Spyderco Ceramic Bench Stone

[foxhunter]

I bought one of these to finish off my sharpening and after the first few uses the stone became very discoloured (i.e. black). The surface also becomes very shiny. The instructions say that they can be cleaned up in a dishwasher (no success) or scrubbed with Scotchbrite pad (no success).

Does any one use these and if so do you have the same problem and how did you solve it?
Does the above actually affect its performance.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think Newt uses one of these stones and keeps the surface fresh by going over it with a coarse DMT diamond stone after use. From memory, he uses oil on it. He gets very good results with it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[scholar]

I have one of these in ultra-fine.

I bought it from Rob Woodbloke of this parish and your question prompted me to go back to the note that Rob kindly sent with the stone. It read as follows:

"This is a great stone (10,000g) but you'll find that it will stop cutting after a while...ie the stone seems to "glaze" as you'd find in a powered bench grinding wheel.
The way to clean it is to use a fine grade diamond stone over the top... Just apply some lube (I use paraffin or WD40) and go over it with a circular motion. Not only will this clean the stone, but it'll flatten it at the same time.
If you haven't got a diamond stone... apologies for being a "slope" pusher!"

I have always used the stone with some WD40 which means it is easy to wipe off the black metal residue. Looking at the Spyderco website it says to use the stone dry, whereas the Axminster product advice says you can use it either dry or with oil or water. WD40 works for me, anyway, so I will stick with that.

I have not yet had to follow Rob's advice on cleaning/flattening with the diamond stone (but I am well down the slope in any event...!)

I hope that helps


Cheers

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I've been using ceramic stones for about ten or maybe thirteen years and I've not come across this problem. I keep a coarse stone, about 800 grit in a water pond, dig it out when needed, pop it on a holder, and sharpen away. I keep a plant spray bottle with water in it to hand to keep the surface wet as I sharpen, and that's about it.

I have a second fine Spyderco stone that I keep dry in its box. Again, I skoosh a bit of water on the surface and sharpen.

Both stones get black in use caused by the ground metal. I just spritz some water on the used surface and wipe the surface of the fine stone with a rag after sharpening and put it away. The coarse stone just gets put back in the pond usually, but sometimes I'll spritz a bit of extra water on it and wipe the black crud off before submerging it. That seems to do the trick and I can't recall when I last made any real effort to remove any glazing from either stone that's developed over time. I think the water used during the sharpening and to wash away any crud at the end of the job keeps everything working nicely and saves having to resort to special cleaning tricks, eg, washing machines, scrubbing with abrasives pads and the like. Slainte.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I've been using a medium ceramic stone for several years, but I've always lubricated it in use. I use water, lately with a drop of washing-up liquid in it to break the surface tension and help it spread more easily - you need less water if you do that, I've found, but you do have to 'top-up' the water on the stone from time to time as it either sinks in, evaporates or gets pushed off by the item being honed. I've had no problems with it glazing or clogging, and suspect that may be more likely if the stone is used dry. The stone is fast-cutting, leaves an edge suitable for such things as roughing-out planes, chopping chisels and the like without further polishing, and it's compact. You have to leave stone and case to dry out after use, but it can be stored quite easily in the tool-chest once it's dry, and doesn't take up much space. The only disadvantage I've found is that it isn't perfectly flat - one side is 'good enough', the other is decidedly concave in length. (Dressing on a diamond lap would cure that - but I don't have one.)

A couple of months ago, I invested in an ultra-fine polishing stone, one side of which is flat, though the other definitely isn't. However, I have noticed that it discolours in service, despite being lubricated in the same way as with the medium stone. Doesn't seem to have affected the performance yet, though a month or two may not be long enough for problems to develop. Might have to obtain a diamond scarifying stone...

 

[foxhunter]

Many thanks to all.
It seems that the advice from the manufacturers to use these stones dry is not necessarily the best. I will need to buy a diamond stone and start again with some liquid.

Brian

 

[newt]

As Paul said I give mine a swipe with the diamond stone before I use it, I now use water with washing up liquid. This process of cleaning does improve performance.