Arkansas Stone

Arkansas soft for roughing-out carbon steel knives and chisels. Arkansas hard for final sharpening of chisels and carbon knives, and touching up edges on cutters and drills.

Diamond 'lap' hone for SS knives and agressive material removal on soft metals.

Porcelain lap for honing woodworking chisels.

LLoyd

"Dave" wrote

Arkansas soft for roughing-out carbon steel knives and chisels. Arkansas hard for final sharpening of chisels and carbon knives, and touching up edges on cutters and drills.

Diamond 'lap' hone for SS knives and agressive material removal on soft metals.

Porcelain lap for honing woodworking chisels.

LLoyd

Damn, I hate Roadrunner! LLoyd

Old carborundom stones for real junk -- e.g., axes, kitchen knives, etc. Old oil stone for ditto but honing.

Soft (brown), medium (black), white (hard) Arkansas stones in various configurations (slip, cone, flat, wedge, cylinder) + regular 2x8" for honing metal cutting tools.

Japanese water stones:: `1500, 3000, 6000 for woodworking tools.

Water stones are generally better than Arkansas in terms of creating a great edge, but are frankly a pain to prepare and use. Makes a whole production out of sharpening. Makes a real difference for woodworking tools (e.g., chisels, plane blades, carving knives) where ultra-sharp is appreciated ... in fact, essential. The Arkansas are what I use most. Near the work bench. Works great on engraving gravers, tiny chisels, dental picks, and getting the last n'th out of lathe bits. I find that the Arkansas stones work really well with spit.

Boris

Is it Roadrunner or Outlaw Exploder? I suspect the later.

Ted

RR.... my news feed works fine on Earthlink, but we have RR at the office.

LLoyd

"Scary Sharp". DAGS for "Scary Sharp", but here's a starter page:

Basically you use sandpaper to do your sharpening. Very inexpensive and effective. With the right sharpening jig, it's not a problem to sharpen knives, etc...

I have a couple of stones and some leather strops made from old belts that get used on occasion, but if I want to do a good job sharpening something, it's Scary Sharpened.

Now that I think of it, sometimes I'll use a belt sander, grinder or Foredom tool to rough out an edge on a new knife, too.

~Jeff P.

Still got that 6x48 belt/12" disk sander waiting for you to come back up.

Gunner

"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." --Walter Williams

I thought it was outhouse express. :)

How do you keep stones flat?. Also where does lapping with grinding compound fit into the overall picture?

Surface grinder. Lapping machine. Lots of care and not deep pressure grinding. Keep clean - prevent buildup. Use Kerosene to clean - water and soap might destroy the binder in the stone if artificial.

Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Dave wrote:

What are you sharpening? I use a belt grinder for heavy shaping and gouge and chip removal, e.g. lawn mower blades. Files for axes and the like. Diamond hones for kitchen knives and casual edge shapening. The diamond hones are Eze-Lap plates, solid steel backing, they stay flat. I use india slips for woodworking chisels and gouges, sharpening wood augers and the like. For plane blades, I use the extra fine diamond hone if it's dull, then switch to a black Arkansas for final edge. For gunsmithing, I''ve got a collection of Arkansas and black Arkansas slip stones, along with some ceramic stones. These last are quite expensive now.

I've never had a problem with keeping stones flat, you just have to know how to use them.

Diamonds cut very fast. Black Arkansas leave a nice finish but aren't as fast for metal removal. The others are somewhere in-between. India slips can be had in a wide variety of shapes, good for odd blade shapes on carving tools. What I use depends on how much material has to be removed and what the final use is for the edge or surface.

Stan