a quick and dirty way to flatten old or well used oil sharpening stones. about the best way ive found to get well loved oil stones back into service. caltoncutlery.com
Hey there, great video I work in the sheep shearing sheds in New Zealand. So anyway I was told by blade shearers how they make their natural oil stones flat is by rubbing the stone on an old bit of 40 to 80 grit grinding paper on a flat surface. I tried it on my India stone and sure enough it works good. Plus also they use kerosene on a sponge as their oil between sharpens. Now those blade shears are extremely sharp and need to be
nice! so the other day, I went the other way with some sic powder and some axle grease, and made lapping compound to lap in the lid on a new dutch oven :}
I inherited several oil stones,handed down from my Grandfather (who was a carpenter) to my father (who was an Engineer and Toolmaker) to me. They must be 100 years old. Of these my favourite stone, and no doubt theirs, was the worst worn and well bowed in the middle. Even so it gave amazing results and very quickly sharpened knives, chisels and plane irons that shaved arm or leg hair completely bald with one pass of the blade (and still does). I decided though to try to flatten it on the concrete drive, coarse sand paper and then a belt sander (ruined 2 sanding belts and made the stone so hot I stopped in case it cracked). i had minimal success and gave up, continuing to use it as it was. I didn't think of using a file, but you have now inspired me to do so. Many thanks for the video.
I use about a yard of 4 inch wide silicon carbide paper, cut straight off the roll. Use double sided tape to secure this to a 36 x 6 " x 3" off cut of flat granite begged from the local gravestone maker. The trick is to first clean as much crud off the stone as possible using an engine de-greaser and wire wool, this saves it all gumming up the grinding paper. Then lap in the stone using a spray on kitchen de-greaser as lubricant. Window cleaner will also work pretty good. Make sure you do NOT get a product with Lye [caustic soda] in it, that will burn you bad. Helps if you stop every few minutes to wash all the slurry off the paper. I have got in the habit of giving the stone a few strokes after each sharpening session, then you are always ready to go.
i switched to loose silicon carbide powder on plate glass shortly after this video, and it works really well. but it sounds like your method works great for you, thanks!
@@joecalton1449 I also use several 16" square 3" thick granite blocks and SIC grits when I have a quite few stones to do. I buy them at sales and save them till I have a good sized batch and wait till the warm weather comes when I can work outside. I have a row of them with a different stone for each grit and a hose for washing down. I'll need my son to set up the outside benches this year, getting too old for all the lifting and carrying. I find it a relaxing pastime on a nice day, listening to an audiobook or some music. It is pretty quick too when I get organized. The long strip and paper set up just sits on the bench in the shop year round and is always ready and waiting for touch ups and flatting the odd stone through the winter. Carbide grit is faster for sure, but the paper is convenient,and seem the best way for the finer grits to finish a stone, since the plate under the paper does not get dished. Enjoying all your videos, thanks for all your hard work and time, sharing with everyone.
Thank you for sharing the file tip, I was looking for a solution to my Norton India stones, they are pretty clogged. Thanks again, I gave it a like and subscribed.
I use a cinder block for all stones. Waterstones, oilstones, edge pro stones, you have to have a bucket of water to keep everything wet and rinsed off. Every few strokes, dunk it in the water and rub the surface of the stone with a wire brush or even a toothbrush to keep it from loading up.
I’ve always used a cinder block to flatten mine, with water running on it straight from the hose. I’ve done a bunch of stones that way, and it works pretty good for me. I wore out a Norton stone and a buck knife when I was first thing to learn how to free hand sharpen. I’m still. It super great at it, but can at least get a edge that will shave hair off my arm. I also use Marvels Mystery oil as a honing oil since it has cleaning agents and I’ve never really had a stone clog up, just get dished out. I’ve heard of people cleaning them with a wire wheel on a die grinder but have never tried it.
looks like a great way to quickly get it close to flat, then finish it off with some wet dry sand paper on some glass! Thanks, I will definitely try it!
I inherited a couple of old double-sided stones and, with trial and error, got them pretty flat by rubbing then against each other, coarse to fine. Not sure the type of stone they are but at least 50 years old. Work great now.
I have resorted into cratering the surface of some of these $1 stones with a hammer, the pointy part. Someone also mentioned using two stones: I usually have a sacrificial stone that I use to dress other stones just like you do with your file, using a corner or edge of the stone. This also introduces some chucks of loose grit. Check out those T shaped diamond tools for dressing grinding wheels. Very coarse and good at roughing up oil stones too.
@@CC-tq3kw That's the only way I've seen it done. They say you can take two irregular surfaces and rub them together at different angles and eventually both surfaces are perfectly flat.
