looking for feedback on waterstones

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones *LINK*

wilbur

>I don't have any experience with the Penguin stone, but a good finishing stone that's pretty close in price is the 8000 King. It's available from Dick fine tools, which is in Europe, so it might be cheaper for you to get it from there as opposed to a stone from the US.

However, the main thing that I would be concerned with is your approach to flattening your waterstone. I think that flattening a waterstone is to sharpening what sharpening is to woodworking. Most people would like to put off doing that task for as long as possible, but doing so always comes back to bite you in the butt.

Every time I've gotten into difficulties using a waterstone for sharpening, it was because I didn't pay enough attention to flattening the waterstone. Likewise, whenever I had trouble with my hand tools, it was because I hadn't sharpened enough. I've come to the conclusion that for ease of using woodworking tools, you can't sharpen too much, and for ease of sharpening, you can't flatten a waterstone too much.


King 8000 grit waterstone

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I bought into the Shapton Pro series, even as it irritated me a little to buy the $128 flattening plate, 2000/5000/8000 stones. They were fine for most stuff, Japanese chisels and planes, but of lessor utility for western chisels and planes. The one thing that made them useable all around was to scratch channels in the stones, but this was irritating to do. It did work; but there is nothing in the Pro series performance that convinced me to pay for the DLP (seems to me the first price was about $500).

So a year or so ago I started accumulating various natural waterstones to try, with the first purchase from LV, who have some natural stones for good prices hidden on their site. It's a depleted selection these days, but you could still get a couple or three quality stones (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=47299&cat=1,43072 ). I've also purchased several natural stones from Tomonori Nakaoka who sells on ebay as mifuqwai, limiting my purchases to $100 and less stones.

I haven't yet tried any of these in any sort of controlled test, they're packed up waiting for the new workshop; but I've taken a few swipes with the odd tool and really like the resulting surfaces and edges. The tools are at least sharp enough with no stiction.

Pam


mifuqwai's ebay store

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

Joel

>You're in Belgium? Get a belgium waterstone - Coticule. you won't find anything better anywhere in the world and it won't be imported.

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>Just my view on the softness of the stone, is that the softer it is the less time you spend flattening it ;) I have the Norton water stones which are the best I will ever need, but would probably follow Joel's advice and look into that stone. I flatten my stones generally before every sharpening session. This way it does not take long at all and I know they are flat. If I know I am going to be using chisels and planes in the shop for a day, I will flatten my waterstones first thing in the morning with a bit of 400 grit silicon carbide sandpaper for the 8000 grit stone and 150 grit drywall mesh for the 1000 and 4000, and then put the two coarser stones in water to soak so I can just pull them out and use them whenever I need to sharpen. I was reminded again yesterday of how stupid it is to put off sharpening. Chopping out some dovetails I figured well I only have the three drawers to do and my chisels are probably sharp enough that I can whack my way through it. So I used them a little while until I realized how much better it would be if I just took the few minutes to sharpen them. A night and day difference.

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

charlequint

>I have a small Belgian coticule, but it's a tad to small to use with bigger plane blades. And i don't wan't (well can't afford) to spend 270$ on a 10x2 1/2x1 for a bigger one. There's also the grey Belgian stones which are a lot cheaper, but there only about 4000 grit. I have to buy it in Germany, as i'm not able to find it in my own country, how sad is that.

I'm having difficulty flattening it as well. Tried it with sandpaper and glass but couldn't really get it flat.

I've ordered a DMT duosharp through ebay for flattening and rough work, hope that will work.

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

charlequint

>I've just finished my king 6000, and i thought it was a little to soft, when i even thought of sharpening with it it already hollowed.

But maybe that might just be my sharpening skill, or lack of it...

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

charlequint

>I also just read a review of them from a German knife maker, where he states that compared to japanese waterstones it's coarser than a 6000 grit stone.

Re: looking for feedback on waterstones

Jim O'Neal

>Check out the April 2007 edition of Popular Woodworking and read the article on sharpening by Michael Dunbar and the article on 18th century stock preparation by Adam Cherubini. They both make a lot of sense to me and if you follow their direction you probably won't go through all this hassle of water stones vs oil stones, etc., because you think you have to get your woodworking equipment surgical sharp. They are both professionals, so time is money to them.

