Moving away from waterstones

[Karl]

Hi all

For the last few years I have been using waterstones for my sharpening - 800 & 6000 grit. The primary grind is done on a cheap grinder, which gives good results.

I am getting somewhat fed up with the mess and constant flattening required on the stones, and was considering switching to another method. DMT stones seem the most obvious choice, but which ones? And what about a polishing stone? The 10k grit Spyderco ceramic one seems a popular choice.

Ideally I would like to stick to two stones, but i'm not sure that moving from a coarse DMT to the Spyderco would give a satisfactory finish.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Karl

 

[Anonymous]

Karl

i am writing up a little review of a new (to me) sharpening medium and will be posting it tonight - see what you think

 

[gidon]

Karl
Diamond stones for me - realised a while ago waterstones just too messy for me, especially as I have no running water in my workshop.
If you want just two stones I would recommend a Duosharp red / green (fine / extra fine) and one of the new 8000 grit DMT Diasharps. I go from the grinder to the red DMT (600 grit), then the green (1200 grit) and now finish on the 8000 grit (if you use the Veritas Mk II guide that's 12 o'clock 600 grit, 3 o'clock 1200 grit, 6 o'clock 8000 grit). Takes less than a minute. I'm not 100% sure on the 8000 grit at the moment - not had much of a chance to play with it, but will try and do a mini review soon. I was hoping it would be a last step 99% of the time, but at the moment it doesn't seem to be - for the ultimate edge it still need stropping. But these DMT stones do start off much coarser than spec'ed until they get used a bit so time will tell.
A cheaper alternative would just be the red / green Duosharp and some leather attached to something flat with some honing soap, or look at my video using microfilm paper laid on the green stone. (Yet another alternative is some diamond paste on maple - gives an amazing edge but I find it a faff.)
A final note is if you get to buy the stones on any trips to the US they are so much cheaper!!
Cheers
Gidon

 

[paulm]

Talking of honing soap, I have a pale blue small bar that I got from Mick Hudson of Clifton or somewhere a couple of years ago, but it is nearly impossible to get any visible amount of it on my leather strop as the soap seems so hard.

Chatting to Mick at Yandles he said to shave a bit off the outside surface as it can harden and then the softer stuff inside is easy to use, but I tried that at the weekend without any great success.

Also got a bar of green stuff from Matthew at Workshop Heaven but again it's rock hard and refuses to transfer onto the strop.

Am I doing something wrong or are these intended for felt wheels and similar on grinders rather than leather bench strops ?

Cheers, Paul.

 

[Karl]

Tony - sounds interesting......

Chisel - have you tried rubbing the soap onto a scrap of MDF rather than leather? I have a white polishing soap from Axminster that I use for final honing/stropping, and it gives a good final polish when used on MDF.

Cheers

Karl

 

[paulm]

Thanks for the suggestion Karl and apologies for hijacking your thread !

To be honest both types of soap are so hard that I would doubt I could get any transfer onto anything other than sandpaper or similar !

Does this stuff go off, or do I need to more aggressive perhaps in getting back to the softer part (if there is any soft part !) ?

Cheers, Paul.

 

[woodbloke]

I switched away from waterstones severial years ago for much the same reason and now use DMT stones. If you want to use just two stones (provided that you can grind the primary bevel some other way...Tormek) then the only DMT that's needed IMO is the green extra-fine (so called). The final edge can be achieved by stropping (with whatever proprietary soap takes your fancy, mixed with a little vaseline to aid slidiness on the leather) or by using a much finer stone to make a micro-bevel at 35deg. I use the 10000g Spyderco which is fantasic and which also allows me to use the 'ruler trick' on the back face.
Just as a matter of interest, the bevels I now use are 23deg off the Tormek, 33deg off the DMT and 35 deg from the Spyderco for BD A2steel blades and chisels (no ruler trick) The geometry for BU blades is worked out similarly so that the final micro-bevel finishes at 50deg, thus it's honed at 38deg which takes account of the 12deg bed angle on the plane - Rob

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the suggestion Karl and apologies for hijacking your thread !

To be honest both types of soap are so hard that I would doubt I could get any transfer onto anything other than sandpaper or similar !

Does this stuff go off, or do I need to more aggressive perhaps in getting back to the softer part (if there is any soft part !) ?

Cheers, Paul.

Paul

I have used this soap on a piece of leather on MDF for quite a few months now, and it leaves a very fine layer, but enough to strop very nicely. You do have to press hard, but it does work

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Karl,

I use three DMT stones with WD40 or 3-in-1 (I found water very messy)

I only have a high speed grinder which I don't like using, so I use the blue stone for any "grinding" then the red and green for honing. Finish on a strop with jewellers rouge and Vaseline

Rob (Woodbloke) showed me his latest method on Saturday, using a fine Spyderco ceramic stone and that looks equally as good as a strop (but more expensive :shock: )

Chisel, don't know why you are having so much trouble with your honing compound. I have some of Mike Hudson's blue stuff as well as the jewellers rouge (they work about the same but the jewellers rouge is supposed to be finer - and the colour matches the leather ) and have no trouble just wiping it on the leather (you can see the stripes in the picture above). Maybe scrape a bit off the surface as Mike suggested, or just give it a bit more wellie

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Karl]

Hi Paul - so what grade are those stones? Blue - coarse, red - fine, green - extra fine???

