Oilstone box

[Rafael Herrera]

Hello,
I came across some Mahogany at a salvage store and decided to make a box for my sharpening oilstone. I got the idea from a Bill Carter video (https://youtu.be/cdDSkDjyolQ) to add an end grain block on each end of the stone so one can use the whole length of the stone. Does anyone have any experience with this design? Most of the examples I’ve seen do not have the end grain blocks.
Cheers,
Rafael

[Scott Winners]

Can't get to youtube from behind my of office's firewall server. I did build a wooden box for my one oilstone, with a sliding lid. I have to take the stone out of the box to use the stone, but the box keeps the stone clean in my shop and I mostly just sharpen awkward stuff like axes and lawn mower blades anyway.

A wooden box you can leave the stone in for sharpening sounds like a neat idea.

[Günter VögelBerg]

I'm not sure I see the advantage. So you get a slightly longer stroke on the stone?

[Mel Fulks]

It doesn't hinder anything and might keep the stone from breaking if dropped in box with top secured. Sometimes
"secured" was a rag tied around the box. It's hard for moderns to understand how tight money could be. Breaking a stone
could be a real set-back.

[William Fretwell]

Yes a longer stroke, especially at the end. It means you get to use the whole stone without dropping the bevel over the edge. It keeps the stone flatter, dishing is very wasteful when you re-flatten a stone and takes a long time with an oil stone. It lets you skew sharpen the blade far more easily if you wish.
I would guess keeping the stone flatter is a bigger benefit than the longer stroke; but you can have both!
Water stones would benefit from the same treatment but they are soaked in...water. They are much easier to flatten so people don’t bother but the waste is considerable.
I picked up two high quality water stones at a re-store recently, they were so badly dished the previous owner must have sharpened chisels only in the middle. Even with a coarse CBN plate the 400 grit stone took a considerable time fo flatten.

[Andrew Hughes]

I watched the video. I thought the oil stone boxes are wonderful and adding the end grain blocks are a great idea.

[Tony Zaffuto]

I'm an accumulator of stones and have made some fitted boxes as well as a wooden base for several. The video shows a method to use more of the stone, but, why not learn free hand sharpening, and you can use every bit of a stone, even one 5" X 2"!

Bit of advice for those of you looking for stones at flea markets or antique malls: look for stones in nicely made boxes. Chances are those were prized (expensive/natural) by the owners. More times than not, I've picked up top notch hard arkansas and washita's for sometimes a couple of bucks.

[Rafael Herrera]

As some of you noted, the idea with the box is to protect it, use it while in the box, and to delay dishing by using the whole surface of the stone.

I'm making the box mostly by hand and started to carve the recess last night.

This box will house my largest Washita stone, which came in a very dirty wooden box. A few passes of the smoother revealed that it was made of mahogany, this was a cherished stone.

I'll post more pictures as I make more progress.

Cheers,
Rafael

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[Warren Mickley]

I read about the end grain blocks about forty years ago and I tried it once by clamping blocks to a stone. It works passably well. However, the problem with stone wear is not in the lengthwise direction, but in the side to direction. We can easily tolerate 20 times as much hollow lengthwise as side to side.

In order to avoid dishing crosswise, we need to overlap the tool with the side edge, learning to balance the tool on the stone with a portion of the edge overhanging. In this way we are able to wear the stone the full width and control the wear. My soft Arkansas might have sharpened 100,000 tools since I last flattened it, but when checked with a straightedge it does not show light in either direction.

There are 18th century illustrations of oilstones in boxes, but not with end blocks.

[ken hatch]

I read about the end grain blocks about forty years ago and I tried it once by clamping blocks to a stone. It works passably well. However, the problem with stone wear is not in the lengthwise direction, but in the side to direction. We can easily tolerate 20 times as much hollow lengthwise as side to side.

In order to avoid dishing crosswise, we need to overlap the tool with the side edge, learning to balance the tool on the stone with a portion of the edge overhanging. In this way we are able to wear the stone the full width and control the wear. My soft Arkansas might have sharpened 100,000 tools since I last flattened it, but when checked with a straightedge it does not show light in either direction.

There are 18th century illustrations of oilstones in boxes, but not with end blocks.

As usual Mickley has good advice. That is one of the reasons when you find good older stones they tend to be narrow. The extra wide stones you find sold today are good for using jigs but not so good for stone maintenance. Full disclosure, my favorite Black Ark polishing stone is 3" wide. I got it before I knew what I was doing and thought wider was better.

ken

[William Fretwell]

I see the live edge black walnut, have one just like it drying!

[Tom Trees]

Great thread, been waiting until someone brought this up :)

I've been doing this method to keep the stone flat, definitely more effort on a wider soft ark which I'm using just for the minute/I'll give it another 6 months kinda thing.
In my case laminating reclaimed hardwoods, over 90% of my time on the stone is spent honing plane irons.
Since I don't have a good light near the stones to check with a straightedge, I have recently used a no.8 iron on the stone and found that gave me the best impression on the topology
of the stone compared to other methods of quick inspection.

