Thread: New member, some assorted tool questions

Welcome to the forum, JWC.

The forum has been in 'hibernation' lately, so perhaps your post will wake it up!

On thin waterstones, I mount all my thinner ones on boards. That reduces the chances of them breaking and allows them to be used almost to the last few mm. Choose a stable wood that doesn't mind repeated cycles of being wet and dry. I've used your Western Red Cedar and that has worked well for me. I attach the stone to the board with a thin layer of gutter repair silicone. That retains a small amount of flexibilty when cured and is water proof.

If the edges of the stone haven't been sealed then some form of lacquer can be applied. Traditionally urushi (as in their lacquer ware) was used but that is not easy to obtain outside of Japan and is also toxic to handle. Various lacquers are now used as an alternative. I have just used CA superglue.

What stones do you have?

On left handed Keshiki, I would just sharpen the blade so that you can pull the other way. You will lose a bit of blade length, but there should be more than enough length remaining for many years of resharpening and use.

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcomes, and the comments.

The stone in question is a common King finishing stone, about 1cm thick at this point. It came mounted to a wood base, I think. A previous one broke at 6 or 7mm thick.
Odate mentions mounting a thin stone in plaster, which I have not tried- seems like it would not handle soaking well.

I've not heard of sealing the edges of stones. I only have one natural one, smaller that I use for kitchen knives.

I did regrind the blades of the sickle gauge- a bother, and mounted the reground blade on the other end of the beam of the regular one. These new ones I will just use right handed, I think.

Cheers, Jay

Originally Posted by jwoodcraft

The stone in question is a common King finishing stone, about 1cm thick at this point. It came mounted to a wood base, I think. A previous broke one at 6 or 7mm thick.

Odate mentions mounting a thin stone in plaster, which I have not tried- seems like it would not handle soaking well.

I've not heard of sealing the edges of stones. I only have one natural one, smaller that I use for kitchen knives.

My Naniwa 'Snow White' #8000 is the only stone of mine that came attached to a base. I think the base on it is made from sugi wood (Japanese cedar)... a very light wood that is weather resistant, so a natural choice for that use, but it is 'bendy' with a low deformation strength (elastic modulus... that is similar to Western red cedar). If that stone ever gets down to <10mm thick I might plane the feet off the sugi base board and attach the lot to something that is more rigid, or at least thicker. I don't use the 'Snow White' very often, preferring to go over to the naturals in that finishing grit range, but it wasn't cheap, so worth getting the most out of it if I ever get down to that thickness.

I have not heard of anyone using Odate's suggestion of attaching thin stones with plaster of paris. Once set PoP won't dissolve in water at ambient temperatures, but I know from working with it in sculpture that it is fragile and quite porous and I imagine that it would grow some interesting fungi/microbial life forms if you didn't add some anti-fungi/microbe agent to the water.

On sealing the edges of stones... that relates to the naturals which can have stratification layers that separate. Check your kitchen natural to see if it has any layers that are at risk of separating. If not, I wouldn't bother. Most of mine don't need it. BTW, which natural do you have?

I don't know what the stone is. I found it years ago amid the dross in a little used tool store.
It puts a good edge on the knives while not wearing too quickly.
For the thin stone, I've thought of laminating it to another stone, or even to a piece of quarry tile, perhaps with epoxy.






IMG_3256.jpegIMG_3255.jpeg

Originally Posted by jwoodcraft

I don't know what the stone is. I found it years ago amid the dross in a little used tool store.
It puts a good edge on the knives while not wearing too quickly.
For the thin stone, I've thought of laminating it to another stone, or even to a piece of quarry tile, perhaps with epoxy.


IMG_3256.jpegIMG_3255.jpeg

Nice looking natural stone there, Jay. Good find!

The strata layers appear to be are running diagonally across the face of the stone and from front to back through the stone, so it won't be the edges that are at risk of delaminating. It reminds me of the small Ohira stone that I have which has the same strata orientation...

Ohira toishi.jpg
Ohira suita
(Lev #4)

Fixing your thinner stones to something like quarry tiles sounds like a good strategy for supporting them near the end of their useful life. The natural looks like it could benefit from that given how thin it is now at the mid point.

BTW, unlike woodworkers, traditionally Japanese knife and sword sharpeners (togishi) were never fussy about having flat stones...

Togishi at work on his toishi (1915_by_Elstner_Hilton).jpg
Togishi at work on his toishi
(1915_by_Elstner_Hilton)

Not a flat stone to be seen!

Welcome to the forum.