Very interesting. I was specifically not aware of the difference between the cheap; and the expensive mineral oil. I bought a gallon of food grade mineral oil and I have an India stone soaking in it. I used it to sharpen an Axe blade and then I just dropped the stone into a zip lock bag. So I guess it is not really soaking, but, close enough I suppose. Should I worry about that?
I've used 3 in 1, 10w30, and power steering fluid. Of these, the power steering fluid works best. Its cheap, low viscosity, and a quart lasts forever.
Unless one wants to minimize the effectiveness of grinding. Not trying to be glib- Just the other day I watched a guy sharpen a knife on both sides of his soft Arkansas, treating each side as producing different results. The clean less used side was more aggressive than the more used and more oiled side.
I've had it all, Shapton waterstones, Arkansas stones, Norton India and waterstones, Vertitas MkI and MkII guides, Eclipse guide, Stanley guides, bench grinders.
Reduced it and only use an old Taiwanese Tormek clone with a 10" natural stone and then I either hone with an Eclipse guide or the patented Stanley guide (that goes in the slot of a plane blade) for a micro bevel on a 1000/4000 Norton water stone (on the 4000 side) or freehand for chisels and skew blades (no micro bevel) on a 5000 Shapton waterstone. I do not bother with stropping.
Here's to a speedy and uneventful recovery.
Slàinte Mhath
Keep a 1x3 inch stone in your pocket and just spit on it for pocket knives and such. The people I learned from and I did that all the time. Works great for utility knife blades as well. I think one of those little stones is in my tool kit. I have a DMT one in a leather pocket case too.
Neatsfoot oil -- nice and viscous and stays atop the stone. A few drops on the stone spreads and will still be sitting there at the end of the day. When honing you move the puddle back and forth over the stone never letting it go over the edge. Obviously not a petrochemical. It will however be too viscous in a cold shop for some tastes, but you need a warm shop for other reasons. A quart will last years. It doesn't take much.
Besides evening out wear on the stone, honing in a figure eight keeps the oil on top of the stone (try it!). If you're constantly squirting and flooding the stone with some low viscosity fluid your process is missing the mark to some degree. You shouldn't need a dedicated sharpening station in order to corral a mess.
In my rebellious youth I tried everything. The old timers who trained me knew what they were talking about though.
Last edited by Charles Guest; 02-05-2020 at 3:36 AM.
I trained under a guy who said that a drop of oil should never touch the case much less the bench or whatever the cased stone was sitting on. I'm not that severe, but he was basically right. Nothing beats neatsfoot oil for holding swarf in suspense.
A warm shop is nice. Yesterday after a couple of hours with my heater running it got up to a toasty 38ºF/3.3ºC:It will however be too viscous in a cold shop for some tastes, but you need a warm shop for other reasons.
Mallet Mortise.jpg
Sometimes when doing a lot of planing or other activity the coat comes off.
This is my main reason for using oilstones in the winter. The water gets rather difficult to use when it is frozen.
jtk
Last edited by Jim Koepke; 02-05-2020 at 10:41 AM. Reason: This is my main reason
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
If you'd like to be obsessive about it, SigmaAldrich will sell you mineral oil in your choice of 39 different viscosities to play with.
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...g=en®ion=US
Charles, Ken, if the honing oil should be viscous enough not to flow out of the top of the stone, then wouldn't 3-in-1 or motor oil do the trick? I thought it was desirable to use a thin oil, or this just a different approach?