I normally hone a pair of no.5 1/2's and no.4's for use with the close set cap iron, those shouldn't allow too much of a chance to get my soft ark hollowed out.....
Yet, I can't seem to keep or get those side edges at the same plane or lower than the middle of the stone.
One side is always wider and has less pronounced dipping, than the other side has.
I basically just use the long edges of this stone, and the corners.
This means rotating the stone often, so much so that I nearly need to do this for every hone to get that camber even for a 64th setting on the cap iron, when the wood calls for it.
Swapping hands to try and eliminate any spots I've missed also, but the high edges remain.

Is this relatively common to find a stone which looks a fairly even colour throughout, but with more durable sections?
My soft ark alongside the washita.

https://i.ibb.co/n1xW82w/Oilstones.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/ZJGz18H/SAM-2959.jpg
Another wee addition in my honing setup that I found useful is a whiteboard to check your camber.

Nice to see a good discussion about stone maintenance.
Looking forward to read some folks techniques.
Thanks
Tom

[Rafael Herrera]

Hello Warren, that's a good point about the side direction flatness of the stone. I have three Washita stones that came in very old boxes without end blocks. All three were dished in both directions. It was not difficult to flatten them with coarse sand paper. I like the look of end blocks in the oilstone box, so I don't mind adding them. Perhaps the end grain blocks didn't take in the American woodworking tradition. We'll see how it goes in the next 10 or 20 years.

[Rafael Herrera]

Hello, William. Yes, it is. I'm working it mostly by hand. It's challenging since it has the grain going in different directions and tends to tear out. It needs a few more hours of work.

[Kevin Adams]

In order to avoid dishing crosswise, we need to overlap the tool with the side edge, learning to balance the tool on the stone with a portion of the edge overhanging. In this way we are able to wear the stone the full width and control the wear. My soft Arkansas might have sharpened 100,000 tools since I last flattened it, but when checked with a straightedge it does not show light in either direction.

Hi Warren, I’m betting you have said this before, but how do you hone your tools...perpendicular to long edge, parallel, somewhere in between, figure eight, etc.? I know you have said that you don’t grind and hone frequently so the edge stays well sharp.

Thanks as always for your advice.

Kevin

[Warren Mickley]

Hi Warren, I’m betting you have said this before, but how do you hone your tools...perpendicular to long edge, parallel, somewhere in between, figure eight, etc.? I know you have said that you don’t grind and hone frequently so the edge stays well sharp.

Thanks as always for your advice.

Kevin

We usually use the word honing for just the finer stones. And some use the term grinding for both abrading with a coarse wheel and abrading with a flat,coarse stone. I usually start with an 800 grit stone and would not call this honing. Toshio Odate says to start with a 1200 stone and if that is not sufficient, the tool has gotten too dull.

I keep the tool about thirty degrees from perpendicular to the long edge of the stone, and sharpen in a back and forth motion. This is a very common technique, both in Western and Eastern practice. Introducing this angle makes the iron much more stable and less inclined to rock in the direction of travel. It is as if you have a much wider bevel to rest on. Being able to overhang the edge of the stone with the tool is important for both maintaining the flatness of the stone and for adjusting the camber of the blade.

[Kevin Adams]

Being able to overhang the edge of the stone with the tool is important for both maintaining the flatness of the stone and for adjusting the camber of the blade.

Yes, I can see now what you mean. Is your coarse stone a water stone? And how many stones do you use? Flat bevel with no micro bevel, correct?

Thanks again, Happy New Year!

Kevin

[Rafael Herrera]

I finished the box. I'm very happy with the final box. I had some issues with tearout since I glued the two pieces w the grain going in opposite directions. Regardless, there were fibers going in different directions even in the same piece so it was something I had to deal with. I did a test run with a chisel and being able to use the very end of the stone is satisfying.
Rafael

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[Jim Koepke]

Looks great.

jtk

[Mike Manning]

We usually use the word honing for just the finer stones. And some use the term grinding for both abrading with a coarse wheel and abrading with a flat,coarse stone. I usually start with an 800 grit stone and would not call this honing. Toshio Odate says to start with a 1200 stone and if that is not sufficient, the tool has gotten too dull.

I keep the tool about thirty degrees from perpendicular to the long edge of the stone, and sharpen in a back and forth motion. This is a very common technique, both in Western and Eastern practice. Introducing this angle makes the iron much more stable and less inclined to rock in the direction of travel. It is as if you have a much wider bevel to rest on. Being able to overhang the edge of the stone with the tool is important for both maintaining the flatness of the stone and for adjusting the camber of the blade.

Being a complete beginner, it feels like the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" could very well have been first uttered in reference to people describing their sharpening techniques. Sigh.

