Sharpening over a Kitchen Sink with a Garbage Disposal

[dewitteridder]

Good afternoon, all. I built a sink bridge for my sharpening stones so I could use my kitchen sink to sharpen over as a dedicated sharpening station but wasn't sure if I would run into problems with the garbage disposal over time with the slurry that is going down the drain. I was curious of the opinion from people who are speculating about damage the slurry could do to moving parts in the garbage disposal as well as people who actually have had good or bad experiences with sharpening over sinks with garbage disposals for a number of years. If people have had good success do they do anything special to flush the slurry down the drain to prevent damage to the disposal? Thank you all for your input =)

[wdwerker]

I would put a dishpan under the stones and catch the slurry. You are generating heavy abrasive & metal powder that will settle and clog a trap . Not to mention the moving parts & heavy abrasives. 

Is it going to kill the disposal once or twice, probably not. But it will build up quicker in all the greasy gunk that's already in there.

I dump the pan after sharpening in the toilet.

[Tpt life]

4 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

I dump the pan after sharpening in the toilet.

Yep, caught me off guard with that one. Lol    I have been sharpening in a camp wash tub. I bet a fabric lined overflow hole could work well. 

[wdwerker]

I figured large volume of water and no concealed trap to fill up. You can pour a 5 gallon bucket of mop water down a toilet with ease.

[Tpt life]

4 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

I figured large volume of water and no concealed trap to fill up. You can pour a 5 gallon bucket of mop water down a toilet with ease.

I assume you are saying "dump the pan in the toilet" (I do this with a lot of things with the same thought behind it) but read "sharpen in the toilet." Just tickled my funny bone, nothing more. 

[dewitteridder]

I thought about putting a large wash cloth over the bottom of the sink so the slurry will get trapped in the wash cloth. I just wasn't sure it is necessary. I also sharpen my kitchen knives using my stones. I saw Bob Kramer has a sink bridge and recommends sharpening over your sink. I found that odd. Thanks for the replies so far. I'm curious if anyone has been sharpening over their sink for years without a problem. Thanks again for the support of the community. 

[Tpt life]

6 minutes ago, dewitteridder said:

I thought about putting a large wash cloth over the bottom of the sink so the slurry will get trapped in the wash cloth. I just wasn't sure it is necessary. I also sharpen my kitchen knives using my stones. I saw Bob Kramer has a sink bridge and recommends sharpening over your sink. I found that odd. Thanks for the replies so far. I'm curious if anyone has been sharpening over their sink for years without a problem. Thanks again for the support of the community. 

My sink is a two basin. I would do a lot of things in the one basin that I would not in the one with the disposal. I don't like any sand grit through the disposal. 

[dewitteridder]

Yeah I wish I had a double basin sink  my utility sink is very tight on space so movement is very restrictive especially for knife sharpening when it isn't just straight back and forth like chisel sharpening. That is why I'm considering my kitchen sink. 

[Tpt life]

You could buy a plastic utility sink and plumb it from a garden hose. With a few feet of pipe it could discharge down the driveway. 

[dewitteridder]

That is a possibility. Thanks for the idea!!

[Tpt life]

It will need an anchor point to avoid sway while honing. Don't leave it set up around an inspector. They will not envision honing iron if they see it. 

[Tom King]

My sharpening sink empties into an Azalea bush right outside the wall.  You have to know it's there, and go looking for it to even see it.  My inspector doesn't care anyway.  We have a dog washing sink inside the house (dog room) that empties into a pasture, and the inspector knows about that, and doesn't worry about it.  Our nearest neighbors are nowhere in sight though, and a couple of dog barks away.

It depends on what type of stones you use too.  The old type water stones that use a big slurry to do the work, like Kings, are totally different than more modern stones that have no binder to generate the slurry, like Sigma stones.

Sharpening with Sigma stones might polish the cutters of the disposal, and an inside bend of the plumbing somewhere.

It takes a few cubic inches to clog something up.  If you generate cubic inches of slurry remnants, you do a Lot more sharpening than I do.

When I'm on a job site at a museum house, we might be there for a year or two.  I use a sink (see my sharpening video thread).  So far, no noticeable slowing down of any sink, but I only use modern type water stones.

I don't have a fear of plumbing though.  I got my plumbing license in 1975.  The guy my age then who just took the job of building inspector in our county took the test at the same time I did.  The day the results came in the mail, he came to brag about passing the test and to tell me that he had scored an 85.  He said I left 20 minutes before anyone else did, and was sorry that I had trouble with it.  I pulled the envelope off the dashboard of my truck, and told him that I hadn't had any trouble with it, especially since it was an open book test.  He didn't know what to say, and was completely speechless when I showed him that my score was 100.

