Contaminated water stone?

[kman-oz]

G'day all,

I have a feeling I may have failed to avoid contaminating one of my water stones with grit from a coarser stone. I believe it may be a result of failure to properly clean the roller on my honing guide, even though I carefully cleaned the roller and chisel with a clean rag and metholated spirits before moving to the water stones.

In short I moved from a fine Indian stone to a 4000 grit water stone and it appears that the initial fine polishing that the stone had produced has been dulled with use. My first test with the new water stones was on a plane blade, progressing from the Indian stone to the 4000 then 6000 grits resulting in very nice shine and a beautiful cut on pine end grain.

After some use I thought the 4000 just wasn't removing the scratches from the Indian stone, but when I tried polishing the chissel back left handed I noticed that there were fresh scratches in the new cutting direction.

I've tried flattening the water stone again with 600 grit silicone carbide paper on glass, but the problem persists.

Does anyone have any advise?

[rsser]

Drop down to 240 or 180 grit perhaps.

[maxdangerous]

Strewth I never realised there was so much involved in sharpening:o
I've never even heard of 6000 grit before:B
I thought my tools were sharp and I just use a piece of 1200 wet & dry on a sheet of glass... your stuff must be amazingly sharp.
Good luck with whatever you do to fix it.
Cheers
Max

[kman-oz]

Thanks rsser, I'll gve it a go. I've got some 120 grit, is that also worth a go? Perhaps work up the grits again to 600 or something?


Strewth I never realised there was so much involved in sharpening:o
I've never even heard of 6000 grit before:B
I thought my tools were sharp and I just use a piece of 1200 wet & dry on a sheet of glass... your stuff must be amazingly sharp.
Good luck with whatever you do to fix it.
Cheers
Max

I'm new to the higher grit water stones, they take a little getting used to but the edge cant be compared to the Indian stone (~600 grit) I was using before now. You can go completely nuts with 8,000 and 10,000 grits then onto rouge.... it can get serious :o

I'd did my first work on Red Iron Bark today and I'm surprised how well my newly polished plane blade handled it :D

[rsser]

My limited experience, 240 should do it.

But it's soft stuff, so try 180 if you want to go lower.

[soundman]

You might be contaminating the water stone with the grit from the paper you are flatening on.

maybe you need to get one of those fancy ceramic flatening thingys.
or perhaps flush the surface with some preasure and a nail brush?

cheers

[rsser]

Water stone's a lot softer than W&D.

You did wet the W&D k-man?

[morris]

220-240 wet and dry on glass is used to flatten stones.A Nagura Stone is used to clean and provides a slurry on the 4000 and 6000 stones aiding the sharpening process.I use a 1200 between a 6oo and 6000 grit stone to illiminate scratches

Regards Morris.

[kman-oz]

I'd left the W&D dry when I flattened the Indian stone and that seemed to work a treat. I'd wet some 600 grit W&D for the water stones, yes, but I'm yet to try a coarser grit. I'll get back to you guys.

EDIT: Well flattening the stones with a 240 grit sheet has done the trick it seems. Perhaps the 600 was too fine to properly loosen the contaminants, or perhaps the 600 sheet was infact the contaminent, the fact remains, they're now working as they should be and a quick 30 seconds on the 4000 and 6000 stones has quickly brought the shine back to my tools! :)

Thanks all for your help and advice.:2tsup:

P.S. I used the one sheet for all three stones too. I started with the 6000 and progressed down the grits and all of them came up a treat.