Interesting ! A subject that ought to be discussed more often. I've had a bit of success using denatured alcohol and WD40 applied across stones with a toothbrush or mild steel wool/scouring cloth. Some people flatten their stones by rubbing across the unglazed back of of a large ceramic tile.
My preference for over 40 years has been Arkansas stones. White for everyday maintenance (slightly softer,quick results). Black Arkansas for in the shop.I'm usually sharpening chisels and plane steel. Flattening those stones seems nearly impossible.
ive tried heavy grit sandpaper on a flat board or table to moderate results but my attempt was to level itself as i worked it i also ended the endeavor with a file.
Buy a cheap diamond file ~120-180grit costs around 6-8$ amazing for cuting and roughly flatten oilstones. When you've gotten it reasonably flat (use a glas surface with some whet-sandpaper ~400 grit or) if you have multiple stones flatten them the final bit against each other with the three stones techniqe.
At one point, you mention that the cause of glazing is steel particles embedding in the surface. But 5 minutes earlier, you mentioned that rubbing the stone on concrete sidewalk caused it to glaze and not cut. So why would you think steel particles are the culprit? What does the sidewalk do to the stone? It flattens the high spots and levels them. The larger the surface area you have in continuous contact with another surface (flat surface on flat surface) is the condition that causes glazing. There is so much contact area that the particles at the surface can no longer cut or fracture. There is too little pressure spread over too much area. At some point, the particles at the surface will start to wear down too much, instead of breaking off at an earlier point in time. It's a point of no return, which when you reach, the stone quickly glazes. The difference between the file and the sidewalk is the file is focusing pressure on a small area. When you reach a high enough pressure, you will fracture the surface rather than gently wear down and level all the surface particles. You do not necessarily need a sharp or ridged object to do this. Another way to deglaze a stone is to rub the end of a rounded steel rod on the stone. Because you are focusing pressure on a small area, it will rip away the top layer of worn down particles and disturb some of the extreme flatness that is going on, creating localized deviation from flat. And milder steel is better at grabbing onto the worn particles than harder steel. One way to stop a stone from glazing thru normal use is to convex the surface of the stone. The stone is glazing because it is hard-wearing, and also because of what you're sharpening on it. The harder the steel, the larger the bevel area of the tool, the more propensity of the flat stone to glaze. By curving the surface, you are reducing the contact area between stone and steel. You increase the bite and also up the wear rate of the stone, so that it stays on the correct side of that cut indefinitely vs glaze trip point. And it doesn't matter how much steel embeds in the stone, so long as you use it wet or oiled. The convexed surface will sharpen things just fine. We have sharpened tools on the curved edge of a grinding wheel for centuries. It's like the difference between shaping steel on a contact wheel vs a flat platen. The flat platen should be reserved for finishing touches on flat surfaces. The contact wheel should be used for the bulk of the material removal. E.g., if you had put your (india?) stone against the roller area of your 36 grit ceramic belt sander, you would have cut it, no problem. Putting the stone over the flat platen is going to get you nowhere. Once the main high spots are gone and there's a good area of contact, it will just glaze the stone and the belt.
@shannonandsheila1 The stone always has some sharp point and some dull points. But if you try to sharpen a plane blade on a perfectly flat Arkansas stone, it will only work for awhile. After you roughened the surface, you might get a couple or 3 sharpenings before the surface of the stone starts to smooth up, the blade starts to skate around, and eventually the surface of the stone wears slowly into a single plane. And it becomes glazed. If the stone is slightly convex or crowned, the point of contact is very small, hence the pressure between a given particle and the steel is higher and not as "crowded." The stone is able to cut, and the surface of the stone occasionally suffers surface fractures in a way that releases entire particles or small groups of particles. So instead of a cohesive surface layer jam-packed with particles that have been worn into a single plane, you get a rougher surface that has very tiny chunks missing, leaving small spaces and new sharp particles that aren't jammed up with half worn particles. Steel imbeds in the stone, but it's not enough to make the stone stop cutting. You can literally sharpen forever without having to rough up or clean the surface of the stone. It will not glaze. It is very difficult to get a stone which is not perfectly flat to glaze over. With my first Smith, that's all this stone would do. It could sharpen a fish hook or an awl. It would sharpen the heck out of the tip and belly of a knife. But the flat part of the knife blade would just slide over the stone with no abrasion. It could polish up that part of the bevel, a little, but the knife had to be sharpened on another stone. I almost threw it away. Ten or twenty years later, after I learned more about how abrasive stones work, I found part of that stone. What I have left is a 1.5" square. Slightly crowned, it is sharpening blades to this day, and it is very efficient. And I have never since learning this trick flattened or resurfaced or cleaned a hard oil stone. Another benefit of the convexed surface is that you don't squeegee off all of the oil on your first pass of the blade.
