Simplicity 9th September 2021, 05:50 PM Recently inherited these from my father in law’s garage, apart from being oil stones,an two having a course and fine side.
I really have know idea what I’ve got, I’m fairly certain the combination stones are your garden verity type that every house hold would have had on the bench in the back shed in the day.
I remember my own father owning one,an using it to sharpen lawn mower blades with i think, an his trusty pocket knife while sitting on the back step with a pipe in his mouth.
One is heavily dished and obviously was never flattened, which brings up the questions of what should i do with them,bearing in mind I’m quite happy with my current sharping set up,which is a set of Shapton water stone.
So I’m not looking to actually replace that.
Saying that I don’t mind having a play with them ,i also do a bit of metal work so they would be handy to use for polishing some surfaces with.
Or taking the edge of a bit freshly cut steel?
I also have a small Norton oil stone i use for that at present.
Note point, really not wanting to start a debate on my sharping set up is better than yours bla bla bla.
Cheers Matt.
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Shame the box for the last one as deteriorated so mush!!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210909/ceaf0ac9976070640321639a3d7b2eba.jpg
tomartomau 9th September 2021, 06:26 PM Whilst I am not overly sentimental, I would suggest keep them as a family artifact. They appear to be complete and boxed?.
To get the dished stone flat It would significantly reduce the thickness and potentially allow the stone to break under normal use.
Some questions that come to mind are
Are the older stones better quality than newer manufactured ones, my thoughts are no and general "oil stones" are fairly inexpensive anyway.
Have you thought about making a shadow now and storing them mounted, they look an awesome look into times past.
Simplicity 9th September 2021, 07:41 PM Whilst I am not overly sentimental, I would suggest keep them as a family artifact. They appear to be complete and boxed?.
To get the dished stone flat It would significantly reduce the thickness and potentially allow the stone to break under normal use.
Some questions that come to mind are
Are the older stones better quality than newer manufactured ones, my thoughts are no and general "oil stones" are fairly inexpensive anyway.
Have you thought about making a shadow now and storing them mounted, they look an awesome look into times past.
Thanks,Tomartomau.
What do you mean by making a shadow tho.
Cheers Matt.
tomartomau 9th September 2021, 08:28 PM Sorry a typo autocorrect.
I meant shadow box, its a box made with a glass insert and can be hung on a wall.
D.W. 9th September 2021, 10:41 PM Earlier finer-side carborundum stones. But the razor hone is a bit of a misnomer - it's not fine enough to finish a razor and the way it's used with a razor is to hone the bevel and keep it from getting fat, but the edge of a razor in the old days was maintained on a linen and leather and only honed all the way to a fresh edge with certain stones (like coticules and some other natural stones, or finished on a lap with some kind of crocus, etc).
The silicon carbide fine hones sold in droves, but they're often not that well used - very practical for kind of around the house farm stuff (quick working, sort of fine), but a bit messy (loose particles will come off of them easily, and if you're polishing on something like a 10k grit synthetic stone, it's potential contamination).
None of those stones were cheap when they were new - they were about the cost of a good natural stone, but I think people didn't figure out how to use them (something needs to do the finish work after them, or with razors, they need to be used very sparingly so that they only keep the bevel from getting too rounded - if they get to the edge, then the razor won't shave until it's rehoned with something else).
Keep them and use them like your FIL did, or you can use them on pocket knives, too - just use some compound to chase the burr and the scratches off of the apex of the knife after you use them (There is virtue in the speed if they're not used by themselves, an they will cut high tungsten and stainless steels well, unlike natural stones)
Simplicity 11th September 2021, 07:37 PM Earlier finer-side carborundum stones. But the razor hone is a bit of a misnomer - it's not fine enough to finish a razor and the way it's used with a razor is to hone the bevel and keep it from getting fat, but the edge of a razor in the old days was maintained on a linen and leather and only honed all the way to a fresh edge with certain stones (like coticules and some other natural stones, or finished on a lap with some kind of crocus, etc).
