Why use honing compoound?

[Jan]

1) Jan, don't worry about your english! You are light years ahead of me on secondary language skills.  

2) I've actually never heard of atomic plane slip, but your diagram does help a lot!

3) I could be off base, but it looks/seems to me like it would take plastic deformation to make the atomic planes slip, since I assume atomic bonds are extremely strong, especially compared to the pressure of stropping.

Not trying to be a naysayer, Jan. Just seems like that would be something I'd be familiar with if it relates to sharpening.

4) I notice that the diagram is of "face centered" atomic structure, which means that is a martensitic diagram, right?

Ad1)  Mark and Ken, thank you for your tolerance to my English, it encourages me.

Ad2)   Slippage means that planes of atoms slide by each other. It often occurs in cubic lattices with closely packed atomic planes. It has fundamental importance for material properties.

Ad3)  Around 1900 material scientists discovered that steels undergo plastic deformation at much smaller forces then the theoretical steel strength. This mystery was resolved 50 years latter using electron microscopy which brought evidence that steel strength and ductility are controlled by dislocations.

Dislocations are areas within a grain where the iron atoms are out of their regular positions in the crystalline structure. Stress generates and moves dislocations. The movement of dislocations allows atoms to slip one another at quite low stress level. This slippage causes plastic deformation.

   

Ad4)  Martensite in carbon steels is formed by rapid quenching of austenite form of iron. Austenite has the face-centered cubic lattice (FCC) while martensite has a body centred tetragonal basic unit (BCT). 

Jan