Waterstone sharpening - wow!

[nospambob]

[John Cole]

I was the friendly milkman for a number of years !

[Layne]

Like what Barry said. The XX (DMT color coded black) is rated at 220 mesh.

I have a folding red/green Duosharp for knives, scissors and stuff and I really like it for a quick job on my crappy kitchen knives and it puts a very good edge on my garden bypass pruners using the green side.

Layne

[Australopithecus scobis]

Glad you mentioned that. I don't understand this slurry thing. I make some paste with the nagura, then the blade squeegees it away on the first pass. Ok, now what? I try chasing the slurry around the stone or painting it back with a finger, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Simply wetting my 4k LV and 10k Ice Bear works well enough. I realize I'm missing something.

Coarse diamond stone was scratchy when I unwrapped it. Now it's smooth. Little sparklies show in the 30x pocket microscope. It cuts if I put some elbow grease into it. With slight pressure the blade only gets shiny. The

800x LV water stone cuts way faster.

The jump from 800 to 4000 is a little wider than some recommend. I picked up a 1"x3"x8" hard Arkansas at Woodcraft the other day, at 75% off. Have to use it with water instead of oil to keep from fouling up the water stones. The table in Woodcraft's catalogs lists hard Arkansas around

1200.

[bridger]

I use a drop of detergent on it after the arkansas stone is wetted with water. it seems to keep the metal waste from packing down in the pores of the stone.

[Prometheus]

What kind of detergent, exactly? My hard Arkansas stones are getting a little clogged.

[Australopithecus scobis]

Just about detergent, really. You've got either oil+metal sludge, or just metal bits. Some suggest soaking the oilstone in kerosene to soften the gunk. When using water as a lubricant, I just use a bit of hand washing detergent in the handy pump bottle. I've had success with rubbing compound and with green 3M pads--for cleaning, not lubing :)

[bridger]

the same stuff I use for washing dishes. I do most of my sharpening at the sink anyway, so water and detergent are my default honing fluids. sometimes if I'm in the shop sharpening, especially with a hard white arkansas stone I'll use paint thinner, but most of the time even with that stone I'll use water.

[fredfighter]

When I was a kid, the county rebuilt the bridge by our house. That bridge had a concrete abutment on either side of the creek with two I-beams set in the concrete and a wooden (see, on-topic) deck built on that. After the deck was removed, all that was left spanning the creek were the I-beams.

Our milkman parked at the "Bridge Out" barricade and walked accross on the I-beams to deliver the milk.

[Prometheus]

I'm still using the stuff that came with the stone, generically labelled "honing oil". Figure 3-in-1 will work okay once that's gone (I do all my sharpening on an utility bench under the pegboard, not at the sink) I'll give the dishsoap and scotchbrite for cleaning a try, though- the course and medium stones clean up pretty well with water and a scrub brush, but the white one looks terrible and it wasn't cheap enough that I want to give up on it!

[AAvK]

Yeah... it is an 'oil' stone. I wouldn't use dish soap and water, just the scary sharp scrub down I think is a better idea. I just bought a big beautiful soft Arkansas, I will only use distilled water on it.

[Australopithecus scobis]

FWIW, I got a bottle of cutting oil at the hardware store. It was cheaper than 3-in-1. Stinks, though. Waterstones are much tidier, if one has a sink handy.