Shapton slipstones

Re: Shapton slipstones

Robert LaPlaca

>I have a set of Shapton professional series stones that I really like that I use for chisels, plane blades and carving tools (just a recent interest).

I really have to confess, that I didn't know that they manufactured carving slipstones, but it seems they certainly do. I for one will give them a try. I also would be interested what others though of the product

Re: Shapton slipstones

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Robert, I look forward to your feedback on the slipstones. It's interesting that you sharpen carving tools on the full size stones.

Pam

Re: Shapton slipstones

Robert LaPlaca

>Pam,

Only down side of using the Shapton stones (or any flat stone) is you tend to wear the stone very unevenly (more so that with a flat cutting tool).

Re: Shapton slipstones

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>The other down side for carving chisels is that you can't sharpen incannel. Harrelson said that one cool thing about the Shaptons is that you can "sharpen" a stone to an edge for V-tools.

Pam

Slipstones (long)

joel

>The general problem with waterstones for carving tools is softness. That's one of the reasons Chris Pye recommends oilstones. The other problem - especailly with slipstones, is that the stones are soft and can't hold a sharp edge. Also the oil versions usually can take more pressure without snapping. You can of course use an oilstone slip with water with decent results so that if you don't want to contaminate your regular waterstones you done have too.

In general slips stones aren't used much - in that the coarse ones are used for forming an inner bevel and the fine ones for chasing a wire edge, but overall the real work of sharpening carving tools is done by regular stones. So the important criteria (water or oil) is for gouges that you have a slip of the same or smaller radius than the tool and for v tools that you have slips with a narrow enough V. The final criteria is length. For some reason the "standard" length of carving slips is 2 1/4". Regular slip stones are longer and we have special long carving slips made for us.

To some extent you can also use slips made of wood or leather that are charged with rouge or diamond paste.

For regular western tools there is no real advantage to waterstone slips - for Japanese carving tools (which I have only limited experiece with) waterstones were certainly the traditional media but for slipstones - I would guess considering their limited usage - oil version would work fine.

Re: Slipstones (long) *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Joel. I'm a little gunshy of oilstones, due to an experience with a couple of black Arkansas 23 years ago; or maybe I should say "new oilstones." I guess I'd rather have a stone that wears away and sharpens than one that maintains its shape and doesn't sharpen. :) Now, I believe there are oilstones that do sharpen, even though my limited experience hasn't revealed any. I'll give you a call later (if my last order hasn't shipped yet, please hold it).

What do you think of the cones?

I've only used western carving chisels, but just ordered my first good Japanese gouge (bent gouge flat) for carving large, mostly flat, depressions. It would be handy if a sharpening solution could work for all my carving chisels.

Thanks,

Pam


Shodo bent gouge - flat

Re: Slipstones (long)

joel

>Considering the size of the gouge you ordered the cones should work ok. Also long stones don't give much of an advantage with bent gouges anyway because the handle can interfere with the stroke (depends on how bent is bent) Of course that means you end up using one end of the cone anyway.

for the size of the gouge the waterstone cones or slipsstones should be fine. also lapping film on a dowel will work pretty good too.

(ps - your order shipped on monday)

Re: Slipstones (long)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Joel. For this particular gouge I think flat stones will work just fine. Also agree about the issues with sharpening bent gouges, spoons, and the like. For carving tools, so far I've been using a combination of natural waterstones, leather strop with rouge, and wood substrate with rouge. This seems to be working OK; but I'm concerned about having only one grit rouge (green), figure I'm only honing, not sharpening, the concave surfaces.

Love the looks of your carving tool slipstones.

Pam

Re: Slipstones (long)

joel

>For more grits in addition to gouge try other rouges (red) or get some diamond paste.