Flattening Whetstones, Oil or Water Sharpening Stones 

Straight to the point with useful information. Not a posturing, long winded, "look at me", septic type vid. Well done Aussie.

I wish there were more instruction videos like yours, Thank you!!!

Steve, I really enjoy your friendly way of presenting...a real delight. And of course, I learn a lot while smiling too, Thanks!

With regard to the stone that you lent out. You are a generous chap with your tools. When I was an apprentice I was always taught to return a tool in better shape than I received it. Later in life I came to the conclusion that it is better to give away stuff than to lend it, and it costs about the same!

Another great video Steve! When ever I get finished "rearranging" my shop(been at it for over a week now,) I've got a ton of sharpening to do. Cheers mate...rr

I bought a slab of polished granite, initially it was for the kitchen but it proved not to be practical so the kitchen's loss is my gain. It’s really good because of its weight and the wet paper causes almost a vacuum sticking it to the stone.

Simple. Most often times people over think things. Thank you so much for brining some clarity to this topic.

Thanks so much for a simple method of flattening stones. And planes too! Good stuff!

Hi Steve A little tip - before using wet & dry I soak the paper in water for about 5 - 10 mins, the paper becomes very flexible and sticks to the glass sheet and virtually never moves while flattening the stones. Cheers John

This was brilliant. I've gone to classes and such that teach how to sharpen, and how to take care of your stones, and want to get into it professionally. But this is the simplest, and cheapest, way I've seen to flatten a stone. Just brilliant.

Thank you very much! Simple and straight to the point.

New subscriber, because your presentation is so wonderful. Cheerful, informative and gets down to it. No blathering or long pauses like I've seen from guys who think they've got something to say. Love it!

Perfect timing for this video I'm half way through restoring a stanly # 3. Thanks.

I stumbled across your programme on channel 31, Melbourne late last year. I was rapt to find your videos here on RU-vid. I can now watch each video at my leisure and as often as needed. Please keep them coming. Hooroo, Mark.

finally I find an aussie bloke.... subscribed before I even finished watching.... nothing like a bit of knowledge that applies to home turf ( maybe no so relevant with this particular vid but when it comes to measurements and temperature etc). I like how you didn't mess around with bullshit and just showed us what we clicked on the video to see... and I have been doing the same thing so good to know ..thanks. nice work mate. cheers

great information yet again Steve. Hope all is well with you and Bob. (such a good boy)

Great tip using the glass and sandpaper. I've seen other videos where people draw a grid on the stone and when it's been erased you know it's flat.

Used many a sheet of wet and dry when working in the body shop. Looks like a good easy way to flatten a stone!

Great tips here Steve. I am in the process of making some investments in whetstones, both oil and/or water. I am slowly bldg my workshop & adding woodworking tools in the process. I have my eyes on some Arkansas stones, mined right here in America. They are based on hardness, not so much by grit. The Arkansas soft stone translates to roughly a 1200 grit surface. I was originally thinking on going with the electroplated diamond steel plates made by Trend, ( under a microscope, diamonds tend to scratch, stones smooth ) but I am re-considering that route for the moment. Excellent demonstration using a piece of glass, wet & dry paper, kero & water & most importantly, it is AFFORDABLE! Thank you, Bill on the Hill... Vermont, USA... :-)

Just what I needed. Great video, thanks

Great channel! Subscribed! Look forward to more content!

Great video just what I needed to know. Thanks

Fantastic tutorial Steve! (Now I need to go dig out my old cupped stones.)

Brilliant, to the point, top tip.

Great, very helpful video. You just saved me a ton of money. I have 4 or 5 old stones that I picked up that are dished out and rounded. I know what I am doing tomorrow. Thank you Sir.

Thank you Steve! So far your the first I have seen teaching how to flatten your stones! Very practical method. About your grinding wheel there a number of wheel dressers on the market here in the US! I think the largest selection is at Mc Master Carr they are on the web, they have all types of wheel dressers you can find something in many price ranges and or something that fit your needs. Thanks again.

Thanks a lot Steve. You just gained a new subscriber brother!

Thanks Steve.

Excellent presentation, you've saved many of us alot of $$$. Thanks...

Great, cheers.

Brilliant many thanks indeed!

Thanks Steve, excellent tip. :-)

Steve, nice helpful video. A few points. If you squirt some Kerro under the paper onto the glass it will help hold it in place. The sharp edges on the glass can be knocked off with a stone. I always knock the corners down on the stone after flattening as they too can be sharp. Your Tormek wheel can be flattened out by putting it on the machine and dressing it with a 'wheel dresser' or an old sacrificial flat stone. An alternative to plate glass if it's hard to come by is a large ceramic (2ft. x 2ft.) floor tile. Most places will let you buy just one. Take a straight edge and find a nice flat one. ;-)

Thanks for that information steve,i was wondering how to get mine flat now i know.....terry

Good. Once again tank you!