I don't blame anyone for not reading my entire text wall before making rude comments and calling ME an idiot. You only did one out of 3. AFAIC, you are a saint.
a couple years after I made this video, I did as you suggested and got into sic powder and plate glass. and while that works very well in a shop situation or to do a really nice job, the old file method still works well when it needs to :}
I use a stick for removing stilt marks from fired ceramic. A stilt mark stick is only a few bucks, and works fine. they are aluminum Oxide, and very course (about 180 grit)
Have you ever tried sandpaper on glass moistened with kerosene? That's been working for me. I used to rub 2 stones together years ago. Concrete will break out little chips and the stone won't be smooth. I just keep up with my stones smoothing them as they're used every few months. That way you prevent the excessive wear.
i have not had very good luck with sandpaper. i think this was one of my first videos on flattening and dressing oil stones. there are more on here where I use loose silicon powder to maintain stones, and that is what I like nowadays.
Best way I have found is some wet 80 grit sheet sand paper and water. Mark the stone with lots of pencil lines so you can see when to stop leveling. Its by far the cheapest and easiest way.
the Waterstones that I have used are very soft and just rubbing them on concrete will abrade them very quickly. the softest oilstone I use is a Norton crystalon, and it is much harder than the hardest Waterstone I have.
How is the sound of a file on a stone any worse than sharpening or grinding metal in the day to day of work? Those old stones glaze up but I would think your file is going to wear pretty quick, maybe not so good to use a good file for this. To each their own ... just sounds like work to me!
I just used 60 grit silicon carbide powder with a little water on a piece of glass from an old picture frame. Cut the stone down really fast - just a few minutes.
I've never tried dressing a crystolon stone...just re cut the surface of my india stone with a big tile and some 20 grit powder. That worked pretty well, but it hadn't dished at all. Cliff has mentioned wanting to try a tile saw to just shave a bit off the top? Not sure if that would work.
I have done the file thing with a Norton fine india, and it works the same. but the fine india is more of a finishing stone for me, so they don't get dished near as bad, and so I generally just draw file the top once in awhile. the tile saw could be a good thing, but the one I have isn't big enough to make one clean cut across the top of a stone, so then its back to doing the whole thing by eye. or using an angle grinder with a diamond blade by eye.
Yeah, I'd have to find someone with a tile saw...in that sense, availability and size is limiting. I sitll think you'd have to condition it then too. Not convinced it wouldn't come out smoother than you would want.
Gritomatic has the silicone carbide for the best price I’ve found! And diamond Waterstones from there are amazing! There not like dmt plates or aroma plates there Stones! Slow wearing like oil stones but have diamond as the main abrasives
@@joecalton1449 No, it’s ceramic, Joe. A real glazed look and feel to it brand new. Mail order so I didn’t bother returning it as I thought it interesting.
yes you will wreck the file, i usually keep my old files around for things like this when they wont cut steel well anymore. I got one of the harbor freight diamond hones and it does pretty good work flatting stones for $12
@@joecalton1449 fortunately, the bastard file I used cost me 10 pence from a car boot sale, the guy had a bin marked 10pence, about 15 cents. I spent £2 and came out with files, 8 Distan saws and a block plane, the seriously old type, no adjustment mechanisms, just set and forget. 😁
The stone Will mot glaze using a sidewalk or a cinder block. I have a video on my channel where I have done it. And it works just fine. A file will not leave a even surface.
roughrooster, well hey there! Ive seen quite a few of your vids and enjoy them. I did watch your vid where you flattened a stone on a cinderblock. while I saw that it worked pretty well for you, when I tried it a couple times, it didn't work well for me at all. it just glazed the stone and the cinderblock over. the little bit of flattening that did get done before it glazed over was extremely smooth and wouldn't cut steel very well at all. after trying that and a bunch of other things that didn't work, I took a file and scrapped off the top layer of glaze using very heavy pressure, and to my amazement it worked pretty good. with the file, you have to think like you are drawfiling the surface, and more than likely will never get a true flat surface, but for a quick and dirty way to get an old stone into service it works a lot better than I thought it would
Stones work best in pairs !!! If a fella buys two identical stones ! A fella can rub them against each other every now and then ! Doing this will keep both perfectly flat ! Yes Stones work best in pairs !
