Is it possible to "contaminate" a high grit sharpening stone?

[dewitteridder]

I am very new to sharpening. I used to use a full set of DMT stones but was never satisfied with the final extra extra sharp stone's results. I just purchased a #1000 Ohishi and a #8000 Ohishi stone hoping to get that crazy sharp chisel and plane blade edge. My first chisel (pm-v11) I got the back to a nice mirror shine and the edge was cutting hairs off my arm with ease. I then moved onto some narex chisels and some other pm-v11 plane blades. At one point I took a plane blade to my coarse dmt stone and rinsed off the slurry in a small bucket which I also used to get the slurry off my stones and off the blades to check progress. I noticed that all my blades since the first I can't get a mirror shine anymore. The back of my plane blades and chisels remain cloudy. It is possible I got some course grit slurry embedded in my #8000 grit stone that is preventing me from getting that mirror shine? If it is, how can I solve this problem? I tried rinsing my stone under fresh water and changing out my water bath. I also would gladly accept any tips on sharpening with water stones. Thanks so much!!

[TerryMcK]

I'm not sure that mirror finish is a necessity. In fact I'm more than happy just for the cloudy grey and a flat back (only over an inch or so)- as long as the chisel pares ok then you're good to go. You could try a strop and some honing compound if you really wanted to see a mirror finish.

[duckkisser]

i sharpen up to 4000 then I use it on a powered strop that's made from mdf.  the wheel is mounted to my bench grinder so that it runs backwards.

[Tom Cancelleri]

Are you flattening your stones? 

[dewitteridder]

Yes, I am flattening them using a 4"x10" DMT coarse dia-sharp stone. I use a pencil to make a cross hatch across my water stone so I can stop flattening my stone when all the pencil marks go away. I then dunk my stones and my dmt plate in my bucket of water to clean them before using them for sharpening my plane irons and chisels.

[ponderingturtle]

I remember hearing about how some steels will not take a mirror finish with regards to polishing the blades of a knife.  So for this are they chisels that previously had that level of finish?

[dewitteridder]

Well I never got that mirror shine from my dmt dia-sharp stones but the metal on my pm-v11 chisel should be identical to the metal in my plane blades (both are pm-v11 are from lee valley) and since I got a mirror shine on my chisel back I was expecting that mirror shine on my plane blades too. I believe I just had some contaminant on my #8000 water stone which was leaving a bigger scratch pattern and thus leaving a cloudy surface. I just don't know how to resolve the situation.

 

Here's an additional question for my fellow hand tool gurus. Do you have separate water buckets for your different grit water stones to clean them off so you don't get low grit contaminants on your high grit stones?

 

Thanks for all the responses thus far. Keep your input coming =) It is greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

[Trip]

==>Is it possible to "contaminate" a high grit sharpening stone?

Short term = yes; long term = no.

 

==>mirror shine

This is the subject of a great deal of misinformation.  An edge ‘like a mirror’ doesn’t necessarily translate to ‘sharp’… And ‘sharp’ doesn’t necessarily translate to how effective an edge cleaves wood fibers… Note: Some excellent sharpening workflows do not leave a ‘mirror polish’ and sometimes, not even a 'sharp' one

 

The goal of a sharpening/honing workflow is to develop an edge that effectivly cleaves wood fibers for the intended application. This edge may or may not be ‘polished’ or ‘mirror like’… What's more interesting, the edge may cleave wood fibers effectively, but not be ‘sharp’ -- the reasons are out of scope... I did a rather lengthy post on the diference between 'shiny', 'sharp' and 'cutting wood fibers' some time ago, so it's on WTO somewhere if you want to take a look... I've also included some links below that will go the next layer of the onion...

 

Don’t obsess on how shiny an edge you can get… Focus on how cleanly the edge cleaves wood fibers…

 

==>edge was cutting hairs off my arm with ease

The goal is cleaving wood fibers, not shaving… A fine shaving hone is not the same as a fine tool hone… Check-out some of the sharpening links below…

 

While a bit out of scope: The finest Natural Japanese Waterstones (colloquially, j-nats), tend to leave a slightly dull finish – there’s a technical name for this finish, but you have to polish swords for a living to receive the secret decoder ring    For reasons that are out of scope, these edges also tend to cleave wood fibers better than the edge honed by any current-generation synthetic stone… There’s a move in high-end synthetic waterstone manufacturing to develop an abrasive binder matrix that mimics the behavior of natural waterstones. These high-end stones are developed for sword polishing, but one or two have made their way into woodworking circles -- e.x. Naniwa Chosera 10K stone... Synthetic stones are getting better every year (and more expensive)… I believe the Chosera 10K is around $275 at the moment -- but it's the closest to a natural stone I've ever used...

If you really want a deep-dive on sharpening, you can visit Ron Hock's sharpening blog: http://www.hocktools.com/sharpen.htm
If you want to go seriously off the deep-end, you can investigate the world of J-Nats: http://www.japanesenaturalstones.com/jns-wiki/

[dewitteridder]

Thank you very much, TripleH, for your response. I did not know that a shaving hone was very different from a cleaving wood fiber hone. I actually own Ron hock's book and need to dive back into it again.

 

Do you have any suggestions for how to clean up and maintain my #8000 grit stone to get past my short term problem and make sure I don't do this again? Thanks so much!!

[bushwacked]

I loved my naniwa chosera line of stones. I used them for sharpening my knives and got rid of them sadly when I needed to pay some bills. They are by far the best thing I've ever owned for sharpening!! Hopefully one day I will get them back in my arsenal

[Trip]

==>actually own Ron hock's book and need to dive back into it again

Ron's book is a good intro... After you get through that, you can dive into his blog...

