Thread: Man Made Stone Suggestions

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Thank you, Neil. Learned something new.
I carve with a dozen crooked knives. Two are a pair of Mora #171 Equus hook knives (with the scorp-like hook at the tip) and I hafted the other 10 crooked blades in the Pacific Northwest native carvers' tradition. Very versatile. My handles are all glue-ups of mahogany & rosewood (shop junk) from 150 - 250mm in length. The dogleg planer knife handle is 450mm in willow, for smoothing split wood surfaces. Some blade shapes have a distinct 'J' shape sweep, hence my question. Mora (Frost Brand) #162, #163 & #164 have greater sweeps for bowls and kuksa.
I have a single combo 1K/4K synthetic from Lee Valley for use with all my Pfeil gouges and other carving tools.
It has been adequate but I'd like to "try-before-I-buy" to drop some serious coin.
Hence my interest in learning more about the Japanese quality stones. Only 15 years of "carving sharp" for me.

I live about 80km west of Mt Robson. Seems a rare day to see the top!
Robson is shy of 13,000'. Apparently, a really ugly hill to climb.
I enjoy having the scenery arranged vertically but there's just 7,000 - 9,000' around the village.
Maybe sounds glamorous until you see the sun go behind the mountains at 1:52PM on the solstice.

RV

It would be interesting to see some pix of the knives.

Sounds like you live in an interesting spot even if does only have a short time span during the winter.

Regards

Paul

Originally Posted by Gnickrapon

Hi all,

... I'm chasing stones for use with knives (although if the suggested stones have other sharpening applications, I'd love to know). ... I currently own a 400/1000 combination stone, a 1500 xxl Lobster(?) stone and a 3000 Naniwa stone of some sort.

My understanding is that you should own a stone somewhere in the 400 range for working out chips etc, something in the 1000 range for more general use, and something in the 3000+ for polishing. ..

My understanding for kitchen knifes is that you do not treat them as per woodworking tools. A fine serration aids in slicing, I'm told. Therefore what you have is sufficient.

For carving tools, you would be more interested in strops than flat stones. Or the stones are best as hard as you can get to avoid deforming. Diamond or oilstones would be better than waterstones.

For woodworking I would recommend the Shapton Pro 1000 over the Sigma Power 1200 (I have both) as the Shapton works faster - even on A2 and similar steel. The others I use are the Sigma 6000 and 13000. These are a step up from the Shapton Pro 5000 and 12000.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I'd be happy to show you what real crooked wood carving knives look like. Everything is back home and I can't leave the city for at least another week. Man, but cities do smell BAD.
I'd like to do a serious thread about crooked knives but for their purpose, I'd post it in the Wood Carving forum.
In the meantime, you can see some blades in the LV online catalog, called "Haida-style blades" or something like that.
No they are not sharp = everything is up to you.
The University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology has an online collection of 38,000 pieces. Nice crooked knives. I have sat there to study them. I'll bet you could search the listings for Japanese tools as well. There's maybe 400,000 pieces in the UBC/MOA.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

My understanding for kitchen knifes is that you do not treat them as per woodworking tools. A fine serration aids in slicing, I'm told.

That is my understanding too, Derek.

And, just how fine a serration is an individual preference. Most go with the synthetics stones up to #3-5k. A kitchen knife will tend to 'run' if you go finer than that with synthetic stones. If you wish to go finer you have to go over to a natural stones if you like a 'toothy' edge, but that is an expensive and tricky road to go down, as I know too well.

Some of my waterstones are for kitchen knives, others for my woodworking tools, and some do for both. Life would be simpler if I just sharpened one or the other, but I enjoy both!

Neil

In case anyone is interested. Here is an inuit style crooked knife I forged for carving.

Regards,
Gadge

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I'd like to do a serious thread about crooked knives but for their purpose, I'd post it in the Wood Carving forum.

If you do, someone might add the yariganna (or yari-kanna, ie spear plane) to the discussion. Robin Wood has a blog entry on same, here.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

The University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology...

One of my very favourite places. I could get lost in there for days!

Neil

The Hishiboshi Karasu #9000 turned up today. It's hard for me to judge given this is the highest grit stone I've ever used but I'll try. I actually used it on 3 of my knives which are all different steels. The Tadafusa (Blue 2) and the Tojiro (white 1) got very minor treatment as they're still quite sharp. All I did with this pair was essentially strop them using the stone. It certainly did a great job of that, both knives slid through ripe tomatoes far easier than before.

The Tojiro Flash (VG10) got a proper treatment from the stone as it had a minor chip or 2.....1500 to the 5000 then onto the 9000.
It certainly put a higher level of polish on the blade than the Rika #5000.
I was able to get a burr to form quite rapidly so it seems to be a good cutter.
It's quite hard and I don't expect it will dish easily but it did seem to load up quite quickly.....whether this is just a common thing with higher grit stones I'm not sure, I'll defer to Neils assessment on this stone but after using it, I'm quite happy with it.

Originally Posted by Gnickrapon

The Hishiboshi Karasu #9000 turned up today.

...it did seem to load up quite quickly.....whether this is just a common thing with higher grit stones I'm not sure, I'll defer to Neils assessment on this stone but after using it, I'm quite happy with it.

Paul

I finally got around to giving the Hishiboshi a test run.

I didn't find that it loaded up any more than, for instance, my Sigma #8k. A little loading towards the end of a polish is not a bad thing, it tends to push the grit towards the fine end for the final polish.

Rather than adding my review here and hijacking your thread, I have started a separate thread:

Hishiboshi karasu #9k synthetic-natural waterstone

Thanks Paul for drawing my attention to this interesting hybrid stone.

Neil