re-gluing the warped pieces together again after drying did not look promising, so I ended up buying a replacement set of rings (part LA-122). Lesson learned. Brief water exposure is probably OK but long exposure of LA-120 profile hones to water is a bad idea!
Post dishwasher (once the standard honing wheel was fully dry):
I used sandpaper (starting at 60 and progressing to 120 grit) to smooth off the roughness and flatten the worst of the raised edges. Halfway through it occurred to me this was probably a bad idea – bits of grit from the sandpaper could break off and embed in the leather, compromising later fine honing. So I switched to a cabinet scraper with a sharpened hook to finish the job. This scraper worked surprisingly well to flatten the hardened leather without digging in or removing excess material. I lost perhaps 10 to 15 thousandths of the leather thickness, but there is still plenty left. I suspect I also removed any sandpaper grit that may have been left, as later on I didn't see any scratches that would indicate otherwise.
After scraping I had a flat and relatively smooth, but still very hard leather hone. I started adding clean mineral oil to "pre-charge" and also to soften the leather, but no more than absolutely necessary. The hard black surface did not absorb oil quickly so I applied it in small increments, 1 to 2 ml at a time, spreading that evenly around the wheel with a finger, rubbing it in a bit then just letting it sit for an hour or so. I repeated this just until I could leave a fingernail impression without using a lot of pressure. In total I applied about 10 ml (1/3 oz) of oil before that point was reached. This may or may not be a useful comparative benchmark against a new wheel, due to the different conditions of each, but at least the amount I needed for my wheel is documented here. After the final application of oil was fully absorbed I applied a thin uniform coat of honing compound. This was worked in by polishing the back of a 1" wide bench chisel (any flat surface would do) using very hard pressure. This also served to massage and soften the leather a bit.
No doubt the leather will soften up further with both regular working and applications of compound, but for now my "processed" hone is still much harder/stiffer than the original leather. I think it behaves more like a relatively soft wood hone, rather than leather, at the moment. This may be advantageous in some ways – but I need to do more observing and sharpening of various tools before deciding. Anyway, for me it will always be a subjective comparison since I don't have measurement tools to objectively quantify the precise sharpness achieved after honing, nor at this point do I have a "standard" hone to compare against my "processed" hone. But FWIW I think "as is" it can produce equivalently sharp edges in maybe half to a third of the time I had been spending per edge back when the hone was over oiled, so I don't see any immediate need to replace this hone.
Bottom line, would I recommend washing an over-oiled hone/stropping wheel? Not at all, at least not unless something down the road convinces me that a harder hone is really superior, but even then I can't see a big consumer rush on this. If beneficial Tormek should just develop and market a hard honing wheel, maybe as an option, to supplement their standard offering.
What I would recommend without hesitation is that someone with excess oil in their otherwise fine Tormek honing wheel should try removing the excess using only a stiff scraper. Once the majority of the oil has been removed, continue normal honing, add no additional oil, just add compound when needed.
Of course, if feeling flush a quick (or lazy) solution is to buy a replacement honing wheel – but (at least for hobbyists) where's the fun in that?
Pat
Per my earlier post, the leather on my honing wheel had acquired an excess of paste and oil that made honing difficult – to the point where the grit in the Tormek compound was probably mostly rolling and doing little cutting.
With the goal of correcting this (without buying a new honing wheel if possible), I started by scraping off the surface gunk with the wheel mounted and operating. I initially used as a scraper one of those semi-rectangular flexible plastic trowels typically used to apply Bondo. This got a fair bit off but left something to be desired. The edge of the plastic quickly wore down, and with any pressure the bead or ribbon of oil/gunk that was forming on the edge would get rolled back off and either re-absorbed in the leather or re-distributed on the wheel. I switched to a steel cabinet scraper (dull, with no "hook") which did much better, but I still had to frequently wipe it off to make progress. It worked best to hold the scraper almost perpendicular, tilting it about 5 or 10 degrees in the plane of the wheel (think of that tilt as a negative rake angle). This kept the scraper from "grabbing" or gouging the rotating leather while also minimizing the risk of lifting the leather at the lapped splice where the strip is joined. It also helped to slant the scraper maybe 20 degrees left or right to sort of funnel the remaining oil to and off the side of the wheel. Light pressure is not effective. I was able to use moderate pressure with reasonable success and no damage occurring, but decided not to try heavy pressure.
Overall I removed maybe an ounce (~30 ml) of oil/sludge by scraping. I could have stopped there and had a functioning hone, and this is what I would recommend for others with the same problem. But I didn't stop, and that's why I can offer a bit more info here for the benefit of anyone interested.
Basically I decided to see if I could get all (or as much as possible) of the oil out of the leather, and then start over with something closer to the factory recommended amount of "pre-charge" oil (not sure exactly what the ideal is, but the amount of oil currently provided with newly purchased machines is reportedly about 3/4 oz, so I planned to start small and creep up with that as a limit).
For "de-oiling", earlier posts on this forum had various suggestions in addition to scraping, including: burying the wheel in sawdust; wrapping the leather in an old T-shirt or rag; using solvent; washing with soap and a brush; or running it through a dishwasher.