Fantastic

many thanks and happy new year 2021 from Ireland

Very good video Bloke.

Great video!

thanks steve

Thank you Steve

Thanks for your vid . I will have to check out your other vids to see what you have . I have my Grandfathers sharpening stones , and just bought the sharpening jig for plane and chisel blades . My Question is ; how do I know if my stones are water OR oil stones . Thanks Cyril

I think i have to try this too. My stones need this...

thank you

Good refresher. I do essentially the same, but with mineral oil in place of kerosene, and I don't use any grit higher than 120 for both oil & water stones. I do use some spray adhesive to stick the paper to the glass so it stays put. As it wears out, I peel it off, clean the glass and stick on a new sheet. I have two dedicated glass plates (one oil, one water) for my stones.

I have tried all the different sharpening methods, and now I use diamond stones, finishing with polishing compound on a leather strop (leather stuck to 3/4" ply) working free-hand (no sharpening jigs) as per Paul Sellers videos. I find this to be the best and quickest way of all, and no need to flatten the stones. But, like the man says, you have to find what way works for *you.*

Great video, I would like to say making pencil lines in a grid pattern along the stone lets you see progress and what areas still need attention.

Hi Steve , it works perfectly with my Norton stones. Complete blackish store became original Tile Red after spending early 45min and total 8 water sand papers . Many thanks for shearing. 😊

Good video, thanks! i was wondering if this use of "plate glass" would be good for flattening the sole of a handplane as well?...i guess reasonably thick glass wont flex much?.......really dont want to spend hundreds on granite blocks with engineered surfaces etc....so expensive ! lol, do you use plateglass for doing handplanes as well?

Excellent. I have tried several methods and it is taking days on an old oilstone - only 2 inch. I tried concrete blocks; concrete; belt sander 100 grit red resin; normal sandpaper; the backs of 2 types of tile - I think one is ceramic; and a small diamond stone - one of the fold-up varieties for knife sharpening. Red (fine). It works but is far too small for the job. Also tried a small stone I have for flattening concrete. This whetstone has never been lapped but has not been used a whole lot either. It is like it is made of diamond itself! Will give this a try. Thanks

this method works great! I was just wondering though, how often do you flatten your stones and how many times can you re use this sandpaper? maybe it's just here in Europe, but I end up paying around 1€ a sheet, so it would hike up quickly I suppose. still, a proper diamond stone goes for about 60 €, that's expensive.

thanks for the right to the point on trueing the sharpening stones 1 question i trued up. a ruff grit stone and finished up with 320 and now the stone is smooth and is not cutting ruff anymore what do i? do i go back to ruff paper ?

Hi John, I have a combination silicon carbide oilstone I just flattened using this method with 120W&D paper on the coarse side only, using sewing machine oil. End result was the stone was flattened OK, but the stone is now fairly smooth and doesn't cut nearly as well. I tried to flatten the back of a chisel, and found the smooth untouched side of the combination oilstone cut better. I was using sewing machine oil on the stone at the time. Later switched to WD40, same result. The WD40 appeared to soak right into the stone too. Anyway, do you have any idea what might have happened to the coarse side of this stone?

Many thanks for this info. Were your oilstones made of Silicon Carbide or Aluminium Oxide? Would you use different grits for either of these two types of stone to flatten them?

Very interesting, thanks. I notice you worked 120 on a coarser oil stone first, then the finer stone. Won't there be grains off the coarse stone in the sand paper that will score your finer stone?

Good shit my dude. I was looking at buying a flattening stone but they are so damn expensive, this seems like itll do just right. Im curious if anyone know if you need to change the sand paper grit based on the grit of the whetstone you are sanding?

Great video!! Only a thou? Blimey mate I get limbo dancers coming through the dip in mine. This could take a while!!

Aloha Steve, what do you use to adhere your stones to the wood bases ? Thanks

Can you do it with the carb stones like from norton i.e. "man made" I have a large one that is becoming dished?

will this method work on the harder Arkansas stone?

I like all your videos but in this case I would add that I think in the long run a diamond plate is more economic than sandpaper. I've had mine for over five years now and it's still perfectly useable.

