Waterstones

[Jim Koepke]

Colleagues: need some recommendations as to a water stone set. Am tired of the Tormek required pre soaking time before use. As a result, I put off sharpening or touching up the edge until it is really dull.

Last time I was at the local tool emporium, clerk raved about the Shapton glass backed stones. It all sounded almost believable until he quoted me an out the door price for the all grits that I really needed to sharpen well as well as the necessary Shapton diamond lapping plate.
[edited]
Need some recommendation as to grits and brand. Thanks for any help.

Everybody loves to spend other folks money.

Malcolm gave a great answer to the Tormek soaking problem.

My solution would have been to start soaking the Tormek first thing into the shop, knowing that something is going to need sharpening, if you are doing any work. During the warm months this is how my water stones are handled. Sometimes they are just left in the water bath. A continuous soaking may not be a feasible answer for the Tormek.

Of course in my shop there is no heat. This means hard water, frozen, during the cold months. That is when my sharpening turns to oil stones. Seeing you location in your profile, Between No Where & No Place ,WA, my guess is you are not very close to my location. If you are close enough, you are welcome to come see and test drive my sharpening set up. If this is the case or you have reason to travel toward Portland, send me a PM. My most used water stones are a 1000 or 2000 Norton a 4000 King and an 8000 Norton. These are all used on my plane and chisel blades. Gouges and molding plane blades are sharpened on oil stones. A slip with a gouge or even a straight blade can wreak havoc on a water stone. Often when working with a tool and a drop off in performance is noticed it can be sharpened quickly with just the 4000 & 8000 stones.

If this was something for me to do all over again, my stones would likely be purchased from Stu at Tools From Japan. The sets he had before seem to have made a lot of satisfied customers.

For quick metal removal on a damaged blade or one brought into the shop from out in the wild my solution was to purchase a 4' hunk of granite from a monument maker (gravestone carver) and attach some PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive) backed sandpaper. For me a 360 grit seems to work fine. This is on its own bench, made like a tall saw horse, in the shop.

Granite on Horse.jpg

This is excellent for flattening backs or renewing a bevel damaged by chipping or hitting a knot. For my use a holder was rigged up to keep the angle constant when working on a bevel.

As for other powered systems, some will use a belt sander. Knife makers have been using specialized belt sanders for years. My power sharpener is likely something you do not need since you already have a Tormek.

Just for the record, someone else may find this thread a dozen years from now, this is my power set up > http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/pag...35&cat=1,43072 < This is my use it for everything powered abrasive set up. It has been used on shovels, axes, knives, turning tools and even to clean up non-tool metal or rounding the ends on dowels. It is versatile.

If you do not purchase a lot of used tools to rehab, one or two tool holders will be enough. My original needs had me getting five so the tools would have time to cool between each grinding. One tool would be worked until hot and then by the time four more tools did the same the first one would be cool again. My tool accumulations have slowed down over time and now only one or two tools are worked at the same time.

My only disclaimer on the Veritas Mk.ll Power Sharpening System is it is set up to make a secondary bevel. This occurs due to the thickness of the abrasive sheets. My solution is to shim up the disk with the finer abrasive sheets to match the height of the coarser sheets. Most of the time after the second abrasive is used the work is taken to the stones for flat blade. With carving tools and gouges the work is done freehand so the platter thickness isn't a consideration.

Most likely this is more information than you wanted.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Christopher Schwarz likes those and wrote about the change in importer in his PopWood Blog. (It does look like they're only 15mm thick, so remember that when comparing prices. Many stones are 25mm thick and give you a little more abrasive.)

The Pro stones are 15 mm thick. The Glass stones only have 5 mm of sharpening media, except for the $80 double-thickness 500# which has 10 mm. The glass stones are also somewhat softer than the pros as their design center was A2 (vs HCS for the pros), so it's sort of a double-whammy of short stone life.

On a per-unit-volume basis the Shapton Glass stones are by far the most expensive synthetics on the market, and IMO there's nothing special about them that justifies that sort of pricing. They consist of alumina abrasive in a resinoid binder, just like several other brands. If I were going to spend that sort of money I'd go with Choseras though (the old 25 mm thick versions that are still available in various channels).

