'Sounds good, if you have one of those tools. I'm curious, though, about what happens when you use the traditional emery-cloth method with Arkansas stones. Maybe I'll try it with one of my old slips, just to see.
The stories about sharpening stones and how to use them seem to have a lot of variations. I've used honing oil or straight kerosene on mine for decades without any clogging. I just flood them after use and wipe them off, as I mentioned. I've been told never to use anything but light oil or kero on oilstones, including novaculite stones, so I guess there's someone around to tell you anything.
BTW, I'd want someone else to try boiling in lye before I tried it on my own stones. It's great for cleaning gun barrels before blueing but Arkansas stones are mostly silica in the form of quartz, and an alkali-silica reaction is well-known to attack and weaken silica. It may be OK on the fairly nonreactive quartz form of silica, but not with my stones, thank you, until somebody else goes first..
-- Ed Huntress