How do you hold a waterstone?

[Richard Jones]

Dan,

I always remove any bases or feet from stones, allows you to use both sides if you need to. If these are on a plastic or wood base, just bandsaw as close as you can and clean up with an old chisel, etc. Any remaining glue will disappear when you flatten them a time or two. Actually just did this yesterday to an older King G-3 that I had lying around.

How do you like how they cut? I'm in the market for a 12-16k stone, really difficult for me to drop the hammer on a Shapton or (gasp!) Chosera......................

Forgot............to hold mine...........they just lay on an old DMT blue pad (a really great pad, BTW) on top of a piece of cherry that fits in between the ends of my stone pond. As long as your substrate is flat and the stone is flat, suction will hold it pretty well. If it moves a lot, flatten your substrate, flatten the stone, and/or quit pushing so hard.

Rich

[Roger Benton]

I use the same stones and only encounter this same problem while lapping the backs of plane irons. it can get to the point where it seems impossible to make progress. I have a bench and what i've begun to do right off the bat when i break out the stones is to grab them in a hand screw and secure the hand screw to the bench with a holdfast.

Other solutions that have helped:

First make sure the stones are dead flat, for which i use a norton flattening stone. My stones were not perfect out of the box.

Second, try experimenting with the amount of water you're using. I assume you know that these stones don't get soaked, you just spray or drizzle a little water on them prior to honing. When things get sticky for me i usually find that a little less or a lot more water will get things moving again.

Hope this helps. Other than this situation, I have been getting great results with these stones.

[Matt Wilson]

If you've got the space, you might want to consider a sharpening station. I built one a couple of years ago and its served me well... I use some dowel posts and elastics to hold my stones in place. I wanted something quicker than wedges. Its also nice to be able to have a couple of stones set up at the same time.

[dan sherman]

I like them better than scary sharp, But i wouldn't say I've owned them long enough to give a definitive review.

this might be of interest to you, super stones without a base, and twice as thick, but also twice the cost.

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/superstones.html

How do you like how they cut? I'm in the market for a 12-16k stone, really difficult for me to drop the hammer on a Shapton or (gasp!) Chosera......................

[John Gornall]

I use a plastic kitchen cutting board about 16 x 20 inches which has a gravy groove around the edge to catch the water. These boards are about 1/2 inch thick and can be drilled and tapped easily. I screwed a series of 1/2 inch diameter rubber feet about 1/4" high - black rubber or hard plastic with a screw hole in the middle that hold the stones in place. 1 foot on each end and 2 on each side of each stone. I screwed a wood strip along the front edge underneath that goes in my front vise like a bench hook. The whole thing can be put under the tap to clean.

[Richard Jones]

I like them better than scary sharp, But i wouldn't say I've owned them long enough to give a definitive review.

this might be of interest to you, super stones without a base, and twice as thick, but also twice the cost.

http://www.chefknivestogo.com/superstones.html

Dan,

Thanks, I've had Mark on speed dial for quite some time...............

Anyway, keep us posted on the stones, I am shopping hard for a polish stone to replace the one I have, and a 30k Shapton really doesn't make too much sense, either for a chisel or any of my JK's............

Hope you have fun with them.

Rich

[dan sherman]

Rebecca (fiance), came to the rescue with a chunk of 1/8" thick natural gum rubber she had leftover from a project of hers.

Attached is a shot of my custom flattening stone. It's a chunk of 1/2" thick aluminum that I lapped flat, and then adhered 220 grit wet dry sandpaper to.

[Matt Meiser]

I've got a rubber pad I set mine on. Not that I use it much since I got my Worksharp.

[Matt Evans]

Heres the way I hold my oilstones. . .

I am not sure that it would work with waterstones, but for my setup it works really well.