Cleaned some oilstones *LINK*
Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(
>O.K., thanks to some motivation from Ernie, I finally got around to doing some oilstone cleaning. I only cleaned two of them, but that's more than I had ever done thus far, so I'm gaining on them now. ;~)
Before starting I took a quick look at Leifs' site for a quick re-fresher coarse, than got down to it.
I have a mini crab pot that measures 8.5" across and 5.25 inches deep. I put some old, but clean socks in the bottom of the pit than a slightly grimey 6"x2"x1 dark brown stone with perhaps a tablespoon of Dawn dish soap. Once it reached the boiling point, I let it boil for 15 minutes, than took it out of the water, gave it a quick wipe down with another clean rag and than buried it some hot kitty litter that I had heating up in another pan while I was boiling the stone. The boiling cleaned off a lot of the grime, and exposed the stones true color, which is sort of lightish brown. I thought that it could of been better tho, and on a scale of 1-10 I'd give the Dawn dish soap a 6. The socks didn't work so well as they got out from under the stone and floated to the top as soon as the water started boiling.
For the second stone, also a 6x2x1 I used a 1/4 cup of Surf laundry powder. On the box it says "sparkling ocean", and "with active oxygen". Into the pot I stuffed a red shirt that my daughter had recently donated to my rag collection. This rag completely surrounded the stone except for the top. The stone I chose this time was black, black, black. when the water started boiling I noticed that it was red, but let it go anyhow. After 15 minutes out it came and it was WHITE!! From Black to WHITE!, I couldn't believe it, I was just shocked to it was really a white stone. Again into the hot kitty litter for a slow cool down. No trace of the red dye was on the stone, but I'll make sure not to use a dyed shirt again. I'll use white or gray T-shirts. I'd give the Surf a 9, on a scale of 1-10.
To heat the kitty litter, I have a shallow lidded pot that I filled with kitty litter and put a low flame under it. I dunno what temp it was, but it was too hot to hold in your hand for more than a second, but it wasn't smoking or anything.
I didn't do anything more with these stones today as it was getting late, so I decided to quit for the day. I am very pleased with the results of my first efforts at re-claiming oilstones so far tho.
Hope this helps other to re-claim some old stones.