Sharpening Station

[Coop]

I'm not showing but asking. Will you guys post pics of your sharpening stations? Daniel recently posted a neat one and Eric's is pretty cool, but I don't understand where the water goes if it's made from wood. I've used shallow plastic containers such as TupperWare and even disposable paint trays to collect the water, then clean the stones and put everything away and I still have a mess on my work bench. Maybe I'm just sloppy?

[Brendon_t]

I keep my stones in their plastic cases, set them on a half folded small towel and let the water run off into the towel as I sharpen.   No station needed. 

[Chet]

I do the towel thing too.

[davewyo]

I use this basin which is from an old tile saw. Fill the pond with water, do your thing, make a mess...then make an additional mess while flattening your stones. That's what sharpening is all about.

http://

[Coop]

32 minutes ago, davewyo said:

I use this basin which is from an old tile saw. Fill the pond with water, do your thing, make a mess...then make an additional mess while flattening your stones. That's what sharpening is all about.

http://

Basically the same thing I create. Luckily it's not done too often.

[Mark J]

Bump.

I use the Shapton/DMT system Marc describes in his video. The Shaptons require much less water than you need for traditional water stones.  So I was looking for more of a sharpening puddle than pond.  

Looking around at household stuff that might work I came upon this solution for around 15 bucks.

I found this baking pan at Target:  Wilton ultra bake professional.  It's 16 x 12 inches and comes with a plastic cover.  Initially I thought I'd use the heavy metal pan and just use the cover to store my stones in the pan, but it turns out the hesvy plastic cover makes an almost ideal "puddle".

The cover is not perfectly flat.  The outer surface has a shallow rectangular convexity.  A piece of cardboard covered over with a couple of layers of packaging tape fills in the gap and is waterproof.

Inverted and nested into the pan gives me a puddle.  I have been using it a while and it is working out well.  It is roomy with short walls and easy to clean.

I put a layer of that rubbery non slide shelf liner between the lid and pan and under the pan to keep things from sliding around.

[rodger.]

I use Waterstones as well, but I am thinking about switching to diamond plates instead.  Still pondering...

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, Pug said:

I use Waterstones as well, but I am thinking about switching to diamond plates instead.  Still pondering...

One advantage would be the DMTs don't need to be flattened after use.  

I'm still trying to figure out when the Shaptons need to be flattened and how much to work them on the DMT before declaring them flat.

[Coop]

When you start flattening them, you will see a color change. When it's all one color, you're there. 

[estesbubba]

13 minutes ago, Mark J said:

I'm still trying to figure out when the Shaptons need to be flattened and how much to work them on the DMT before declaring them flat.

I zig zag pencil lines on mine before flattening.

[Mark J]

I thought of that, but didn't know it was OK to write on them?  

Because mine aren't really two colors before I flatten at least as far as I can tell.  

Maybe they don't need flattening as much as I think.

[Immortan D]

My stones are all DMT so I don't have the water problem. I use Windex or similar glass cleaner solution as lubricant, following Paul Sellers advice, and works great. This is my sharpening station:

Storage mode:

Sharpening mode:

Stones are easily removed for special sharpening needs:

 

[Eric.]

I'm with Coop...when you can no longer see black swarf on the stone, it's flat.  You can use pencil but I find it's unnecessary.  I flatten after almost every sharpening session unless I'm literally just touching up a bevel on 8K.

 

 

 

[davewyo]

Yeah, I flatten my stones every time I use them for more than a few swipes.

With my ceramic stone it only takes a couple of passes on the diamond plate to see if I'm hitting the entire surface. It's cream colored, so it's not so much as a color change as it is a sheen and a cleanliness which says the diamonds have abraded the surface.

With my Norton water stones it's a distinct color change. For example, the yellow stone goes from mustard to canary yellow. You can readily see if the whole surface is being flattened.

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, Immortan D said:

My stones are all DMT so I don't have the water problem. I use Windex or similar glass cleaner solution as lubricant, following Paul Sellers advice, and works great....

 

Very nice station.

I have also heard you can use mineral spirits on the DMT for lubrication which keeps it from rusting.  The Schwarz mentions it in his handplane book.  No idea if that is OK for the waterstones, though.

