Sources for buying oil stones?

[DennisCA]

Hi, do you lads have any EU based online stores you'd recommend for acquiring oil stones, I'm mainly interested in arkansas stones, a hard black surgical stone to start with, 8x2 or 8x3 inches. I've started to drop any US based place from my lists, because while the prices are good, the high shipping costs removes any gain and in that case I rather see the money stays in Finland... and factor in import duties on top and it's cheaper to buy local.

The cheapest I've found is 130 euros for a 8x2 black arkansas in Finland, which would also have the fastest and cheapest shipping given my location. But I am always meticulous in browsing the net for the best deal. I already have a cheap small diamond plate that I basically do all my honing on, and my diy sorby-copy to establish angles and such, but otherwise I prefer mostly to freehand it.

 

[Harbo]

Haven't checked but Dictum in Germany is a good source for most woodworking stuff.

Rod

 

[PAC1]

Classic Hand Tools sell a range of Dan's stones

 

[ED65]

Are you set on oilstones Dennis? Because if you're not I can recommend an alternative that I've been trialling for the last few months and the whole setup will set you back less than a tenner.

Starting point is a #1000 diamond plate I got to test out and I'm convinced that it plus a loaded strop will cover 99% of most people's honing needs.

 

[DennisCA]

Already bought the stones. I found a french store which thanks to the pound-euro difference was cheaper than classic tools. It was cheap enough with shipping that I bought two 8x2 stones, less than 130€ total.
http://rasoir-sabre.com/de/24-pierres-arkansas

 

[ajmacleod]

Are you set on oilstones Dennis? Because if you're not I can recommend an alternative that I've been trialling for the last few months and the whole setup will set you back less than a tenner.

Although I have an ancient and cracked fairly hard oilstone of some kind which does fine for most of my sharpening I'd be interested to know what you were going to recommend, to buy as a present for someone else (and one for myself if it turns out to be good!)

 

[g7g7g7g7]

Are you set on oilstones Dennis? Because if you're not I can recommend an alternative that I've been trialling for the last few months and the whole setup will set you back less than a tenner.

Starting point is a #1000 diamond plate I got to test out and I'm convinced that it plus a loaded strop will cover 99% of most people's honing needs.

Any chance you can link to the exact one, there's plenty of unbranded diamond plates to pick from and most of them are pure garbage.

 

[ED65]

Although I have an ancient and cracked fairly hard oilstone of some kind which does fine for most of my sharpening I'd be interested to know what you were going to recommend, to buy as a present for someone else (and one for myself if it turns out to be good!)

I was thinking about starting a thread on this and your question prompted me to go ahead, so here you go.

Any chance you can link to the exact one, there's plenty of unbranded diamond plates to pick from and most of them are pure garbage.

I've included the link in the thread I just started. I think it's more important for price reasons than anything because they vary enormously in price, just on AliExpress you can find approximate equivalents that are ten times this price no problem.

 

[DennisCA]

That's almost identical to my current sharpening system really, a fine cheapo diamond hone and a chromium oxide impregnated piece of leather on a 2x4