Thread: Coarse stone recommendations

I have a 300 grit waterstone which does the trick...
I also have a 500 as the jump from 300 to 1000 is a little much I find.

I got mine from japan~tool, or try tools from Japan...

Cheers

Gab

Thanks for the recommendation. Wasn't sure if diamonds or water stones were the answer. Looks like water stones work for you.

I'll check out the water stones at Japan tool and tools from Japan.

I use a DMT coarse diamond plate and it cuts away metal nice and fast, but some times if I have to remove a lot of metal I have some 80 grit paper stuck on a piece of melamine about a meter long. Having that surface area and the action of full long strokes means I can remove metal fast but I still go back to the diamond plate after I'm close because its flatter.

Hmm I've never tried sand paper before. It certainly sound like a cheap solution to removing a lot of metal before moving to diamond or water stones.

When sharpening with sand paper is the paper durable enough that it doesn't tear too easily?

Use 100 grit beltsander belts. Slice off the join and contact glue them flat to glass-on-MDF. Place this on a flat surface. I have a set up like this that is 1m long x 150mm wide

Regards from Perth

Derek

Belt sander belts sound like a great idea. It is also quite cheap too. I'll give that a try on the weekend.

The sanding belt could be the fix for where to start.
The whole idea of a very long working surface is quite appealing.

I have cheap (small) 2-grit combo oil stones from the local hardware.
Grit size, apparently, is a secret. So I used my subjective "feel"
test to compare those surfaces to sand papers.
One stone is approx. 80/120 and the other is approx. 120/220.

Since sandpapers with measured grit sizes run all the way up to 8k(?) now,
I don't bother with my 1k/4k waterstone in a month of Sundays.

I've jointed skews and revised them as other wood carving tools.
80 grit on a stationary belt sander takes down good steel at a
ferocious rate!

If you use the paper have the vacuum handy and vacuum the sheet every so off to help stop it clogging.

I finally went to the hardware shop today and bought a 120 grit beltsander belt. Initially it was really good and was taking a lot of metal away, but it clogged up quickly.
I tried vacuuming it out which it did clean up, but it wasn't the same anymore and it started to take a long time to remove the metal.

I kept working on it and was able to sharpen up a vintage giant chisel that I wasn't able to sharpen previously. Last time I gave up because I couldn't flatten the back or take off enough from the front without spending hours and wearing out my diamond plates. Now it is decently sharp enough to be usable, but it pretty much wore out the grit on the beltsander belt that i bought and it still took me a couple of hours. Given the price of the belt sander belts are about $10 at my local hardware shop, I think if I use this method a lot it could end up becoming expensive if I do a lot of sharpening up old tools.

I have placed an order for a Sigma power ceramic stone #120 from Tools from Japan which I hope will work as good as the beltsander belt and hopefully without the clogging issue.

I'm starting to realize that buying used tools can seem cheap at first, but you will spend a lot of time and money to bring the blades to a decently sharp state.

Tim.

I use 80grit faster, and get the rolls of it from bunnings I think it 5 meters for around 10dollars. But it still does take a significant amount of time to flatten a chisel back especially if it has a corner worn down as you have to remove all the other metal down to that level. Once you have a set of chisels and your plane blades flattened you don't really have to do it again though. One technique I used on the blades that needed a lot of work was to just do half an hour or so at a time over a week or so made it left painful!

Old tools can take a bit of work to tune them up...but so do a lot of new tools..

I don't suffer from a 'tight fist' I just dislike how disposable everything is these days.

I am just old enough to remember the old tool prices and how expensive they were compared to people's incomes.
I remember my old man saving for a makita router. It was above the $400 mark back then. Now the comparable mak router is still around the $400 mark and it's been 25yrs.

I still get a kick out of using tools far older than me.

Had a similar issue today.
Bought a bevel edge old Titan chisel off ebay.
Spent a fair while on the diamond stone trying to get the back edge flat....could see it was going to take way too long.
Put an old 150 grit belt on my big boy linisher and it was flat in literally 2 seconds. Back to the diamond stone and all is good.

I tried again with the belt with a couple of irons from a newly acquired wood plane and a Stanley no 4. I was able to flatten the iron blades quite easily and quickly with the belt this time even on the worn belt.

I wondering if the difference is perhaps to do with the type of steel used as the old chisel I worked on last time needed some grinding and even that took ages before I spent a long time on the sanding belt.

I have found the same with hand shaping. Different grade steels and heat treatments cut at different rates.

Sounds like the old chisel was a good find!

The zirconia belts cut much longer and stay sharper than the normal wood workers abrasives.

I'm not %100 sure if it would be an advantage when your hand grinding the backs though. I know the actual abrasive is harder but the other advantage is they are self sharpening. The arbrasive is designed to fracture during use so it stays sharper for longer. Would it fracture under hand pressure....really not sure. It might be worth a shot!