Mounting an irrgular hone

[undergroundhunter]

Bill Carter has a video on just this subject, in fact he did a series on making an oil stone box. This is the video where he sets it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UAdQ03seSE he refers to putty which I presume to be linseed putty.

Matt

 

[bugbear]

The stones I've gotten, looking vertically down at the stone, the boxes followed the profile of the stone. Under the surface, the cavities were all regular shaped and filled with plaster.

I've been re-reading this thread (for obvious reasons).

I infer you removed the stone (and plaster?) from the case somehow. It's heartening to hear that your observed reality matches the written up technique.

BugBear

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Looking at the article Andy posted, I see mention of placing a block of wood at each end of the stone as a kind of run off space to allow the full length of the stone to be used. I have dim memory of the oilstones being mounted like that in our school woodwork shop. Is it common practice ? And how do you get them (and keep them) level enough with the surface of the stone ?

 

[AndyT]

The oilstones at my school were the same. It's usual to cut them with end grain up, so they wear at a similar rate to the stone.
I think it's a pretty well known option.

 

[bugbear]

The oilstones at my school were the same. It's usual to cut them with end grain up, so they wear at a similar rate to the stone.
I think it's a pretty well known option.

Saint Haywood, IIRC.

BugBear

 

[D_W]

The stones I've gotten, looking vertically down at the stone, the boxes followed the profile of the stone. Under the surface, the cavities were all regular shaped and filled with plaster.

I've been re-reading this thread (for obvious reasons).

I infer you removed the stone (and plaster?) from the case somehow. It's heartening to hear that your observed reality matches the written up technique.

BugBear

If stones are loose in a case, I have a habit (never really thought about it) of taking them out - maybe it's just curiosity regarding the bottom of the stone (see if the bottom was hand cut, etc). If they are not loose enough to remove and aren't suffering from being horribly out of level laterally, I leave well enough alone - forcing usually breaks out the end of a case and if it doesn't, they're always a bear to get back in. If the plaster (or whatever the fill is) is in relatively good shape and the stone is tight, I leave that alone, too.

Some were done so long ago and obviously removed from their holders that only remnants of the fill remain, and the fit is poor because of that. Others, the fill comes out stuck hard to the stone (I usually assume that unless they look like glue (which is rare) they're a dried up concoction that includes some sort of drying oil and becomes hard. Any that are very irregular like yours have always come in a fitted box that was cut to fit the stone (and I do the same thing for japanese stones) - usually without a top.

I do the same as you have leveling the stone so that it is even end to end and laterally. We sharpen freehand (most of us, I'd guess) and repeat the same thing over and over. When the stone leans one way or another, or severely end to end, it messes up that physical repeatability.

I also lap every stone I get so that the surface is flat - but only once. I've never gotten an old stone that was perfectly flat, but I've gotten many that were close. I think perfect flatness is a *very* modern thing, or in the hundreds of stones that I've bought, I'd run across at least one or two old ones that were dead flat. They never are, not even the ones that are being used for razors.

 

[bugbear]

I do the same as you have leveling the stone

You mean the technique with 2 squares (the means) or just levelling (the end) ?

so that it is even end to end and laterally. We sharpen freehand (most of us, I'd guess) and repeat the same thing over and over. When the stone leans one way or another, or severely end to end, it messes up that physical repeatability.

It also applies when using jigs that run on the bench surface. Just sayin'

BugBear

 

[D_W]

I don't use two squares, but rather by feel and eye. The leveling laterally is important, though, especially if you freehand (because we run the scratches diagonally on a bevel, and a laterally out of whack stone changes the angle at which the edge is introduced to the stone).

If doing precise work with a bench mounted stone and a freestanding jig - definitely worth the squares.

 

[bugbear]

I don't use two squares, but rather by feel and eye.

I happen to have more than one square, and it seemed a fairly obvious, easy and accurate technique.

BugBear

 

[D_W]

I don't use two squares, but rather by feel and eye.

I happen to have more than one square, and it seemed a fairly obvious, easy and accurate technique.

BugBear

I agree, but not necessary if freehanding. If the stone is off just a little, you will feel it. I'd imagine you could see a degree or two.

As an aside point, not related to this - as a beginner, I lived by the idea that you could only get something truly repeatable with a jig unless you did a lot of rounding of an edge and chased it steeper each time you sharpened.

Last year, someone was asking about honing angles, and i never measured - if you freehand, you naturally will experiment until you find an angle that is as shallow as you can get away with but at which an iron doesn't chip (which is obnoxious if you like to finish off of a plane). David C. suggests 35 as a final angle (not necessarily for that exact reason), Steve Elliot found in the irons he was testing that chipout seems to cease around something like 33 or 34.

I usually grind a primary and then hand hone to something that I have no clue what it is but that works as stated above, and measured the secondary angle with a metal protractor and found none that differed by more than a degree. I can't remember if it was 32 or 33, but it was somewhere around there. Fancy the chance of that. I can't stand tilting stones, but I can't stand flattening them as a part of regular procedure either. We all have our routines, though - not saying anyone should adopt mine.

(I'm sure my chisels, which are slightly more shallow - are higher than jacob prefers, but I like them to operate chip free, too, and if a secondary bevel is tiny, it really doesn't have the bad tendency to wedge and squash fibers ahead of it like a blunt primary angle of 33 degrees or so).

 

[Dangermouse 2nd]

Linseed putty.

 

[bugbear]

I don't use two squares, but rather by feel and eye.

I happen to have more than one square, and it seemed a fairly obvious, easy and accurate technique.

BugBear

I agree, but not necessary if freehanding.

It was was easy to do, so I did it. I can't see a downside. "Too accurate" doesn't sound like a problem to my way of thinking.

BugBear