Where can I get some wider and longer good quality stones... Blessings

If you are using harder stones, like norton india, you don't need to a 2" wide stone to sharpen a 2" wide plane blade or chisel. A 2" plane blade is a heck of a lot shorter than your shortest knife, yet you can sharpen all your knives on a 2" wide stone! I can use a thin 3/4" wide stone to sharpen plane blades and chisels just fine by drawing the length of the blade over the stone. Slightly varying your angles and stokes, you can very easily maintain a smooth, positive camber on the surface of the stone, similar to how you can use a straight chisel to put a camber on a piece of wood. On a new stone, this means working the edges and corners down, first. Then the size of the blade compared to the width of the stone doesn't matter, anymore, and you don't ever put grooves into the surface. Like when you camber the top of a wood box - if you start leaving ridges in the wood from the corners of the chisel, you're chiseling one spot too much. You just mosey over and work a different area of the wood until it all blends together. With the hard oil stones, I don't ever have to flatten or resurface the stone, just maybe some slight shaping now and then around the edges and corners if/when they start to get too sharp or rough. Lest you worry that a curved stone will curve the edge of your chisels and plane blades over time, don't. It doesn't take any time to put a frown (or a smile) in the blade with a curved stone, if you want to. But having the ability to do either means you can also make an edge straight as you want just by paying a little attention. It's not much harder to keep a 2" wide plane blade straight on a crowned stone. And it's a lot easier to get a straight edge on very narrow chisels, compared to using a flat stone. With the harder stones, the benefit of more width is now going to mean the stone wears more slowly, overall. Not so much that you can sharpen wider things on it. With softer/muddier stones, you are using that large flat area to spread around the force and wear to prevent the stone from gouging and wearing unevenly. So your soft stone might be great for plane blades and kitchen knives, but you might not like to sharpen your fish hooks and awls on it. On a hard stone, you want to do the opposite, IMO. A very flat and hard blade on a very flat hard stone can even cause the blade to skate and the stone to glaze. (Norton india would require a very large area of contact to cause this, mind you; it's a very aggressive stone on the softer end of the spectrum of what I consider a hard-bonded stone). But if you keep the area of abrasion relatively small by curving the surface, it will be able to sharpen anything, and bur formation will be greatly reduced.

Steve,should water stones be stored in water or should they be stored dry?Thank you for any feedback you could give.

Hi there, my grandmother recently gave me a stone that was gifted to her before she married my grandfather which was over 50 years ago. She had it wrapped in cloth because the original person had soaked it in oil. Anyways I tried cleaning it up and all but it's very smooth. I can get it to really sharpen a knife. Is that just how the old stones were? I'll still keep it for the history but it may just be too old lol.

Hey Steve, I am wondering if you know of any other lubricants that one could use for this process? I don't have any Kerosene on hand. Would something like paint thinner work? Air tool oil?

Thanks Steve, exactly what I was looking for (for my oil stones). I just wonder how long a paper of 120/180 will last (how many times do you use one sheet, or did you throw them away after truing these three stones in the vid?).

What grit would you recommend if someone has a stone that's dished out

Hi mr steve I have a cheep stanley stone I will try your method to flatten it . 🤔

Also Steve ,could you kindly recommend for me a reasonably priced good honing guide pls. Tks

Ever tried diamond stones for it, Steve? I've had great luck using the diamond stones to flatten my water stones.

Hi great video, My thought is that when flattening the stones there is some merit in not using a sand paper no fine than half the grit size of the stone, as there is risk of dulling the grit in the stone. using a coarse paper grit flattens the stone easily yet still leaves a more open structure in the stone to carry the metal particles. using too fine a grit risks taking the edge of the grit in the stone, leaving it blunt.

Hi Steve I inherited some stones How do i tell if they are oil or water stones Obviously they are not maked Thanks mate

nice song

I'm using stones for sharpening skates with coarse and fine grits, using sharpening oil. Whit your reconditioning method, what sanding grits should I use on each side ? Which lubricant - water, mineral oil WD-40 ? Thanks for the video.

I have Arkansas Stones,? Been using Horning oil , On them for years,? Works great,? But it Clogs the Stones Badly,? Was wondering if,? Just using water,? Will I get the same sharpening Results,? like I did when using the Oil.?

After a few passes why do you turn the stone around? Does it help make sure it gets to the other side?

Hi Steve. What kind of Japanese stone was that. Any personal preference when it comes to Japanese wet stones, a prefered brand?

