Never had any success sharpening tools on stones, so for years now I have been using a belt sander held inverted in a vice.
Works great. Quick, easy and followed by a light touch up on fine grit paper, chisels and plane blades are ready to go.
Never a problem.
Until last night.
Grinding a cutting iron from an old plane that I had picked up at auction. It had been very poorly sharpened by its previous owner. Needed a considerable amount of work.
Heavy grinding = sparks. Sparks + dust inside sander = smoke. Where there's smoke, ....... there's a damn fool frantically disassembling his sander and cleaning out smouldering sawdust, hoping it won't suddenly burst into flames.
Perhaps it's time to go and buy the correct tool for the job : )