So. You said that metal particles will plug a stone up. This is true so will oil a file is made of 1095 that stone is actually cutting that file. So its counterproductive
for something like the very nice arks that you have shown on your vids, I would agree with you. at the time I shot this vid, I didn't care for natural stones at all and so didn't use them. the ones im working with here are the crystolon coarse fine and the fine india, which have a pretty weak binder, not as weak as a Waterstone, but still pretty weak. by using very heavy pressure, the stone breaks down faster than the file, and takes most of the metal particles with it. does the file leave a bit behind? probably, and id have to put the stone under the big scope to tell how much. with most knives you aren't putting near the pressure on the stone, so the stone wears away the steel faster than the stone gets worn, and that's where the glazing on the stone comes from. a couple months ago I finally got some sic powder and plate glass, and have been using that to flatten and condition my stones instead of the file. but if I ran out of sic, or didn't have any, I would definitely use the file again. try it out on your next fleamarket crystalon stone and see if you like it. worst that can happen is you have 2 methods that work, or at least you can say you have tried it like I can say I have tried your method.
Got an oil stone that's slightly dished, tried sandpaper, aluminium oxide paper, wet & dry paper all at 120grit. Been rubbing the stone for 2hrs+ & it's not flattening! I'm persevering with a block paver brick but all its doing is polishing the brick, even when I add sand. The stone was cleaned off with petrol first & left to dry before trying all the above. It does NOT take minutes!! I shall try an old rasp when I come across one but this is NOT an easy process, the blisters on my hands are telling me so!! The dishing is not too pronounced, only 20" max, I'm inclined to leave it or better still just buy another stone!!
I went through the same thing as you rubbing my oil stone on the pavement , paving slabs , course belt sender paper and like you said nothing happened , I gave up in the end and bought myself a water stone and Diamond slab and strop .
These stones are quite inexpensive, so buying two doesn't represent a huge cost. After both are dished or require dressing to cut efficiently, cut stone with stone. Carborundum powder can speed up the process.
Thanks for the vid. I have two stones of my grandfathers and want to flatten them to sharpen his old planes . My question is , How do I know if the stones are oil or water stones . C.
Honing oil works great for oil stones, it's almost as though it was made for oil stones, hmmm how bout dat ? I like the old oil better, (different composition I guess), and whale oil works nice too, but every time I bring a whale home my girlie complains.
i bet she does! :} I like the thicker straight mineral oil better, and I buy it by the gallon from the ranch and home supply store and use it for oiling handles and such also.
@@joecalton1449 for me, the mineral oil was too thick. For lack of oil one day, I used two-stroke oil, that is terrible, , ,just way to lubricating, and the stone didn't cut anything. (just something that didn't work for me)
doesn't that kind of kill the file since it is also being ground down? I fell like just skip the stone at that point haha and file but oil clogs the stones water always works better with a little soap or windex
i use plate glass and sic powder now. i did try out a harbor freight diamond block and it works good for water stones, and will work on crystolons without having to spend $60 plus on a good diamond stone.
if you do not want a clogged up stone use paraffin or what you would call kerosene.i used it all my working life as a carpenter / joiner and never had a clogged stone.
i do not. ive spent quite a bit of time going over sharpening here on youtube in the hopes that folks will start sharpening thier own knives. for the cost of shipping one knife across the country to have it sharpened, you can purchase a good stone like the norton crystolon coarse/fine, or the king 220/1000 waterstone and sharpen thousands of knives yourself and then never be without a sharp edge again.
I think most all people worldwide who use sharpening stones even care or worry about flattening them. And they can sharpen their knives as sharp or even sharper without flattening. It's become mostly a RU-vid phenomenon by people who just need a topic to make a video.
I believe the 'correct' way to lap these types of stones is with loose grit (SiC or AlOx) on a flat piece of glass. Stephan wolf is an excellent resource on the topic, eg ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-viTgsyZPO6Q.html and i think he's still active on cliff's forums. Haven't tried it myself as concrete has always worked fine for my crystolon stone but i think i flatten much more frequently than you so maybe my stones are easier to get in order when i do
Crystolon is silicon carbide. This is a very fragile abrasive. For this kind of stone to cut worth a darn, it must be very softly bonded and friable to continually release and reveal new particles. You can grind this stone down with just about anything. It is self-disintegrating. Not to say there aren't some very hard-wearing silicon carbide stones for specific uses. But for sharpening knives, you would have thrown that kind of stone into the garbage can a long time ago. There are much denser and abrasion-resistance sharpening stones out there which you would be pretty foolish to use concrete sidewalk. Arkansas stone, for instance. If you watch any of these videos where folks are "flattening" a big old Arkansas bench stone on sidewalk, you will find a common theme. They eventually give up and just live with some dishing in the center and claim that finishing the job would be a waste of stone. The sidewalk will remove some of the high spots, but as they start to consolidate into a contiguous surface, forget about it. You will not finish the job. And as the OP here stated, the result will be a baby smooth glazed stone that doesn't cut until you condition it.
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