Couple questions on watersones

[Jim Foster]

Any problem storing 3 or 4 stones in a large bucket or water as opposed to individual containers?

And, I have King 800, 1200, and 6000 stones. Is it worthwhile to get a 2000 or 3000 stone? I notice it's hard to get small scratches out as I go from 1200 to 6000. Could just be me, I'm still learning to use them.

[David Weaver]

Since you're a soaker (i.e, you leave your stones in water), you could get a bester 2k from CKTG if you're on a budget.

Stu Tierney has a bunch of stones in that range that are probably also pretty good, but I think the issue is probably with how much metal you're working. I make a much bigger jump with everything except japanese tools that have a fairly thick hard steel layer, and have no issue.

Part of the problem may be that the 6k king is not a very good stone - it's not particularly fine, nor is it particularly fast cutting, but you can do what you need to do with it if money is an issue. I had *exactly* the same stones as you have when I started, and I never minded the red stones, but a buddy had the king 8k and I had the 6K (because I wanted to save 20 bucks), and it always peeved me that his stone would make a nice polish under any circumstance, mine wouldn't, and his seemed to cut faster, too.

But, regardless, you can do all you ever need to do in woodworking with the stones you already have, I think maybe you're just working more metal than you need to, and a change in your routine somewhere is in order to get a grinder or very coarse stone or coarse sandpaper to do most of the work removing the metal, and minimize what your honing stones have to do.

That's not to say that there aren't stones out there that will cut faster and finer, but they will come at a cost, and adding and swapping around stones is a persona decision about whether or not you want to spend.

[David Weaver]

Oh, yeah. No problem storing the 800 and 1200 together. You shouldn't soak the 6k, at least not for long.

Just flush the surfaces of the stones with water and wipe any loose swarf off the surface with your hands, repeat as needed, and you won't really have any grit contamination issues. Or swish them around in the bucket, whatever.

[Chris Griggs]

I store my soakers in the same tub - grit contamination is possible, but i flattten and then rinse mine each time i use them so its not an issue. If you just rinse them or wet/spray them down when you pull them out of the tub you should fine for getting out grit contamination

The 1.2k to 6k jump is fine for micro bevels, but a lot of work if your doing a large portion of a back. You can get the scratches out with that jump, it just takes some time.

On newer ceramic abrasive stones these jumps are fine (no problems going from my 1k to 6k Sigma). Before I got my sigmas, I was making the jump from a Norton 1k-8k (though the 8k is actually a 5k or 6k under current Japanese rating system) - it worked, but I had to spend some time on the 8k if I really wanted to get all the scratches out.

I think Davids recommendation for a Bester 2k is probably a go low cost solution. If you are looking to upgrade all your stone Chef Knives to Go has some really good options, but I, like David, will make a plug to get in contact with Stu Tierney at toolsfromjapan.com

[Chris Fournier]

It costs next to nothing to store soakers in their own containers. 4000 and up I don't soak. Contamination is a pain so I don't bother.