I wish I could say I thought of this but I can't. I did however discover this by accident. On another RU-vid channel, I saw about using loose grit to resurface stones with, also using a sheet of glass. I went up to my local Harbor Freight store, (something I swore that I'd never do), and bought a pack of four different grits for a rock tumbler. DO NOT buy the plastic jars of tumbler media as it is ceramic cones and would be useless for this purpose. I have 3 stones that I free hand sharpen with. One is a fine, black Arkansas stone, one is a medium grit stone labeled "India oil stone Made In U.S.A." believe it or not and one is a soft grit between the two. I have a couple of 10" X 24" tempered glass panels out of an old broken coffee table laying around so I used one of them. I used the coarse grit on the two coarser stones and the fine grit on the Arkansas stone. I followed the directions from the other channel. Where I departed from the directions was I didn't use oil, water or kerosene with the grit. I washed the stones with Dawn dish soap to get the oil out of them. Then I put a small pile of grit on the glass and rubbed the stones on it as directed in an oval pattern. What I noticed was as the glass got well frosted from the grit, The grating noise began to decrease and the friction between the stones and the glass increased. This started as the grit was worked out from under the stones and pushed to the perimeter of the work area of the glass. Then I noticed that a powder finer than baby powder began to also deposit itself around the perimeter of the work area. When I picked up the stone and looked at the surface, the fine powder was on all of the stone except where it was worn in the center. When the glass and stones got to this point, it took no time to work them flat. What I think is happening is the tempered glass is much harder than regular window glass and the gritty texture imparted to it from the grit stays in place like sandpaper rather than rolling around like the loose grit plus I think it is sharper than the grit that I bought. The baby powder was material worn from the stones because when I finished with each stone, I had more grit material than I'd started with. The only other thing is that I had to use the flat back of a knife occasionally to scrape the fine powder off from the stones as it would cake up and gap the stones away from the glass. I knew when I was done when there was no longer a hole in the fine powder on the surface of the stone when lifted from the glass. When I finished, I had to wash the stones again with Dawn as the ultra fine powder was stuck in the fresh grit surface of the stone. I haven't tried it yet but it occurred to me that if that fine powder was left in place and with the addition of a little water, it might act as a slurry stone for polishing an edge. I had a soft slurry stone with a matching hard rub stone for a straight razor years ago and I'm here to tell you that there is NO finer edge on a knife as I got with that stone. (Credit given to the stone.) I lost it somewhere but I'd give anything to get it back.

In relation to your round stone, I just bought a wheel dresser from Total Tools for $28.00 made by Intech.

What liquid was that to wet the sandpaper? Looks like a good method. Kero?

If you also put your solvent UNDER the abrasive paper, your paper will be held tight and more flat to your glass, giving a more critically flat surface on the stone. In fact, as you start to work the stone, the paper will start to stick in place harder and even be more flat.

Wow, what chisels are they? the 3/8" bench chisel you showed

if i do this to my Grit 8000 it won't ruin it's grit ? (or lower the grit from 8000 to sand paper grit lets say 220?)

the kerosene does add a little bit of lubricity so it doesnt catch the sandpaper while also not reducing friction so much ur goin to b there for n hour tryin to get somewhere and it also helps keep everything movin as far as dust not building up cant say iv ever seen blue kerosene tho, ours is red a blue can is designated for kerosene over here tho in the states and a yellow cans made for diesel and red for gas, yet diesels red and gas's yellowish lol makes sense right :p maybe they wanted some kinda contrast between the colors so u could see spilled fuel while keepin them primary, idk..

BEST TO USE KERO OR WATER ON GLASS (( B-4 )) PUTTING PAPER DOWN , HELPS FLATTEN PAPER & IT STICKS TO GLASS .

So if water has been what you lubricate your stones with use water on the sand paper?

Thanks for the tip. But my oil stone must be pretty hard. Been at it for 20 minutes and it is hardly reducing the hollow. Even tried 80 grit wet and dry. Just need more elbow grease I suppose.

I have a dual grit Stone, it is a aluminum oxide stone, one side dark grey the other lighter gray, is it oil based and does the sandpaper work on these types of stone

are these holders handmade..?

what do you mean by using ware on water stones , what is Ware

I've done Arkansas stones before, but you sand forever to smooth those out. I always did mine dry and blew the dust away. Is that wrong?

Glasspaper (wet/dry sandpaper) may not cost that much per sheet, but the costs add up over the years. Cheaper is to flatten three stones with each other. Don't do it with two, or you can make one convex and one concave, but if you use three stones and switch the pair often, they all get super flat, and cheaper than "definitely the cheapest way".

Sreve what is the advante of using Kerosene instead of water?

Help guys. I have a flea market plane iron. I flattened the back and used a honing guide on some 150 grit sandpaper to prepare the iron for honing. I was doing that and used two sheets of sand paper and for the life of me can't get a burr on the back. I thought ok maybe I just can't see it but after running it on my 400 grit water stone for a few minutes, still no burr. They take off material but there is no burr on the back and the iron doesn't feel any sharper.

how often should one flatten waterstones?

Hey there I am new subscriber

Refreshingly straightforward way of flattening stones, thank you. So no need to make allowance for the earth's curvature or the increased gravitational pull due to the moon or a nearby Politician's ego? :-)

Why the glass, and what else could you use instead of glass?

sir if you can do please make a video on your workshop tour