[dewitteridder]

Congrats on scoring a 100% on your license test!! I use Ohishi stones I got from the Lie Nielsen site. They do not require any soaking and work well. I'm not really worried about it clogging the drain. More making their way into the moving parts of the disposal and grinding away bearings or other parts of the disposal exposed to the water slurry mix causing the disposal to leak or break. Thanks you for your input, Tom. It sounds like you don't think there is much of a problem sharpening over a sink with a disposal. I may still use some of the other advice given here and use a tub under the stone to catch most of the slurry. If a little gets splashed out of the tub I won't worry about it much. 

[Tom King]

The bearings are sealed against the water flow. It just goes right through the disposal to the trap.  Sharpening slurry shouldn't be as bad on the seal as having pieces of bone slammed against it.   If you can use enough water to keep things flowing, it will wash on through.

 If you are somewhere that is tight with water, or have to pay by the gallon, it might make some difference.  I'm only used to using wells with water that doesn't have to come through a treatment plant.   I just don't see it being a problem.

[dewitteridder]

Ah that is very good news the hear. I had no idea how the inner workings of the disposal were sealed. I can easily put a lot of water down my sink to flush everything out since I'm on just county water. Thanks so much for your input. 

[Tom King]

The motor is at the bottom.  That has to be sealed away from water flow, so the top bearing is under the seal too.  It's a pretty simple design, built for a lot of abuse.

[dewitteridder]

That is extremely helpful. Thank you very much, Tom!! This puts all my worries to rest. =) I sealed all the end grain on the sink bridge I made with epoxy and put a layer of finish on it to help repel some of the water. I'll do a final light sanding tonight and give it a test run to see how well it works for my stones. Thanks again to everyone who responded =)

[Tom King]

I wouldn't put loose carborundum grit down a disposal, but slurry from modern water stones shouldn't hurt a thing, as long as there is plenty of water flow to flush it on down.

[Tom King]

I thought of another example.  Before I started using the rack for the stones, I would just set them back in the right hand sink bowl.  "Slurry" would end up in the bottom of the sink bowl, where you could see it, from contact with the stones.  It would rinse right off, and didn't stick to anything.

 

[dewitteridder]

So this may be a dumb question but how do i know whether the stones I use are  carborundum  stones or not? I've been looking all over the internet to see if my stones are but can't find anything definitive. Here is a link to the Ohishi water stones I use. They do not require any soaking. https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/blade-sharpening-ohishi-waterstones-

Thanks so much!!

[Tom King]

I was talking about loose grit carborundum.  Some people use that on glass to flatten coarse stones. You buy that grit as loose particles of abrasive, put water on the glass, and sprinkle the grit into the water. It's used much coarser than what you break loose from sharpening stones.  As far as I know, the only carborundum stones are the old, cheap type of oil stones.  Carborundum is the common name for Silicon Carbide.  http://www.willbell.com/atmsupplies/atm_supplies.htm

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I used to make astronomical telescope mirrors.  When we changed to the next finer grit, we'd just take the blank and tool to the kitchen sink, and rinse them off well before going to the next step.  There were many steps.  That was before I'd ever even seen a garbage disposal, but there was never any trouble with a drain clogging.

What I'm calling "modern" water stones just have the abrasive pressed together under heat and pressure, with little, or even no binder holding those particles together.  What I'm calling "old type" water stones have more binder than abrasive particles, and you have to soak them to start with, and then work up a slurry on the surface before they will start to work.  I would think any stones that don't require soaking to start with would be what I'm calling "modern" stones. 

[dewitteridder]

Wow you're good at explaining things, Tom!! After everything you said I'm sure I don't have an old water stone. Thanks again for all the in-depth information. 

[collinb]

16 hours ago, wdwerker said:

I dump the pan after sharpening in the toilet.

 

Perhaps reordering this statement might clarify what happens with the toilet. :-)

33 minutes ago, Tom King said:

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I used to make astronomical telescope mirrors.

That sounds like fun.

[Tom King]

5 hours ago, collinb said:

 

Perhaps reordering this statement might clarify what happens with the toilet. :-)

That sounds like fun.

My friend is now one of the World's top Astronomers.  Back when they needed to fix the Hubble, Harvey took our 

12-1/2" mirror into the optics lab at Goddard.  It was several factors better than anything they had.  Harvey got put on the team to fix the Hubble.  The 12-1/2" was the largest telescope we built.  We also built a 12x12 observatory that the roof rolled off of to use it in.  That was the first building I ever built.

[dewitteridder]

I got to use my sink bridge for the first time tonight. It was definitely nice just using the tap to rinse off my stones and knives. Here is a picture of the crude sink bridge I built. Thanks again to the community for all the advice.