I'd second the recommendation of the 1k-6k-13k set from Stu. I ordered one for somebody a couple months ago, so I know he's still selling. As others have said, it consists of the "1K hard" and baseless 6K and 13K stones from here: http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/...th=335_404_403.

[Warren West]

Colleagues: need some recommendations as to a water stone set. Am tired of the Tormek required pre soaking time before use. As a result, I put off sharpening or touching up the edge until it is really dull.

Last time I was at the local tool emporium, clerk raved about the Shapton glass backed stones. It all sounded almost believable until he quoted me an out the door price for the all grits that I really needed to sharpen well as well as the necessary Shapton diamond lapping plate. The out-the-door price, tax included, was just shy of US $1200.00. Aint no way I am spending that 'kinda' money if there are alternatives.

A friend raves 'bout the Naniwa Sharpening Stone -- New Super Stone? But I 'duunno.'

Need some recommendation as to grits and brand. Thanks for any help.

OMG $1200 of consumables for sharpening! Crazy.

1. The Tormek is a grinder - treat is as such. I own one also and it's only for major repairs or intial comissioning of a tool.

2. The Tormek's finiest grit with the stone grader is around 1000 and then you go to the PA 70. The to replicate that in a waterstone could be done with a 300/1000 combo stone. Easily under $125. No need to spend $1200.

3. Waterstone users tend to like micro grit progressions. 400, 800, 1000, 1200, 2000, 2001, 2002... way too many grits involved.

4. For actual woodworking 2 or 3 grits of stones and a strop will cover it all. I carve wood and can get the edge I need off a 300/1000 grit diamond stone and a strop, or a coarse/fine india and a strop and sometimes when i'm feeling really crazy I'll throw in a soft ark. I do have two strops a 400 grit silicon carbide on leather and simichrome on leather. I don't always use the simichrome strop. The 400 grit silicon carbide makes quick work the edge off 1000 grit diamond or fine India. If you haven't tried 400 grit silicon carbide on leather, don't tell me it's too coarse.

[Patrick Chase]

Christopher Schwarz likes those and wrote about the change in importer in his PopWood Blog. (It does look like they're only 15mm thick, so remember that when comparing prices. Many stones are 25mm thick and give you a little more abrasive.)

Too bad he decided to "skip the drama". I suspect that it involves Harrelson Stanley (the previous distributor) pissing off his largest customer (LN) to the point where they imported, branded, and marketed their own line of resinoid waterstones.

While I don't agree with Schwartz about a lot, he's right about the glass stones. They're way too much money for 1/3 the abrasive (1/5 if you compare to any maker not named "Shapton" or "Naniwa").

[Derek Cohen]

....

The Shapton Glass stones are excellent stones, but you don't need that full set,....
Get the Shapton Glass 1k, 4k, and 8k to start. Fill in the gaps as needed..

Malcolm, please don't take this personally, but I am very suspicious of the glass stones. Not only are they thin, and poor value-for-money, as Patrick also points out, but Stu (Tools from Japan) made some negatives remarks in a blog post a few years back. I re-read this post recently, and it is really interesting. The link is here, however the relevant aspects are these (quoting Stu) ...

"Old school simply means that the binder in the stone is clay based, so it breaks apart very easily or can be described as ‘readily friable’.In coarser stones, it constantly exposes fresh, sharp abrasive so the stones cut fast. The trade off is that they will go out of flat rapidly because the surface is constantly being stripped away as the tool rubs across it. The gaps between abrasive will allow some spent grit to sink into the stone, and some will remain on the surface unless you wash it off.

In finer grit stones, the same effect happens to a lesser degree. In this case, because the stone’s abrasive is finer, the stripped grit/binder can’t go anywhere but on the surface of the stone creating a slurry or mud. This slurry is composed of abrasive, clay binder and steel particles. As it gets rubbed, the abrasive becomes smaller and cuts finer, the surface of the stone begins to plug up so the effect is exacerbated. In short, you effectively end up with a polishing compound which should give you a great edge. To make the stone cut faster, wash off the slurry exposing fresh abrasive and helping unclog the stone’s surface.
This polishing effect also occurs in the coarser stones but to a lesser degree.

It also means that making a #1000 to #6000/8000 jump in stone grit is easily done with no real ill effects.