 

==>suggestions for how to clean up and maintain my #8000 grit stone to get past my short term problem

You're making way too much of this...  Remember, it’s just sharpening …

 

By flattening the stone, you're exposing new matrix. That’s the primary benefit and drawback of waterstones – you can always refresh the surface whenever you want… They are ‘cleaned’ every time you flatten them …

 

Some recommend rinsing the flattening stone/plate/sandpaper/whatever between flattenings to remove the remaining slurry to reduce cross-contamination... Does this matter? Depends on who you ask… Let’s put it this way, it can’t hurt --- so the 10 seconds involved isn’t much investment…

 

Same goes for the iron/chisel/etc – many recommend rinsing the steel/jig/etc in water to remove old slurry and avoid cross-contamination… Again, does it matter? Depends on who you ask… Again, the 10 seconds involved isn’t much investment, so why not?

[dewitteridder]

Thanks again, TripleH, for your response. I will dive deep into Ron's blog just try doing a flattening and rinsing process with fresh water to see if that helps =) Once again, thank you very much!!

[Scott Bailey]

I always rinse/wipe between stones, no idea what difference it makes but it seems to make sense at  least.  as an aside, I have learned a ton from 3H on sharpening, and I feel like my tools are just that much sharper and easier to use as a result, so the advice is greatly appreciated

[dewitteridder]

Thanks for your input, stb =) I like to hear people confirming their success =)

[cellardoor]

Here's some very tangential advice, but I think it's getting to the root of TripleH's advice - the less I labored over sharpening, the better my sharpening became. 

 

I started off not just with complex jigs and media, but with a general impression that sharpening was time consuming and had to produce a museum quality edge each time. There was so much "thinking" around sharpening that it obscured the very simple task of getting a sharp edge and getting back to work. 

 

In fact I took a sharpening class once and was so disappointed that it wasn't absurdly esoteric and exhaustive. Basically a furniture maker in the Boston area reminded us that an edge is where two planes meet (in other words don't forget to flatten the back of your iron) but basically just showed us how to hollow grind on a slow speed grinder, use an oil stone to develop a bevel, and then a strop to hone. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes and the maintenance was maybe 2 minutes. He grudgingly said we could use jigs if we had to! 

 

To this day I still probably take more care than he did in that class because I'm a hobbyist and can afford to! But I'm still back to work in minutes and don't much care if I can take hair off the back of my hand or not. I use DMT plates because I hate flattening and I finish with a few swipes on a strop. Haven't had any issues with this method. 

[G S Haydon]

"The whole thing took less than 10 minutes and the maintenance was maybe 2 minutes. He grudgingly said we could use jigs if we had to!"

 

 For the win!

[Scott Bailey]

the only "jig" I use is a honing guide, and frankly I don't trust myself to hand sharpen at 25 degrees so...

[dewitteridder]

Thanks, Sweet William, for your input. I still don't own a leather strop but I have not been happy with the sharpness of my blades compared to when I go to a Lie Neilsen or a Lee Valley show and they are taking thin whispy shavings. I always felt I wasn't doing something right when I compare my experience with my planes at home versus at the shows.

 

I also wanted to thank Triple H again for his advice. Last night I reflattened my #8000 grit stone under running water and went back to sharpening. This time though I didn't use the bucket to clean off my stones or my plane irons. I just held my stones and plane irons over the bucket and used a spray bottle to remove the excess slurry. I got much better results. I think the slurry in my bucket was a mixture of #1000 and #8000 grit slurry which was getting on my #8000 grit stone and preventing me from getting that really sharp edge I was looking for. 

[cellardoor]

I'd grab the strop ASAP. That was the final step when my sharpening came together. It produces an edge that's not only sharper, but more durable. The less you're sharpening the more you're working wood!

[dewitteridder]

Thanks, Sweet William. I will definitely do that!! =)

[CStanford]

I am not a Japanese tool aficionado but it was my understanding that one of the advantages of fast cutting stones, even the very fine ones, is that one doesn't need an array of different grits.  Grind and go straight to the finest stone.

 

I can grind and go straight to a hard black Ark, for instance, and get wonderful edges.  The backs never see anything but the fine stone since they have been previously treated.  All you're honing is a tiny sliver of metal at the tip.  You don't need to progress through grits to do this.

 

This shouldn't be a problem with a Japanese stone.  If anything, you'll have to hold it back like a thoroughbred racehorse.  They do cut quickly.

 

Skip the 1000 grit and I bet you'll never miss it.

[Tom King]

A mid grade stone is most useful when flattening a back, when you want it to look nice.  When I'm in the middle of a job, and need to hone an edge, I rarely go back past the 8,000 stone.  If it needs more than that, I've waited too long, usually by pushing too hard to get finished.  I've gotten a lot better at not pushing too far as I have gotten older/gained more experience.  An edge never hits a grinder unless it needs some big correction.  Only after the grinder, does the edge see the full progression of stones.

 

In that middle of a job hone, I'll just do it by hand.  If I have a fair sized batch to do, as a batch of 14 chisels acquired off ebay done a few weeks ago, I'll use a jig, simply because it's easier in that situation when my attention doesn't have to be so precise for so long.  If my helpers do any honing, they use a guide because they are hopeless without.  No one can sharpen better by hand than almost anyone with a guide.

 

First choice for sharpening with waterstones is a sink with running water.  On a jobsite with no sink, I use a dish drain tray on the edge of a table other than the good workbench, simplest water source being water bottles, and the drain just dumps into a trash can with heavy plastic liner like we always use, on top of whatever is in the trashcan.  Every splash of water on a stone is clean water.