I don't mind doing the initial grinding on the grinder - intend to get one of those cool running blue wheels which Philly reviewed. So I really need stones to do the 33 & 35 deg honing described in Rob's post above.

Rob - did I understand your post correctly in that you would only use the green stone (ie extra fine) to do all the honing (with the stropping done on Spyderco/soap)?

Cheers

Karl

 

[Philipp]

I use waterstones, too, but dislike them a bit as to the same reasons: they need flattening and flattening is a mess.

So I use different grinding and polishing powders (alumina) on flat and polished tiles and/or "granite" plates.

Works well at almost no cost plus I can press the plane iron much harder on the tile/granite in order to round the edges than I could do this on a waterstone that quickly would become damaged - and thus would need flattening...

Last polish on leather attached to a piece of wood, using either very fine grained alumina or chrome oxide.

I surely will use my waterstone for some tasks also in the future, but new investments in them are rather unlikely.

Regards

Philipp

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Paul - so what grade are those stones? Blue - coarse, red - fine, green - extra fine???

Yes, Karl, exactly right. Not using my grinder, I sometimes wish I'd bought the black, extra coarse stone rather than the blue - but I'm also probably going to buy one of those blue, cool-running wheels, so maybe I'll start using the grinder a bit more.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[tnimble]

I prefer my waterstones (norton), flattening is not that of a hassle (they don't go out of flat that much). I keep them in their little blue containers filled with a bit of water. Most of the slurry flows over the edge of the stone in to the blue container and the rest is swiped off easily.

I dislike my diamond stones (Ezelap) for ordinary blade sharpening. With water their are messy too, and lack a little container so the mess goes all on the bench. Also you risk rust on the carrier plate. With WD40 the grit glazes over after a while when not cleaning them after use or while continuously using them for longer durations. I find using light oils which do not evaporate fast like Turpentine (not to be confused with mineral turpentine substitute) better altough for quick jobs denatured alcohol works best.


As for the 'soap', I suspect the blocks the same as polishing compound bars / jewellers ruge bar. The colour of the bar depends on the abrasive particles. The barss are composed of particles in a wax. Depending on storage temperature they either are hard but the friction caused a little of the wax to melt or they are just to cold for that to happen. The finer grits such as blue and green have a harder wax type that needs a higher temperature.. Either store them warmer, pre-heat them or move them faster over the MDF or leather.

 

[andy king]

I use waterstones to buy books from! :wink: :lol:
No seriously, I use a double sided Trend diamond stone (continuous diamonds on a thick steel plate) and its brilliant. I also have a piece of leather on a board for stropping, either the blue stick from DMT or the Veritas green, whatever is to hand.
I was pretty impressed by the ultra fine ceramic from Spyderco recently though, so its likely that I will be doing some polishing on that as well.

cheers,
Andy

 

[Chris Knight]

I like the Trend stone Andy recommends too.

As far as the honing soaps go that have been mentioned, most of these are designed for use with polishing wheels which generate enough frictional heat to melt the wax binder and transfer it to the wheel. For a strop, a compound that is easier to apply can be made up using eg tallow or suet and jeweller's rouge.

 

[gidon]

Chris - probably being thick here but how do you make this compound - melt them together - the suet and soap bar?
My blue stick from Clifton is harder than I'd like it too.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Does anyone use oilstones anymore?

I have tried waterstones and disliked them. I use only old tools and I really hate getting rust spots everywhere, so I don't like to mess with water in my workshop. But I used waterstones about 5 years without never starting to like them, so there has to be something in it :wink:

I have one DMT diamond stone, but I very rarely use it. A very coarse stone could be nice to have, but I don't seem to have any more passion towards diamonds than I have for waterstones.

I have 3 oilstones on active use: coarse Carborundum, unidentified natural stone as medium/fine and white hard Arkansas as the normal fine stone. If I have to go any further than my usual stones, a friend of mine made a man-made stone for me (seemed to be quite a secret what he did put in there :?) with less than 1 µm grit size. And then there's the leather strop, one side smeared with ultra fine polishing grit and the other just natural. 's simple as that.

Pekka

 

[ike]

I switched from waterstones for the same reason - too much faff. I liked the idea of continuous diamond plates. Couldn't stretch to the DMC/Trend offerings so went for the Ezelaps - Fine and Superfine (8" x 3"). They come in tough hide pouches so I can chuck them in the travelling toolbag with everything else. Very pleased with the sharpening results. (Primary bevels fast'n'easy c/o a JET wet grinder).

Ike

 

[ivan]

Bars of compound do dry out and become difficult to transfer even to a high speed wheel.

Because they're wax based, you can use 'er indoors grater on them and dissolve the flakes in white spirit to make a soft paste, or even liquid.

Depending on the surface of your strop, a light coating of oil or white spirit (on the strop) may help get some off your hard bar; once first coated, sucessive recharging becomes easier.

 

[Jake]

Because they're wax based, you can use 'er indoors grater on them

Easily justified as 'sharpening your grater for you", I guess.