Newer stones use a ceramic or resin based binder which is either a lot harder so the abrasive is is not so rapidly stripped away (think Shapton) or the binder is more resistant to abrasion while still remaining quite soft (Sigma Power, Bester). Naniwa Superstones are somewhere in the middle.

Because the binder holds together longer, the grit ends up doing more work before being discarded meaning you need to have a harder, more resilient abrasive. Finding the balance between binder and abrasive so you get a stone that will cut quickly without being torn up too quickly is where the difference between the newer ‘ceramic’ stones is compared to the old school clay based ones.

What you gain is a stone that should still cut quickly, but will remain flat for longer. The trade off is that you may/will lose some of that ‘polishing’ action meaning a big jump just isn’t possible and you really do need to go ‘up the grits’ to get the job done.

In real terms, you can get away with a King (or Norton) #1000 and then a #6000/8000 so long as you take care to make sure your stones are flat so you don’t end up putting a convex surface on a chisel or plane blade’s back. To get the same thing out of newer style ceramic stones, you would need a #1000, a #3000/5000 and then a #8000/12000 in a Shapton professional type stone to end up with the same net result because the fine grit stones can’t get the coarser scratches out fast enough so you really do need that intermediate step. Yes, the fine stones will take away the coarse scratches, eventually, but that defeats the purpose since it will take considerable time and you also increase the risk of making the stone ‘unflat’

The only ceramic stones that I know (as in I really do know, not simply suspect) that will make a #1000-#8000 jump are Sigma Power. I suspect Naniwa Chosera stones will also make the leap, but I don’t know for certain.

The Sigma Power does it by using a very hard #1000 stone that cuts very rapidly. The #8000 uses a moderately hard binder so you get the tough, sharp ceramic style abrasive combined with a binder that will let spent grit go while retaining the still sharp abrasive. You don’t get the polishing effect though, the abrasive is too hard for that. However stropping the edge WILL give you a polish so you can do that final step ‘on the cheap’ if you find you need a better edge than the #8000 Sigma Power gives you. The #10000 Sigma Power is more a polishing stone, so the abrasive will actually break down a little rather than simply becoming blunt.

Taken to the other extreme are the Shapton Glass stones. They use a very durable abrasive combined with an extremely hard, durable binder. They do cut quickly, but you get next to zero polishing effect and fresh abrasive needs to be exposed by abrading the surface with a diamond plate or similar. However, for Glass Stones, you really REALLY do need to go up the grits to get a good edge. There are some Glass Stones (signified by an ‘S’ designation) that use a less resilient binder and an abrasive that will break down offering some effect of polishing. Generally though, Glass Stones are %$# hard which means they WILL stay flat no matter how hard you try to change that. Personally, I am not real keen on them, but plenty of folks really like them which goes to show there is a stone for anyone but no stone for everyone."

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Doug Hepler]

Ray

Sharpening discussions soon become an end in themselves. For many people, sharpening and arguing about sharpening methods, is lots more fun than woodworking.

If you want to get some work done, use lapping film available from Lee Valley and/or consider one or more DMT diamond plates. Lapping film is a "Scary Sharp" or "sandpaper sharpening" method, but done with aluminum oxide or diamond coated film (Mylar?) because it lasts longer. Also, buy or borrow Ron Hock's book on sharpening. You can get a kindle edition and finish reading it today.

Back to work

Doug

[Jeff Heath]

Ray

Sharpening discussions soon become an end in themselves. For many people, sharpening and arguing about sharpening methods, is lots more fun than woodworking.

If you want to get some work done, use lapping film available from Lee Valley and/or consider one or more DMT diamond plates. Lapping film is a "Scary Sharp" or "sandpaper sharpening" method, but done with aluminum oxide or diamond coated film (Mylar?) because it lasts longer. Also, buy or borrow Ron Hock's book on sharpening. You can get a kindle edition and finish reading it today.

Back to work

Doug

Very well done, Doug. I typically stay out of these discussions for all the reasons you just mentioned. There will be eventually over 40 replies to this thread, with at least 20 different recommendations on how to spend a lot of money on this stone, that stone, this thickness, that medium, etc.......

