Thread: Waterstone storage

I cannot see any problem with that. I have read many times people flattening a stone with the next grade stone up. You give them a good soak and rinse before you start to use them anyway.

I store my 800 and 1200 together. A drop of bleach in the water goes a long way to preventing mould.

Just to clarify, when you say kept in the same container do you mean in the same pond of water while in daily use or dry in a a draw?

Either way I don't believe it's a problem and I have done it with my stones and they are about 10yrs old now.

I have the economical 1K/4K combination waterstone from Lee Valley. Guess I have to store them together. Can't use one side to flat the other. Have the matching slip stones to make a token effort to flat the waterstones. For carving, "flat" isn't very important to me.

After use, I scrub the bejeezlies out of the stones with a stiff veggie brush. Rinsing clears away the last of the swarf and keeps the stone surfaces open. Let them dry and into a plastic box.

I have a 4K King waterstone, recommended for Porsche kitchen knives. Huh. Have not found need to use it yet. When the time comes, I'll store it dry in its original box. Porsche finally admitted that their knives are 20 degrees total included bevel. Works for me.

Morning/afternoon RV.

I got to try out some Porsche knives. I was surprised how well the handle fits in your hand. I found I preferred pinching the blade just in front of the rivets though. The rivets still worked as a reference point.

I can see how some people really like them!

Btw, it was a good point on the double sided stones!

I have a couple of 24hr world clocks, north pole projection. I see it's morning Down Under. Here, it's about Beer O'clock. Been carving wood blocks for next winter's printing, laundry, ect, all the glamorous details of life.

I guessed that the Porsche knifes would be slippery when dripping wet. They are not. Yeah, the rivets look silly but the grip is comfortable. My SIL gives them to me. Vietnamese salad rolls tonight with chicken, HoiSin and some sweet chili sauce.

Back to the stones. I believe that it is very important to make them clean and keep them that way. I consider them good tools and not cheap. A single dot of 600 grit, embedded and dried into caked old swarf on a 4K stone will spoil my day (and the tool).

Thanks guys, I figured I would be right storing them together but as I've never used them before didn't want to risk any sort of cross contamination with the sediment of one stone getting into/onto the other.

My intention is to keep the 800 & 1200 permanently in water and when I get it, the 6000 will be only wet when required. I have a cheap honing guide but looks like I need to add the Veritas MkII guide to my list of toys to get... birthday in July... might be time to leave some hints laying around

I've got a Sigma 120 (Black beastie), King 800, and King 6000 which live in my little pond together. The 120 is solely used for flattening the other two stones. All three wade around in the same water together during sharpening like some happy little family, the only thing is that I sit the 6k on top of the 800 to keep it out of the water in the long term. Honestly can't say I've noticed any real performance issues due to contamination. The 800 raises a burr nicely, the 6k hones it nicely, and then a quick lick on my patented green-rouge-covered-bit-o'-MDF gives an edge that I can shave with.
I also never scrub or clean the stones - I figure the flattening process at the start of the session removes any offending residual material.

Feel like I may have just admitted my treason within the waterstone club due to negligence

Tom

Tom: your experience seems most reasonable. I suggest the flatting and cleaning happen at the end of each sharpening session, rather than wait until the start of the next one.
On the rare occassions that I have to joint and repair a carving gouge, I have some (relatively) new, synthetic oil stones. Unmarked but feel like 100-200 grits. By the time I'm done, nobody cares where I started!

Most of my crooked knives, especially the Haida-style blades from Lee Valley, are finishing tools and not heavy steel. I usually do no more than 1500 paper then chrome green on card stock (tubular supports) to get a carving sharp edge.

I use Systema meat keepers from the supermarket. They are ideal size for one stone, and have a loose plastic strip in bottom to keep stone off the sludge in the bottom. They come on special pretty regularly. Anything 4000+ should not be stored in water permanently is my understanding.

