Waterstones - ID?

[Scott M Perry]

Hi, all -

I have some old waterstones that were gifted me years ago, and I can't for the life of me figure out which to use when. Can anyone tell in which order I should be using these? Is it even possible to tell from this (lame) photo?

Thanks for any help,
Scott


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8184/8368241916_d7421fe486_z.jpg

[David Weaver]

Top one looks like an iyo nagura type. It could be anywhere from like 400 grit to 4000 grit composition but the balance of it is probably in the middle. If it seems slow, rub a diamond hone on it brifly and leave the slurry on the surface and then use it. It'll instantly get a lot faster, the less water in the slurry the faster it will cut as long as you don't let it totally dry out.

The middle stone *might* be a bit of tanba aoto (soft, sloppy, if you wash the slurry off and it's blue or bluish green). It could also just be a piece of softer stone from the upper strata of anywhere. It looks soft, though, based on the slurry.

The stone on the bottom appears that it might be a semi-finisher. If I had to take a wild guess to win money, it looks like a softer even green stone, like hiderayama characteristics.

Just as a guess, use them in the order they're shown. Clean them off first (except for the top stone) and see how fast they release their grit. I have a big hiderayama stone that looks a little bit like your bottom stone, it can't hold its grit and it works well as a semi-finish stone. The edge it makes can be improved pretty easily with a synthetic finish stone (which is not the case for a good final finisher), but you might have some good luck and have it be a little better/harder than that.

A truly hard finisher will be fine grain, dense and not release anything when it's sharpening hard steel.

[Scott M Perry]

Thanks for the information, David! I have a 220 Norton stone on order for rough shaping. Will use that first, and these in order, and see what I end up with. Also have a finish stone that needs surfacing, if that can be done - looks like a small case of acne. Or leprosy.

[David Weaver]

You can do whatever you want to a finisher that's got su/pocks on the surface, including leave it as is. You never know what you're going to find when you dig into a stone, even a maruka stamped stone might crack after while, etc. Stones with su might have it in some spots and not others, or you might just run off a lot of the stone to find that there's more underneath, possibly worse than the surface.

[Scott M Perry]

...I've been diligently trying to flatten and hone a 1/2" Swan. An exercise in frustration. Have spent better part of an hour going through the stones, backing up, going forward again. The back has a nice shine, but still a lot of scratches I can't remove. The bevel is nice and shiny but I don't think it's really sharp - doesn't shave hair, and crushes end grain pine. I'm calling it quits for tonight - my fingers are aching.

Maybe I need to find a mentor local...

[David Weaver]

Yeah, you want to use sandpaper to do that part, sandpaper stuck down to something flat with adhesive. Norton 3x would be a good place to start, something like 100 grit.