My comments do not take into consideration specialty steels or Japanese tools. I know nothing about them, and don't care to know. I've been doing this for 3 decades now......longer than most, and quite a bit less than a few. I can tell that one thing is for certain. Absolutely certain. If your chisels or plane blades are O1 or A2, they just do not care how you sharpen them. A sharp edge is nothing more than the intersection of two highly polished surfaces down to an ever decreasingly small intersection. PERIOD.

I use the 3M scary sharp method sold in 10 packs at Tools for Working Wood, and I'm sure you can get it at quite a few places, for $26. Placed on a solid substrate that is flat (I use the kitchen sink cutout of granite), you can get remarkably sharp edges in an extremely fast time, and very quickly get back to work.

Jeff Miller of chairbuilder and author fame showed me this 20 years ago, and I've been using it ever since. I've got a box full of old fancy expensive waterstones buried in the shop somewhere that are as dry as dirt and staying that way.

I work wood for a living. I sharpen every day. I haven't spent $300 on 3M paper yet in 20 years. I go through the 40 micron paper the most, which is the most agressive. It lasts a while, but when it dulls, I replace it. I probably use one sheet per year, cut into 4 2.75" slices (approx.). The other higher polishing grits (diminishing micron numbers) last a lot longer, because you only need to take 10 to 15 swipes on each one before moving on. 2 minutes or less to mirror polished, surgically sharpened tools.

The rest is all engineering types and their electron microscopes discussing metallurgy that has nothing to do with a tool sharp enough to plane 99% of the woods you are likely to be working.

I work mostly North American hardwoods, with several species that are very hard like locust, osage orange, persimmon, pecan, etc....that can be tough on steel. Not as hard or as gnarly (so I hear) as some of that granite they call wood in Australia, but I think you get the point.

Just another option offered from a guy who prefers to spend his money on needed tools and wood, not sharpening stones.

For the record: I have ZERO affiliation with any supplier or tool maker. I mention TFWW only because that's where I found it, and I always get good service when I order there, just like what I receive from Lee Valley or Lie Nielsen.

[Derek Cohen]

Doug and Jeff

Sharpening discussions are usually an exercise in futility because there are so many opinions offered, that there is simply an overload of information. Important stuff is in the eye of the beholder.

I do find it interesting, however, that those who comment negatively about a sharpening thread still cannot resist chipping in to mention their own sharpening system.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Adam Schultz]

I don't know why people complain about sharpening threads. I love all the conflicting opinions! Makes for great reading. I guess maybe I'm just new to the game and I'll get tired of all this later. I doubt it though.

I'm a bit of a newb so take what I do with a few grains of salt.

I bought a 3000 grit Sigma stone from Lee Valley as my first stone. I couldn't afford any more stones and I was hoping I could get a long ways with just the 3000. Right now I have added a 8000 Bester/Imanishi and just recently a cheap low speed grinder with a Norton 3x wheel. When the stars align I can hollow grind with the grinder and hone straight with the 3000. It cuts pretty fast. I've debated getting a 1000 for initial honing, but lately I've been thinking I don't really need it. The only place where I am still wondering about things is the final polish on the back of a blade. I can still see small scratches. I don't know if they are just the result of the 8000 stone or I'm not getting rid of all the 3000 grit scratches. My edges do get plenty sharp though, so its just a matter of wondering if there is another level out there somewhere.

Not really giving advice or asking questions, I just wanted to give a shout out supporting the continued creation of huge sharpening threads.

[Stanley Covington]

There is so much nonsense going around about sharpening stones. Reminds me of teenagers and basketball shoes.

For everything but the finish stone, use the cheapest waterstones you can get your mitts on. Brand name doesn't matter diddly-squat. Around here, Imanishi or King are cheapest. Whatever. Really.

Avoid the really thick stones. I know they seem economical, but they are stacked and baked in an oven, and the heat does not penetrate the thick slabs consistently sometimes. The food-prep guys like the thick stones, but woodworking tools must be seriously sharp, not like kitchen knives.

An economical set would be:

1. 800 grit carborundum stone or diamond plate for wasting steel;
2. 1000 grit for shaping the bevel and removing chips and nicks (85% of sharpening sessions will start with this stone);
3. 6000 grit as general finishing stone (good enough for most chisels and planes in a working situation)
4. 10,000 grit for finishing your best plane blades and paring chisels.
5. Tsushima nagura for dressing finishing stones.