Dunbar article was refreshing

bill tindal, E.TN

>It was refreshing for a hand tool enthusiast to not make an issue complicated, difficult and otherwise intimidating for those just learning a technique.

It seems like water stones involve a lot of fussing as well as expense. I would like to hear from someone that went from abrasive sheet sharpening to water stones what advantage they found in the water stones.

Some of the objections I have heard about abrasive sheet format could be easily over come by "reading the directions". One can not take big steps between grit sizes. But that does not mean a huge inventory of glass plates. I put 4- 2 1/2" wide abrasive strips per side of a 12 x 12 " glass plate. Except for rough grinding involving very coarse grits, one glass plate took care of routine sharpening. The refill rolls of abrasive fit in a small box. That is not a lot of space to devote to sharpening. By using appropriately small steps in grit size as well as the correct abrasive, as recommended by Dunbar and others, abrasive life is acceptable. For the coarser grits silicon carbide is not a long life choice and it is unfortunate that early reports on this technique recommended silicon carbide. The only significant disadvantages I see with the technique are that it fails on the highly abrasion resistant tools steels, M2 and 3V, and you need to have found an inexpensive supplier of abrasive rolls. Fortunately, Klingspor industrial division (not the retail store) sells inexpensive rolls of all that one needs. It is unfortunate that the retail operations, Klingspor, LV, McFeely, have not chosen to stock abrasive rolls in the abrasive composition and grit sizes recommended by Dunbar and others. But one can order from the industrial catalog and get these abrasives at a huge discount.

Advantage of stones vs. sheets

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>I went from stones to sheets back to stones.

I've heard that some had edge dubbing problems with sheets, but I never noticed that myself (maybe because I was using the sheets wet).

No, for me it was a matter of speed. I've started to wean myself from sharpening jigs/guides last year, and found it too easy to tear into the paper when honing freehand. Stones are more forgiving.

Now I have sheets of abrasive finer than any stone out there (down to 0.3 micron), I'll try them freehand, but only on the pull stroke. We'll see...

DC

Re: Dunbar article was refreshing

ThomD

>I go back and forth on a regular basis. Water sounds like a great deal, like water based glues and finishes, but I don't have water in my shop, It's cold in the winter and often the hands get stained from the swarf. On the other hand out of doors, or in some dream shop that has lots of room for tool sharpening (tried to set that aside several times), I do think water stones are excellent and not complicated if they are used as intended with nothing added to the process that might have been invented since the 50s (baring the stones themselves :)).

Sandpaper is the fastest cutting stuff around, and it's great for site visits or winter. I could use it with nothing else if all I was ever interested in was building stuff.

I occasinally hear the siren call of the lattest miracle water stones. So far I am not sure there is much that needs doing that can't be done with a basic set of Kings. Other stones are different, and maybe better, but there is a lot to do with a basic set.

Re: Dunbar article was refreshing

Paul in NJ

>Tried sandpaper for a while. Could get very satisfactory sharp edges with it. The SC paper wore out too fast and was expensive. The spray glue was expensive also. I got tired of scrapping off old paper and removing glue residue with solvents. I always seemed to get some grit under the paper and tear it when honing. Tried water to hold it on but dubbed my edges. Sandpaper is cheap to get started but in the long run I think it is more expensive than stones. Stones last a long time, sandpaper wears out. The biggest myth promoted and my only problem with Dunbar's article is that you can use sandpaper for all your sharpening needs. Sandpaper is fine for maintenance honing, especially so if you use micro bevels. If you get a chip or you want to extend that primary 20-25 degree bevel you have a ton of work even if you start with 50 grit Zirconium. It can be done but it is a lot of work. If you can grind a suitable bevel with a belt sander, hand grinder, or power grinder than any system works fast be it oil stones, water stones, ceramic stones, diamond stones, loose abrasive on laps, or sand paper. I hope I don't send negative because it is a viable system and cheap to get started with. If it works for you, great, keep it simple.

Paul Dzioba

Re: Dunbar article was refreshing

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>That's largely why I moved to waterstones, simply got tired of scraping and peeling adhesive whenever I needed to swap out a piece of sandpaper.

Pam

how to easily remove PSA paper

bill tindal, E.TN

>I agree that this can be an annoying problem, but one that has a simple solution.