The silicon carbide fine hones sold in droves, but they're often not that well used - very practical for kind of around the house farm stuff (quick working, sort of fine), but a bit messy (loose particles will come off of them easily, and if you're polishing on something like a 10k grit synthetic stone, it's potential contamination).
None of those stones were cheap when they were new - they were about the cost of a good natural stone, but I think people didn't figure out how to use them (something needs to do the finish work after them, or with razors, they need to be used very sparingly so that they only keep the bevel from getting too rounded - if they get to the edge, then the razor won't shave until it's rehoned with something else).
Keep them and use them like your FIL did, or you can use them on pocket knives, too - just use some compound to chase the burr and the scratches off of the apex of the knife after you use them (There is virtue in the speed if they're not used by themselves, an they will cut high tungsten and stainless steels well, unlike natural stones)
Thanks D.W.
Will be keeping them for the time being,just need to give them a good clean,i thinking Mineral Turps, an get them flat again,the one that is heavily dished i may cut up to make small stones out off.
Cheers Matt.
D.W. 12th September 2021, 01:01 AM Absolutely keep them! I would never get rid of them. Some of my comments about silicon carbide are due to interest in why they (SiC hones) exploded onto the scene and then went to disuse. I can only guess.
When the razor hones are used as they should be, they do a great job. We just don't (these days) understand necessarily how they should be used and sometimes the instructions disappear. 1200FF abrasive was common in razor hones back then. It's fairly coarse compared to what we're used to, but I don't think at the time, the precipitation method (i'm repeating what I've read - not a chemist) used to make uniform alumina in tiny sizes cheaply was developed. So, we can get a pound of .3 micron alumina now (finer than any synthetic stone on the market) for $60.
Back then, you could get oxides, etc, but I think very few really had and used stones like we have as fine synthetics.
But they do cut finely, they have meaning to you, and you can work with them and get super results if using them the way they want to be used.
It could also be the case that they became common around the same time people stopped working by hand ,and in regard to the razor hones, around when gillette pretty much eliminated the straight razor by stuffing GI's kits with double edge razors in WWI. Straight razors lasted some longer, but my grandfather (born in 1907) never used one and really liked what we call the double edge razor now. It was convenience to him - we're starved for authenticity now, but in his day, they were starved for convenience.
Finally, my dad is a hunter. He uses a camillus air force knife as his hunting knife. It'll get functionally sharp on almost anything. He has a carborundum hone like your dual sided hone, and he also has a washita. He didn't know what the washita was, just that "it's too slow to be useful - it doesn't sharpen at all". I showed him how to follow the carborundum with it after he said he'd give it to me, and then he declined to give it to me :rolleyes:
He still likes the carborundum hone better - it removes steel reasonably quickly and he can dress a deer - that's all he's looking for, and probably all most were looking for. The average person using a washita only to maintain a knife would've soon found an edge that was damaged over time and that they couldn't chase the bevel on. Where carborundum corp came up short was in some advertising where they more or less said the edge would be super fine straight off of the stone. Carvers and such would've found that not to be the case.
Typical in England for a joiner was to have a carborundum stone and a washita in a tool box. The carborundum stone was always worn hollow in the length - it'd be used to set up for finishing the edge of the chisel with the washita, and it's not that important that they stay flat when they're not used on the backs of tools, they just need to be flat across the width or close, and not along the length.
Mountain Ash 12th September 2021, 10:02 AM Hi Matt. I recently cleaned up a couple of old oilstones by soaking them in a kerosene bath. It stunk but worked really well. Turned out one was red under all the muck and may be an india stone. The other was a combo with the fine side deeply dished but the coarse mostly untouched. I still use an oilstone on site, my waterstones stay at home. I was inspired by some Bill Carter videos to make a wooden holder/box for them including the contrasting timber end pieces, just not sure what purpose they serve - Bill said you need them just didn't say why :p.
Simplicity 12th September 2021, 01:52 PM Ok,
I can kind of feel like maybe,I’m at the top of a rabbit hole but with my strength of character I should easily be able to resist the fall (I think I’m living in dream state [emoji23]).
Maybe I need some functioning Oil stones in my twisted soul.
MA I will hunt out some Kero !!!
Cheers Matt.
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