You might want to add a 2000 grit to speed things up a tad and spare the more expensive 6,000 some wear, but it isn't critical.

Most of your sharpening time (70%?) will be on the 1000 grit stones, followed by the 6,000 grit. At least that will be the case if you sharpen before your cutting edges are totally rounded over, and you keep your bevels flat. If you use multiple bevels or can't maintain a flat bevel, all bets are off.

Use the rougher stones (800, 1000, 2000) with the blade moving in contact in one direction only: Choose either push or pull, but not both. You must keep the blade from rocking. Actively rotate your wrists so the bevel will remain flat on the stone. Don't lockup! This takes focus and practice until muscle memory develops, but despite what the conflicted purveyors of jigs and gadgets might say, and the willfully handicapped shrilly insist, being able to sharpen freehand is an important lifetime skill for a woodworker, much like learning to pull up your zipper after Willy the One-eyed Wonder Worm is out of the way.

Use short strokes on the rough stones. 1.5"? Less rocking.

Use the entire face of each and every stone. This means you need to try to stay away from the middle. It means that sometimes one corner of the blade will need to hang off the stone's edge. I know most of you guys hate to think, but really try for a second. The more of your stones you actually use for sharpening, the less money and time will become wasted mud.

Keeping the stones flat is important, but can be a pain in the fundament unless you conscientiously manage the process. Get 2-each of the 800 and 1000 grit stones. Soak them both. Use one and then the other until the faces of BOTH stones of the same grit are beginning to wear (hollow-out). Check with a stainless steel ruler. Then cross-thatch the faces with a carpenters pencil, and rub the faces of the 2 stones (same grit) together, switching end for end and top for bottom frequently until both are flat again. This only takes a few seconds if you do it before the stones get ugly. Continue sharpening. This is very important. Pay attention, and compare results.

This is the quickest, most economical, and most professional way to buy and use waterstones. Don't be fooled by retailers and wholesalers trying to sell increasingly expensive fashion stones. Making synthetic stones ain't rocket surgery. It doesn't take a cleanroom or a scanning electron microscope. Michael Jordan doesn't promote stones... Not yet, anyway. Are you going to buy a Shapton jersey?

Stan

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Stan

Not disagreeing with you about a decent finishing medium, but this could be something like green compound as well, which is cheap.

The stone I consider the most important is the 1000, since this is where we usually start to rebuild an edge if it has gone too far to touch up. Keeping a 1000 flat is generally more difficult than keeping a 10000 flat, since the 1000 is generally a lot softer than a 10000. The King 1000 is the softest 1000 I have used. I'd rather use a harder 1000, such as the Shapton Pro ... which costs more.

So my reasoning takes me in the opposite direction to yours. Now I consider than you know a whole lot more about sharpening than I do, and I look to you for advice. Your advice is now creating a split in the universe and I am getting a tension headache.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jeff Heath]

Derek,

My only negative comment, intended tongue in cheek, was this:

"The rest is all engineering types and their electron microscopes discussing metallurgy that has nothing to do with a tool sharp enough to plane 99% of the woods you are likely to be working."

I stand by it, because in my opinion, it's the absolute truth. As you stated, this is the rabbit hole that most of these threads go down. However, that doesn't help Ray, who obviously is working this all out for the first time, and is trying to get some reassurance on a sharpening setup that doesn't cost a lot of money and works well.

He doesn't live in Australia, but in Washington state, USA, so I can reasonably safely assume he is sharpening his tools to work on North American hardwoods.

I personally dislike waterstones in use in the shop because of the mess they make (water spills are messy) and the constant maintenance they require. I use a way to sharpen my tools, same as Doug, that is fast, much less hassle and cleanup than waterstones, and yields results every bit as effective as the thousand dollar shapton stones and the multi-hundred dollar waterstones that get professed in these threads. All for the tidy sum of a steak with fries at a decent steak joint.

It's not a negative comment to offer an alternative that works. I know it works because I have been doing this for a long time, and now do demonstrations at woodworking and machine gatherings (because I get asked to) using this method to simply prove that you don't need expensive stones to get your tools sharp. I don't get paid to do it, or get free tools sent to me. I do it because it gets more people interested in the craft, when they don't get scared away because of cost.