Cheers
Peter

Originally Posted by corbs

My intention is to keep the 800 & 1200 permanently in water and when I get it, the 6000 will be only wet when required.

Oops, i didnt realise i needed to keep my 800 submerged in water permanently when not in use? this post has been an interesting read thus far!

Keeping water stones submerged only saves time if you feel that you need to use them urgently and can't possibly wait, even to open another wobbly-pop.
They were dry when you bought them, remember? They can stay dry until needed. Relax = 20-30 minutes while you attend to other things is plenty of time.

Why do people keep saying that the water is a "lubricant?" What a bunch of hooey. Same for oil stones. The liquid vehicle, what ever it is, carries away the swarf to keep the cutting surface open and functional. Period. Even master machinists can tell you this.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Keeping water stones submerged only saves time if you feel that you need to use them urgently and can't possibly wait, even to open another wobbly-pop.
They were dry when you bought them, remember? They can stay dry until needed. Relax = 20-30 minutes while you attend to other things is plenty of time.

The way I'm thinking is I have to store them somewhere, they may as well be in water. I know I don't need to but I haven't read of anyone having issues with the 800 & 1200 being stored in water. The 6000 will not be stored in water.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Why do people keep saying that the water is a "lubricant?" What a bunch of hooey. Same for oil stones. The liquid vehicle, what ever it is, carries away the swarf to keep the cutting surface open and functional. Period. Even master machinists can tell you this.

I can't see where anyone has said the water is a lubricant in this thread?

Initially, I thought that I'd store my humble waterstones in water. I thought that it might save time. It doesn't. If I soak the stone, then find everything else among the usual interruptions, I believe that enough time has passed for use. Seems to be adequate.

Then they began to feel a bit slimy-slippery. That is the last thing I need. So, I scrub and rinse everything. Use the flat side of the slip stones to make a sort of flatting/lapping effort, scrub and rinse again and stand them up to dry.

"Lubricant?" Possibly not in this thread. Possibly a poor choice of terms, also.
Possibly a poorly selected target for critique on my part.
What I do hope is that everybody figures out what the operational value of the water (or oil on other stones).

Corbs there are a lot of different ways to use waterstones. I would not get hung up on a strict system. You will pick up a lot of tricks with them along the way and you will constantly change and improve your style.

I think a lot of people see them as a strict form of Zen meditation. Sharpening for some can be a bit like that. If you want a laugh, checkout the straight razor forums. They can be really strict with their systems.
Waterstones are the most flexible sharpening system you can use. You can change the way the perform on the fly. Using them scrubbed clean and covered in water, building up a slurry and letting it thicken, letting a thin slurry dry on the stone ready for next use, sharpening the stone with a coarser grit, polishing the stone with a finer grit or using the stone bone dry etc etc.

I don't store mine in water as they are not my first choice and are used infrequently now. A lot of people store their coarse waterstones in water so they are always ready for use. You will soon find out if it works for you or not. The water fouls up faster in summer so keep an eye on that too.

Ben's description of the versatility as the grit particles get smashed is excellent.
To keep the faces open and fresh grit particles available, storing my stones in murky water makes no sense to me. As the "mud" builds up, it's like using finer and finer grit.
Me? I'd like to do a bunch of tools at 1K (and know that it's 1K), then do them all at 4K. Otherwise, tool #1 might get done at 1K, #2 gets done at some indeterminate grit size smaller than 1K. #3?? #4??. I just have the gut sense that everything goes faster.

Then, I started into using crooked knives. I have 8 of them now. There's no way on earth to get them carving sharp on flat stones. I was aware of the mantra of using various grades of automotive W&D finishing sandpapers. Honing medium on card stock (this system is really cheap and works really well.) So now I have a set of 18mm aluminium tubes (aka 3/4" aluminum) with the various papers wrapped around them as cylindrical sharpening/honing gear.

My mother died. I didn't think that she had any further need of her ratty folding garden chair. So I cut all the needed tubing from the legs and tipped the rest of it.