Sun Tiger water stones

[Brian Hale]

Howdy!

Some time ago I was gifted a bunch of tools from a distant relative on my wifes side of the family, mostly very good quality and well cared for. Included was 3 unmarked waterstones , 800, 1000, 1200 and this Sun Tiger 6000. Not knowing much about them I was wondering if this was as high a quality as the rest of the kit i acquired. Just a curiosity before I store them in the abyss in the corner of the shop where things go to collect dust.
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[Richard Coers]

It will perform wonderfully sitting in the corner collecting dust. Why not sell them instead of letting them collect dust? Some beginner would love to own them!

[Brian Hale]

That would be logical :rolleyes:

My recently acquired son in law is interested in woodworking but space and his other hobbies limit how far he can dive into it. He does have a portable TS though.

For the last couple years he's made good use of my shop and i've been "teaching" him about hand tool woodworking. Also, i've been collecting planes and chisels and saws etc to give him when he buys a bigger house.

I was just curious about the quality. It was free to me and i'd be much happier giving them away and seeing him use them than gaining a little money.

[Cameron Wood]

From what I gather, their line of stones are not expensive, but I would be surprised if it didn't work fine.

I have a very similar situation- an unused, unmarked finishing stone gotten practically for free from the garage/estate sale, friend of a friend. Basically rescued from the unused storage corner.

Already have two finishing stones in use so haven't tried it, but I probably will. There was a medium grit one as well (2000? also unmarked) that has been put to good use.

[Cameron Wood]

After this exchange, I tried out the stone, & it is actually really good- 12k or such- mirror polish for that vanity sharpening, & better than the other one (also gotten pretty much for free from estate).

It has an attached wooden base so I was concerned about leaving it in water, but it doesn't need to be soaked that much.

[Jimmy Harris]

There you go!

I've found most cheap whetstones still do their job. The difference between pricey ones and cheap ones is often things like durability, feel, ease of use, etc. I've yet to run across one that didn't do a good job of actually sharpening, after I lapped one side flat anyway.

As an example, just an hour ago I used the ground edge of the window on my car door to sharpen my pocket knife. That's a trick I've been doing for years now. It went from couldn't cut the tape on a box to sharp enough to shave with. It's not my preferred method, but if that's all you have around you, it'll do.