Some people want the most expensive tools, and the most expensive jigs and gadgets to sharpen them. That's totally fine. I don't have a problem with that at all. A lot of guys, though, stay away from hand tools in woodworking because they are intimidated by the cost of the expensive new tools, and don't know how to set up quality vintage tools that have, perhaps, been mishandled or abused. The scary sharp method gets an individual comfortable with a sharpening system that works just as well as any out there, for O1 and A2, and doesn't take a big investment to get set up.

You know I'm into the OWWM machines. That crowd is a bunch of machine woodworkers that, until I started doing demo's, a lot of them had no idea how wonderful it is to work with a properly sharpened smoothing plane, or a properly filed hand saw, or a properly sharpened chisel. They have a box full of their grandpa's tools that were never sharpened correctly, and now they can get them in great shape for under $30.

I just want to make sure that anybody reading this knows you don't have to spend $300 to sharpen grandpa's Stanley 60's and his #5 and #7 that have been sitting on a shelf in the garage for 40 years.

What's negative about that comment?

My 10 buck-apiece, 70 year old Greenlee chisels are every bit as sharp as any $100 plus chisel you can sharpen on those expensive stones, and I'll take the pepsi challenge on that any day of the week. I just want Ray, and all the other newer folks, to know that.

My finish is dry, so I've got to get back to work.

[Dave Zellers]

You beat me to it Adam. I also like sharpening threads because I always learn something. I'm able to wade through the different opinions of the experts and add to my understanding of the finer points of how all this works. Derek your post above where you quote from Stu (Tools from Japan) really helped me understand some of the nuances of water stones. I like water stones and don't mind the messiness as I sharpen right next to a utility sink in my shop. I've been sharpening my chisels and few planes for decades with reasonable success but after coming here the results have dramatically improved. I don't want to simply be told what to do and how to do it, I need to know WHY I'm doing it that way. I need to know why different stones behave differently. That's what I've been learning since I joined SMC. I very much appreciate everyone's input as I understand it is often repetitive for them.

The key to sharpening threads is allowing enough time to pass between them so the knowledgable folks rekindle their interest.

[Stanley Covington]

Hi Stan

Not disagreeing with you about a decent finishing medium, but this could be something like green compound as well, which is cheap.

The stone I consider the most important is the 1000, since this is where we usually start to rebuild an edge if it has gone too far to touch up. Keeping a 1000 flat is generally more difficult than keeping a 10000 flat, since the 1000 is generally a lot softer than a 10000. The King 1000 is the softest 1000 I have used. I'd rather use a harder 1000, such as the Shapton Pro ... which costs more.

So my reasoning takes me in the opposite direction to yours. Now I consider than you know a whole lot more about sharpening than I do, and I look to you for advice. Your advice is now creating a split in the universe and I am getting a tension headache.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek:

I think we agree for the most part. 1000 grit is indeed the most important. Hard/soft is personal preference, as is the choice of finishing stone, as is the entire process, for that matter.

I agree that the King 1000 is too soft, and too narrow. I use Imanshi. Good hardness, and good value, at least over here. From what I hear about prices for everything Down Under, they may cost as much as opals for you!

I just hate to see people burn money needlessly. The prices the OP mentioned were daylight robbery.

Regards from Tokyo

Stan

[Patrick Chase]

Taken to the other extreme are the Shapton Glass stones. They use a very durable abrasive combined with an extremely hard, durable binder. They do cut quickly, but you get next to zero polishing effect and fresh abrasive needs to be exposed by abrading the surface with a diamond plate or similar. However, for Glass Stones, you really REALLY do need to go up the grits to get a good edge. There are some Glass Stones (signified by an ‘S’ designation) that use a less resilient binder and an abrasive that will break down offering some effect of polishing. Generally though, Glass Stones are %$# hard which means they WILL stay flat no matter how hard you try to change that. Personally, I am not real keen on them, but plenty of folks really like them which goes to show there is a stone for anyone but no stone for everyone."

Hmm, the only Glass stone I own is the double-thickness 500 (an expensive mistake on my part) and it's softer than Stu describes. I bet they get harder as you move up the line, though.