1. lift corner of abrasive sheet

2. put a dab of mineral spirits under said corner. It will wick to the edge.

3.Gently tug and off it comes .

4. Wipe surface and glue on another sheet.

The reason this works is that the mineral spirits keeps wicking to the interface of the adhesive and the glass. I "invented" this trick one day when a near full sheet of formica jumped unexpectedly onto a counter top, not aligned of course. Used the same approach to loosen it except a different solvent was used. All I had to do was keep the interface wet with a bit of solvent.

If you use spray-on instead of PSA use the stuff for repositioning art work, I think it is 75, NOT the normal 77 which is too aggressive.

Re: how to easily remove PSA paper

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Sure, and sometimes I used only water as a suction device, which wasn't hard to remove at all. It was the need to do this in the middle of sharpening an edge that was particularly irritating. Plus I simply wan't getting the same edges and/or surfaces as waterstones could provide. Of course, this probably was my technique at fault, but still...

Pam

Re: how to easily remove PSA paper

ThomD

>Heat works too. Like with a polisher, I just hold it down to the workpiece until the heat builds up and peel it back. Grinding boats! Now that's skilled work! Same thing works with hand stuff, I just stick the paper near my heater and it comes right off.

Re: Dunbar article was refreshing

ThomD

>I can't really explain it, but with the sandpaper method I used the same two small patches for years, it just kept on cutting. I first made the swatches up for a demo, and I enventually lost them, they just kept on cutting, they were glued down to baltic birch plywood. A piece about the size of a block plane. One piece of Klingspor around 360, and one piece of that super fine LV sells that is smooth to the touch. I never made any note of what two pieces of paper these were...

One of the bad things about the paper method is the side to side motion which is not as strong at the edge as a perpendicular stroke. Another bad thing is the grit is released into the air where it can't be doing good things.

Belgium coticule and blue stone *LINK*

charlequint

>I just received a mail from Belgischer Brocken in Germany in an answer to my question to them. I asked about grit sizes and the blue stone is a 4000 grit stone and the yellow coticule about 6000.


www.belgischerbrocken.com

Has anyone here tried one of these Belgian stones?

Wiley Horne

>There's a lot more to natural stones than an imputed grain size. I'm very curious about them.

Wiley

Re: Has anyone here tried one of these Belgian sto

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>I tried a Belgian stone a few times in the late seventies. Woodcraft carried them for a short period, and the place where I worked got one. At that time Japanese waterstones were not widely available and I had not yet seen one, so comparison is difficult. But when the fellow from Belgium said that they were roughly equivalent to a 6000 stone that agrees with my cloudy memory.

I have talked with three retired barbers; each used a Belgian stone as their only stone for their entire career. Athough razors typically don't get dulled like woodworking tools do, I think it says a lot that the stone cut both fast enough to sharpen and fine enough to shave the customer. I saw one of these barber stones and it was pretty dished out. When I asked the fellow about it he said the other barbers made fun of him for having a "short stroke".

I have one

Ellis Walentine

>I picked it up in Germany years ago. Mine is laminated, with the creamy fine stone on one side and a coarser stone on the other. The fine stone I'd say is about equivalent to 5000 or 6000 grit and works very nicely. It is harder and less friable than my equivalent Shapton stones, which means you don't tend to dig into it with an errant stroke.

From what I understand, natural stones are quite variable, so your mileage may vary.

Ellis

Re: Has anyone here...FOLLOWUP

Wiley Horne

>Thanks Warren and Ellis,

One of the items I used to run across at swap meets was a straight razor hone. In fact, I'm looking at one right now. It's a flat thing, with recessed cartouche containing an embossed mfrs name. About 1/2" thick by 2" wide by 5" long.

How were these things used? It doesn't appear to have a natural grit or abrasive surface to it--more like it's a substrate for something else. Did the barbers charge this hone with a rouge compound? Or what?

Thanks in advance, Wiley

P. S. Don't tell Todd O., but there's some of these things on the evil bay made by Pike. Just checked.

Re: Has anyone here...FOLLOWUP

Joel

>They were used as a very fine stone with water.

Roy Underhill uses barber stones with just water

Patrick Gibbons, Houston, TX

>