I was uncertain about using sawdust (could be difficult to clean afterwards) or solvent, so ruled them out.
I first tried wrapping a rag around the wheel, dismounted. This may have worked better with a band clamp, and regular changes of the rag, and giving it more time, but I just did a simple wrap and rolled the wheel about on my workbench with downward pressure. The rag soaked up some oil, evidenced by stains, but not very much. I moved on to washing with soap and a brush, under water. This got the surface film off, but I did not think it was really effective in getting out the deeper oil. Finally, since at least one brave worker previously reported success with a dishwasher, I decided to try that. I also included the larger ring from the LA-120 Profile Hone (which was saturated with oil too) in that dishwasher cycle.
Before you ask, yes, I did have to get approval from the distaff side, but be aware our dishwasher is 12 years old. It still functions fine, but from her perspective any problem resulting from this experiment would mean replacing the dishwasher with a new one, a not altogether disagreeable prospect for her. I was willing to risk it, but your mileage may vary
!I can't say the dishwasher was a terrific success, but it was not a total failure either. What happened is that:
• The dishwasher itself survived fine, no residual black sludge or oil, so dodged that bullet!
For the standard honing wheel:
• The oil was pretty much gone. The leather was still black, but whatever residual oil remained was small enough that there was no suppleness left. Restating this another way, after drying for a full day the washed leather became nearly rock hard!
• The glue bond holding the leather on the wheel survived - no leather appeared lifted from the wheel (although see below)
• The dried leather ended up with raised humps at the edges all around the circumference – i.e. laying a straightedge across the width of the wheel, the center appeared dished, all the way around, by maybe 1 mm. The width of these "humps" was maybe 3 to 4 mm. Not sure why this effect appeared, perhaps the glue was starting to let go at the edges. Perhaps it was due to my initial scraping technique. Regardless, only limited additional work was needed to fix these bumps.
• The overall dried leather surface was very rough – similar to the surface roughness of perhaps 40 grit sandpaper, but of course without sandpaper's durability.
For the profile honing ring:
• Failed! Unfortunately the leather forming this ring was laminated from two layers glued together. The glue did not survive the dishwasher – the ring fully separated. Re-gluing the warped pieces together again after drying did not look promising, so I ended up buying a replacement set of rings (part LA-122). Lesson learned. Brief water exposure is probably OK but long exposure of LA-120 profile hones to water is a bad idea!
Post dishwasher (once the standard honing wheel was fully dry):
I used sandpaper (starting at 60 and progressing to 120 grit) to smooth off the roughness and flatten the worst of the raised edges. Halfway through it occurred to me this was probably a bad idea – bits of grit from the sandpaper could break off and embed in the leather, compromising later fine honing. So I switched to a cabinet scraper with a sharpened hook to finish the job. This scraper worked surprisingly well to flatten the hardened leather without digging in or removing excess material. I lost perhaps 10 to 15 thousandths of the leather thickness, but there is still plenty left. I suspect I also removed any sandpaper grit that may have been left, as later on I didn't see any scratches that would indicate otherwise.
After scraping I had a flat and relatively smooth, but still very hard leather hone. I started adding clean mineral oil to "pre-charge" and also to soften the leather, but no more than absolutely necessary. The hard black surface did not absorb oil quickly so I applied it in small increments, 1 to 2 ml at a time, spreading that evenly around the wheel with a finger, rubbing it in a bit then just letting it sit for an hour or so. I repeated this just until I could leave a fingernail impression without using a lot of pressure. In total I applied about 10 ml (1/3 oz) of oil before that point was reached. This may or may not be a useful comparative benchmark against a new wheel, due to the different conditions of each, but at least the amount I needed for my wheel is documented here. After the final application of oil was fully absorbed I applied a thin uniform coat of honing compound. This was worked in by polishing the back of a 1" wide bench chisel (any flat surface would do) using very hard pressure. This also served to massage and soften the leather a bit.
No doubt the leather will soften up further with both regular working and applications of compound, but for now my "processed" hone is still much harder/stiffer than the original leather. I think it behaves more like a relatively soft wood hone, rather than leather, at the moment. This may be advantageous in some ways – but I need to do more observing and sharpening of various tools before deciding. Anyway, for me it will always be a subjective comparison since I don't have measurement tools to objectively quantify the precise sharpness achieved after honing, nor at this point do I have a "standard" hone to compare against my "processed" hone. But FWIW I think "as is" it can produce equivalently sharp edges in maybe half to a third of the time I had been spending per edge back when the hone was over oiled, so I don't see any immediate need to replace this hone.
Bottom line, would I recommend washing an over-oiled hone/stropping wheel? Not at all, at least not unless something down the road convinces me that a harder hone is really superior, but even then I can't see a big consumer rush on this. If beneficial Tormek should just develop and market a hard honing wheel, maybe as an option, to supplement their standard offering.
What I would recommend without hesitation is that someone with excess oil in their otherwise fine Tormek honing wheel should try removing the excess using only a stiff scraper. Once the majority of the oil has been removed, continue normal honing, add no additional oil, just add compound when needed.
Of course, if feeling flush a quick (or lazy) solution is to buy a replacement honing wheel – but (at least for hobbyists) where's the fun in that
?Pat