Sharpening Stone Recommendations

[Ulma Doctor]

Could you tell us more about the ceramic stones?

Hi John,
I don't know their composition, but the are advertized as ceramic.
completely by accident, i found them on Ebay( http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC167-Smith...222?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23489c0a86)

they are 1000 grit and have proven to be flat, cheap and effective from my experience.
they may shatter upon dropping it on any hard surface, i surmise.

I have used ceramic rods (crock sticks) for many years and can produce shaving sharp edges, i just recently found the flat stones.
there are rods also from different sources and manufacturers.

i use them dry, and with oil or water for different materials.
i dedicate a stone for each method as to not cross contaminate stones (just a pet peeve/OCD thing for me)

 

[RJSakowski]

I've used paper but I found that I got a rounded edge.

I use paper on stone for polishing surfaces as well. I don't use it for cutting edges for the reason John posted. You will not get the paper lifting if it is glued down but you have to be careful to squeegee any excess adhesive out or it will leaver bumps and ridges. How the pieece is held is important too. I find that keeping my support low and inside the edge reduces the rounding.

 

[JR49]

I don't know their composition, but the are advertized as ceramic.
completely by accident, i found them on Ebay( http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC167-Smith...222?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23489c0a86)

Thanks, Ulma Doctor, just ordered a few of those stones for myself. Once received, will let everyone know what I think. JR49

 

[Baithog]

For metal cutting tools you can probably get by with a fine wheel on the grinder, coupled with a soft and a hard Arkansas stones. Use a honing oil for lubrication. You can later round out the stones with a surgical black or surgical white stone if you plan to also do plane irons, chisels and knives. Some say the whites are finer than the black. Arkansas stones are mined in Arkansas and have more of a polishing action than cutting. They hold their flatness well, but there is no good relationship between grade and grit size

The water Stone people are forever arguing with the arkansas people. Water stones aren't really suitable for tool bits because of the need to develop the slurry. They also require frequent truing because they wear quickly. They do do a right fine job on wood cutting tools and knives once you have the knack. Grit sizes range from 220 to 8000.

I have arkansas stones, but mostly use the scary sharp system. This is the wet/dry paper on a flat surface method. For crude work, using a film of water between the paper and stone will suffice. The guys doing precision woodwork (accuracy to 0.001) use a low tack spray adhesive. Grit size goes from gravel to 2000. I use 220 for most lathe bits and down to 2000 on my block planes. I finish the plane irons and chisels on a razor hone, about 14000 grit equivalent. My franz swaty hone is purported to be a ceramic composition.

I do have a fine diamond hone that I use to touch up my cut off tools. I can touch them up without removing them from the holder.

Now for carbide sharpening, diamond is the only way to go,

 

[Alan Douglas]

I'm sure that this topic has been beat to a pulp

Actually it has hardly been touched on, anywhere I've seen. There have been articles in woodworking magazines over the past thirty+ years but they are long on suggesting what to buy and very short on identifying stones you already have, or explaining why they work for particular jobs. I've never even seen an explanation of "soft" versus "hard" Arkansas stones.

I have a very old stone, from some yard sale or other, which I presume is a soft Arkansas, a mottled gray with a vein of something running through it (so I know it's natural) mounted with tar in a wooden block. I use it for all my chisels and plane irons and it removes metal reasonably fast. I also have a finer white stone (a hard Arkansas?) but rarely use it. And an assortment of manufactured stones, none of which seems especially good at anything, and some Arkansas slip stones for sharpening gouges and molding-plane irons.

I'm waiting with bated breath for a definitive description of natural stones and how they compare with manufactured ones. Meanwhile, I don't feel like spending a lot of money on a new one, only to find that it's no better than what I have now.

 

[Baithog]

Not sure where you've been looking, but the bamboo rod makers have driven this around the block a few times. Here's a link to some arkansas stone information - http://www.danswhetstone.com/stone_grades_101.htm

Note the specific gravity specs. You can measure the specific gravity of your mystery stone and find out what it is.

 

[mikey]

Presently, I own no sharpening stone (other than my bench grinder) and am looking for a best choice for a beginner. I'm simply looking for something for sharpening hand tools and honing lathe tool bits, etc.

I own many kinds of stones, from diamond to arkansas, to the finest japanese waterstones. When it comes to sharpening lathe tools I only use diamond stones - they cut fast and clean and the stones stay dead flat for many years. If a tool is properly ground right off the grinder then the edges are close enough to be refined for use with a fine diamond stone and an extra-fine diamond stone will get it ready for use in a few more seconds. If you go for diamond stones I suggest the solid surface stones, not the kind with dots on the surface. The cheapest and easiest to handle are the credit card types and they work really well. I use the larger bench stones rarely nowadays. I prefer DMT solid surface stones - they seem to last forever.

For smaller tools like gravers I grind the tool then use a fine India stone followed by a translucent arkansas stone to get a fine razors edge.

Forget waterstones for lathe tools. They are too soft and you'll ruin them.

 

[cdhknives]

I personally only use diamond 'stones'. It is too much trouble keeping the old Arkansas and Carburundum type stones flat and clean. A diamond stone works on everything from chisels to knives to carbide bits. Stones are miserable on modern super steels in high end knives and HSS tooling and fail altogether on carbide. A single coarse and a single fine diamond 'stone' will be expensive but last you far longer...and stay essentially flat even with long use.

 

[randyc]

OK, this is going to seem real weird but I use alcohol for stoning knives, chisels and cutting tools. It seems to work just fine but can any of the experts see a problem with this ? I don't even recall why I started doing this, answer is lost in the mists of time