Flattening Waterstones... I think I like this Norton Thingie

[Randy Heinemann]

The purpose of flattening stones is to have a reliable plate/stone to flatten your other stones. As far as I know, the only flattening plate that doesn't require any maintenance is a diamond plate. Diamond essentially lasts forever and you should never have to flatten the plate.

The Norton plate brings up the question of what you use to flatten that plate over time?

[Tom M King]

I use Atoma 140, and 400 diamond grit replacement sheets stuck to a granite surface plate, but the dedicated sharpening sink has a plenty large enough drainboard, and a double swivel spout on one of the faucets so it can be used under running water (no such thing as water shortage here). I got tired of using things that weren't really flat.

[Eric Danstrom]

I bought one from Woodcraft, it went on sale 2 days later. I haven't used it yet but I threw away the box...now that I'm in it for $35 I could try keeping it flat with sandpaper on my granite surface plate. Except I could just use sandpaper/surface plate on my waterstones and skip the Norton brick...maybe I'll stash in the back of a drawer and forget about it.

[Mike Henderson]

I bought one from Woodcraft, it went on sale 2 days later. I haven't used it yet but I threw away the box...now that I'm in it for $35 I could try keeping it flat with sandpaper on my granite surface plate. Except I could just use sandpaper/surface plate on my waterstones and skip the Norton brick...maybe I'll stash in the back of a drawer and forget about it.

It works well as a very coarse stone when you want to take a lot off but don't want to go to your powered grinder because you might overheat the metal.

Mike

[Richard Jones]

sticky stones + diamond plate = mo' H2O. I'm fortunate that I have mine where the water can run continuously on the stones.

[Andrew Hughes]

If we are taking about that Dmt plastic thing with a thin sheet of metal. That’s not really a diamond plate too flimsy and lite weight.
I have used them in the past and there just no place for the swarf to go.

[Ted Phillips]

I have used the DMT DiaFlat lapping plate for years. It is expensive - but darned well worth it.

[J. Greg Jones]

I have used the DMT DiaFlat lapping plate for years. It is expensive - but darned well worth it.

Same here, no regrets at all for what it cost.

[Günter VögelBerg]

I had one of those and it was FAR from flat. I dropped it. It broke. I bought a granite machinist plate and some coarse sandpaper. Then I got tired of flattening things and bought some oilstones.

[Winston Chang]

I've been using a brick to flatten my waterstones. But not just any old brick -- I started with three ordinary bricks and lapped them against each other with abrasive grit, to produce a very flat surface on each one. (I have a diamond plate, but it's slightly bowed. The brick is flatter than it.)

I started a thread on it here: https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....-with-3-bricks

Since my initial experience with it, it has continued to work well. The only negative so far is that, as I've used it, the surface has gotten very smooth, and there's a bit of stiction with the surface of the waterstone that I'm flattening. If I had an angle grinder, I'd grind some grooves in the bricks so that it looked like the Norton flattening stone.

Now that I think about it, it's possible that if your Norton isn't flat, you could flatten it using two bricks -- that is, flatten all the surfaces by lapping each one against each other one. I'm not sure how well this would work, since the bricks probably wouldn't wear at the same rate as the flattening stone. It might just require spending more time lapping the surfaces to get to the flat result. That said, I'm certain you could flatten three of the Nortons against each other, but obviously that costs more money.

[Mike Brady]

Threw that green norton stone away years ago. There used to be a video of a well-known woodworker smashing one to a hundres pieces with a big hammer. Get the picture?

[Paul McGaha]

Threw that green norton stone away years ago. There used to be a video of a well-known woodworker smashing one to a hundres pieces with a big hammer. Get the picture?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk69yjX8ShU

It doesn't seem that Chris is real big on the Norton flattening stone.

I use Atoma diamond plates for keeping waterstones flat myself.

PHM

[ken hatch]

If you are willing to spend a buck or two there are a couple of good diamond plates that are flat and have groves to reduce stricture. Because I have round heels when it come to sharpening I have both. One is made by Shapton and the other is a Nano-Hone NL-8. The Shapton plate I've used for several years with no issues. The Nano-Hone for less than a years but also no issues.

Are they better than other plates? Seem to be but that's just my opinion with nothing to back it up other than experience. Are they worth the money, that depends on how much you like your money.

BTW, I've used the DMT lapping plate and several different Atoma plates for comparison.

ken

[Erich Weidner]

I'm sad to see that my super quick stone truer-upper is so maligned. I started this thread just after having used it keeping stones true as I lapped and initial sharpened two new plane blades.
The planes are cutting very well. I guess it did a good enough job on the stones.

But now I know I'll probably go back to the heavy DMT plate. I just found the source of the above video from Mr. Schwarz ... https://www.popularwoodworking.com/w...ia-flat-plate/

I am sad.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm sad to see that my super quick stone truer-upper is so maligned. I started this thread just after having used it keeping stones true as I lapped and initial sharpened two new plane blades.
The planes are cutting very well. I guess it did a good enough job on the stones.

But now I know I'll probably go back to the heavy DMT plate. I just found the source of the above video from Mr. Schwarz ... https://www.popularwoodworking.com/w...ia-flat-plate/

I am sad.

Don't feel bad. Many of us went down the same path and felt the same way.

Mike