Water Stone Sharpening Station/Pond

[Chris Jackson]

Been holding off for a couple of years now on building a dedicated sharpening station, until a good design idea came along. Well, then I watched the William Ng video below at Wood Whisperer and wow...his station is exactly what I've been looking for! Being solely a waterstone user the thick bordered pond would meet the needs of my shop.

Link to the WW video here: http://thewoodwhisperer.com/scraper-sharpening-w-william-ng/

A couple of initial design questions come to mind however:

-Difficult to tell in the video what William has used as a pond...I would guess just a tupperware or rubbermaid container of some type, also dimensions are difficult to judge from the video but I'm guessing at around 12"x12"?

-Frame support/attachment? I could see the pond being attached to the underside of the frame with a couple of rabbet'd rails for the lip of the container to slide into however supporting the frame/border itself, it is not readily apparent how William has accomplished this, thoughts?

-Stone Support. I have several commercial stone supports but I would certainly like to construct my own for this project...in this clip William Ng struggles a couple of times with is stone remaining stationary. Looking at his design I cannot see what he has in place to prevent lateral movement...maybe a nonskid matting on his base?

-Fountain/Spigot Head. It appears william has used some kind of small fountain pump or somenting similar to feed through the spigot (Bamboo) arrangement. I may opt for something a bit more modern...maybe one of those inexpensive faucets from IKEA fed with an inexpensive 110v fountain pump. Anyone with other thoughts?

Welcome to any thoughts and ideas. I'll post some details once I've fleshed out my own take on this sharpening station.

Chris

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Chris

Here are some more ideas for a waterstone pond. If you scroll done in the link I provide, you will see the pond used by my friend Neil Erasmus (who designs/builds high end furniture and runs a school in Perth). This would be particularly useful for those waterstones that work best with being soaked.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Other/LN%20Perth%20Hand%20Tool%20Event%202011/WaterstonePond2.jpg

More pics at http://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/perth-ln-hand-tool-event-short-report-132703/

My own sharpening station uses Shaptons, which only require a spritz of (soapy) water before use. Consequently they do not need a pond. A tabletop is fine. I use the draining board of a sink in my workshop ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Workbench%20and%20Workshop/SharpeningCentre5.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Workbench%20and%20Workshop/SharpeningCentre1.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jeff Zens]

Hi, Chris;

If you're after simplicity, nothing beats a pine bench hook to hold the stone. Cut a series of saw kerfs in the bottom with your tablesaw before you glue on the top and bottom cleats. These will help keep the bench hook flat over many years of moisture from the stones. I've never had an issue with the stone sliding around on the surface of the pine. Occasionally I wll clamp the bench hook to my benchtop to secure it, but that isn't always necessary either.

I keep my water stones in individual containers I purchased at a place called The Container Store. I don't have a separate bench hook for each grit; I just use one face of the stone and keep the other face on the bench hook.

You can make your sharpening station as complex as you want - but simplicity works just as well.

[Abi Parris]

May also want to check out Tom Fidgen's "Dedicated Sharpening Bench" on his site Unplugged Woodshop.

[Andrew Gibson]

I'm not much help as far as a pond or station, I need to refingn mone quite a bit, but thanks for posting that video! scrapers have always given me trouble. Went out to the shop and gave it another try and boom wispy shavings.

Thanks again.

[Chris Jackson]

So, couldn't help myself had to crank it out today. I used some waterfall Bubinga for the frame, with a basic mitered joint held with Dominos. There just happened to be some bamboo at my local hardware store where I stopped for the sub-pump so that turned into the fountain head. I used the Domino to join some Birch ply and few Oak scraps for the base the tub is a rubbermaid container approximately 10x14"...

I still need to craft a stone holder, and apply some finish (thoughts on those?).

Hope you like the photos...


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