[Immortan D]

14 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Very nice station.

I have also heard you can use mineral spirits on the DMT for lubrication which keeps it from rusting.  The Schwarz mentions it in his handplane book.  No idea if that is OK for the waterstones, though.

Thanks.

I heard that too, but glass cleaners smell a lot better lol. I always wipe the stones dry after use, no rust issues so far. I also carefully apply WD40 to the back side of the stones from time to time, so I don't need to worry about rust building up down there.

[Nyles]

I had a visit from the sharpening faerie Saturday (aka amazon).

spent some time making a small bench top sharpening station and some strops.

plan on spending tomorrow sharpening anything I can get my hands on.  I think hence forth in this house Presidents Day shall no longer be known as Presidents Day but rather as sharpening day.

 

 

[sapling111276]

On 3/2/2016 at 10:41 PM, davewyo said:

I use this basin which is from an old tile saw. Fill the pond with water, do your thing, make a mess...then make an additional mess while flattening your stones. That's what sharpening is all about.

http://

 

so wait, I am new to the whole sharpening thing. I did notice that I was wearing uneven grooves into my stone and became cautious and started trying to be more careful not to apply nearly any pressure at all due to this. I know you have to apply some pressure obviously, but I just need a dmt to flatten the stones? I have considered getting a dmt (assuming I am talking about the same thing you guys are. Diamond something or other) for the sharpening process before I bought the wet stones.

[davewyo]

Yes you will normally wear the surface of your water stones as much as you try to move the blade all over the place. I use a coarse diamond plate made by DMT to flatten my stones. Depending on how dinged up my edge is I may start my sharpening on the diamond stone but, unless I dropped the chisel on the floor or something, generally I would just touch up the edge with a 1000 or 4000 grit stone. I would then work my way up to my finest stone. When finished for the day I rub my water stones on top of my diamond plate until the stones are flat.

[drzaius]

I've used sandpaper on a glass plate, & coarse grit on a glass plate. I now use a 4" x 10" DiaSharp plate for flattening, which is much, much faster. I also use it for coarse grinding a damaged edge. Expensive, but a great product. 

[Mark J]

5 hours ago, sapling111276 said:

 

so wait, I am new to the whole sharpening thing. I did notice that I was wearing uneven grooves into my stone and became cautious and started trying to be more careful not to apply nearly any pressure at all due to this. I know you have to apply some pressure obviously, but I just need a dmt to flatten the stones? I have considered getting a dmt (assuming I am talking about the same thing you guys are. Diamond something or other) for the sharpening process before I bought the wet stones.

Here is a link to Marc's video on sharpening.  It covers his method for flattening the stone towards the end, but there are numerous other methods to successfully sharpen tools and flatten stones.  

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/my-sharpening-system/

[Ronn W]

I use a small 16" wide base cabinet that I made with a formica top and just wipe up the water when done. for flattening my waterstones stones I put a piece of 80 grit on a 5" x 12" piece of granite that I got for free out of a counter top maker's dumpster.

[..Kev]

11 hours ago, Nyles said:

plan on spending tomorrow sharpening anything I can get my hands on. 

I'm just a few hours NW of you, feel free to sharpen everything in my shop!

 

[sapling111276]

Just gonna share my 2 cents for what it's worth. Today, I decided a few of my chisels needed to be sharpened up a bit. I recall asking a question regarding how to get your stones flat again and I will share what I tried and worked for me. I simply wet my 2 sanding stones. Currently I have a 220/800 and a 600/1000 stone. I took the finer of the 2 stones down to flat using my 220 sided stone. I ran them under water to get them sufficiently wet (basically watched until it looked like the stones no longer soaked up water and ran off), then I began rubbing the stones in a circular pattern against one another until I could see silt forming. I would then examine each stone to see if the wear marks were fading. I repeated this for all 4 sided and I am happy to say that I have 4 flat edges for sharpening again. Nothing fancy, but it worked for me

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[sapling111276]

Uhh, always sending replies too fast... I knocked down the 220 with some coarser paper to get that edge flat before referencing the other 3 edges off of the 220s surface. Otherwise I would be simply wearing the opposite bevel to the softer stones.. sorry I did not add that part.

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