[Warren Mickley]

Being a complete beginner, it feels like the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" could very well have been first uttered in reference to people describing their sharpening techniques. Sigh.

Here is a picture of chisel sharpening, showing slight angle. I usually steady the chisel near the edge with my left hand, but used the left hand to take the picture. direction of travel is lengthwise on the stone. You can see from the black oil at the end how close I get.

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Here is a picture of the chisel overlapping the edge of the stone, to avoid dishing the stone.
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[Kevin Adams]

Thanks, Warren. Nice stone, too.

Kevin

[Mike Manning]

Warren, Thanks for the pics. That definitely is a big help for me understanding your description! That's not a knock on you by the way.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I finished the box. I'm very happy with the final box. I had some issues with tearout since I glued the two pieces w the grain going in opposite directions. Regardless, there were fibers going in different directions even in the same piece so it was something I had to deal with. I did a test run with a chisel and being able to use the very end of the stone is satisfying.
Rafael

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Any insights into how you made this? Let me be specific.

It looks like you used a solid piece of wood and then created the "hole" for the stone. Your "hole" looks to be perfect. I assume you used a router of some sort and then squared the ends using a chisel. I would need to think about how to use a router to do that. I assume a plunge router with a guide. I assume that you did not do something crazy like but your wood and then glue it back together, I would expect to see seems if you did that. I think that in the reference video he claimed to have used a chisel followed by a router. I was not certain if he meant a powered router (probably) or a router plane (seems less likely).

Would have loved a build thread with pictures as to how you did this. I really like the results.

[Rafael Herrera]

Hi Andrew, I got the inspiration to start this project after watching the Bill Carter videos. I found some reclaimed Mahogany at a salvage yard, several 2" x 2" x 6' pieces. I cut 4 pieces with my table saw and glued two pieces together to get the two sides of the box in the width I wanted. I dimensioned the glued pieces using hand planes. The pieces are about 12"x3"x 1 1/8" each, the end grain blocks are 1" wide. I marked the outline of the oilstone and end grain blocks and cut the recess with a chisel deep enough to engage the hand router. I cut about 1/8" away from the line for later refinement when fitting the stone. I cut the recess to a depth of 1/2" with a Millers Falls hand router. You can see how Bill did it in https://youtu.be/-62acG8vpqY?t=62.

I made a mistake gluing the wood pieces together and each piece had its grain going in the opposite direction than the other, so I had to run the smother plane and hand router in different directions to avoid excessive tear out. However, the grain would reverse direction even in the same piece, so I had to plane the recess following the grain direction as I made progress.

For the base I pared down the walls of the recess until I got a tight fit for the stone and blocks; for the lid I pared down the walls a little wider for an easy lid removal. I planed the chamfers with my smoother in a similar fashion as shown in https://youtu.be/uz5Z-IsvXfE. I finished the boxes with several coats of shellac. To level the stone with the blocks I used a strip of sandpaper on a glass surface to wear down the wood until I started to abrade the stone. Since I didn't glue the stone or blocks, they can come apart by holding the stone and tapping the sides of the box with a rubber mallet (by the way, that's a good way to remove the stone from an old box if it is not glued to it.) If the oilstone is removed, one needs to pay attention to the orientation when re-installing, the blocks will become misaligned and will need a bit of lapping.

Here are a few pictures I took during construction, I didn't take that many.

Cheers,
Rafael

(Bill Carter makes metal hand planes, check out his web site http://www.billcarterwoodworkingplanemaker.co.uk/, his prices per plane are not for the faint of heart.)

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[Andrew Pitonyak]

Awesome, thanks for the update AND for the extra links. Very helpful indeed.

[Rob Luter]

This thread inspired me to make one of my own. The Cedar wasn’t ideal, but it was in the scrap hopper. The hinges are really too big, but they were in the spare parts bin. The cavities were pre drilled with a Forstner bit and finished with a router plane. Crude but effective. The stone seems ok with the whole situation.

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[Andrew Pitonyak]

It looks pretty nice to me!

[Rafael Herrera]

For those of you with Arkansas or Washita stones in your collection, check out this pamphlet put out by the Pike company around 1905 (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035165789&view=2up&seq=2) (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?stzid=UgyOErdd0WAyId001zJ4AaABAg.93pG_7rx BPS948fNj7W5Uk&event=comments&q=https%3A%2F%2Fbabel.hathitrust.org%2Fcgi%2Fpt%3F id%3Duc1.31175035165789%26view%3D2up%26seq%3D2%29&redir_token=Er-Nt_5cpqbUbm0lSTh61qwl_u58MTU3OTg5NTg2MkAxNTc5ODA5N DYy). It describes their whole line of oilstones, including the Washita stones. It describes their appearance and uses. Even how to check their hardness by the sound they make when struck with a metal hammer. From what I learned there I realized that my stones are very likely all Rosy Reds, maybe soft ones (comparable to Lily Whites, which were the top of the line in the Washita category.)