Norton India combination oilstone IB8

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Cheshirechappie

Established Member
Joined
30 Jan 2012
Messages
4,909
Reaction score
229
Location
Cheshire
Thinking about a low-cost way to sharpening, I priced up the Norton India IB8 8" x 2" x 1" combination oilstone - that's the one that's coarse on one side, and fine on t'other. I was amazed at the range in prices for one of these.

Cheapest was Classic Hand Tools at £23-47(inc. VAT) plus postage. Next was Rutland's at £25-95 (inc VAT I think) plus postage. Axminster had two options; the stone only at £32-32, or the stone plus a tin of honing oil at £31-94 (no, I don't understand why, either). Finally, there's an enterprising firm offering them through Amazon.co.uk at £72-90 a pop - though you may get free postage with that one.

If you were to invest in an Inigo Jones Dragon's Tongue Welsh slate stone at £6-95 plus postage, a bottle of baby oil at £2-25 for 500ml (Sainsbury's), and a bit of 'found' leather stuck to a piece of flat wood, and you'd have the basis of a low-cost sharpening system for just under £50 including postage. Running costs would be replacement baby oil now and again.

You could build on that by finding a cheap grinder, and by making wooden boxes for the stones. Add in a few sheets of wet-and-dry in (say) 80 grit, 400 grit, 800 grit and 2000 grit for gluing to shaped wooden sticks, and a home-made bevel angle gauge (mine's a piece of cardboard with angle notches cut into the sides) and a small engineer's square, and you could sharpen pretty well anything to a very acceptable standard for an outlay of not much more than £100, depending on the cost of the grinder. Adding an 'Eclipse' type jig and wooden runoff ends to the stone boxes wouldn't add much to the cost if you decided to go down the jig route.

If you were lucky, you may be able to trim costs a bit more by buying secondhand. Good, little-worn Norton combination stones can be found, and hand-crank grinders are 'out there' as well. I'd challenge anybody to better the qualities of the Dragon's Tongue for that price on the secondhand market, though!

Sharpening need not be an expensive game!
 
Cheshirechappie":1mgdi8kd said:
I'd challenge anybody to better the qualities of the Dragon's Tongue for that price on the secondhand market, though!

Challenge accepted. :D

I've bought Turkey Stone, Charnley Forest, Tranlucent Arkansas and Belgian Coticule, all at under a quid each. Takes patience though.

Where would you put Dragon's Tongue in those hallowed ranks? :D

BugBear
 
I think the Dragon's tongue is potentially the most reliable/best value way of doing it. Nowt wrong with keeping eyes peeled for stuff (I know I enjoy it) but not everyone wants to stalk ebay/car boots, clean stuff up, ready it for work. By the time you've paid for admission/postage, fuel, remedial work and drawn a blank a few times the "value" of a find is more to do with the trophy of a low price.
 
Funnily enough, that's almost exactly what I've done. Though I spent a bit more for larger stones so: the set of three 8x3 indias from classic hand tools and a large 9x3 Dragon's Tongue (which Inigo estimate is around 9k grit). I bought the larger stones as I've always struggled with carving knives on narrow stones, so thought they'd be easier. So far I'm very happy with the set up, and the cost is pretty good compared to other systems. Wish I'd done it years ago!
 
it's just a bit of trimmed slate with a good brand name added. Nothing special.
 
bugbear":nrxwrftp said:
Cheshirechappie":nrxwrftp said:
I'd challenge anybody to better the qualities of the Dragon's Tongue for that price on the secondhand market, though!

Challenge accepted. :D

I've bought Turkey Stone, Charnley Forest, Tranlucent Arkansas and Belgian Coticule, all at under a quid each. Takes patience though.

Where would you put Dragon's Tongue in those hallowed ranks? :D

BugBear

Well - first off, you did very well indeed to bag any of those for a quid, going by Ebay prices!

By way of exact comparison, I don't know, because I don't have and have never tried any of the above. The DT is a very fine, very slow-cutting polishing stone, so it's in the same general league as those, though. Comparing with currently available new natural polishing or finishing stones, the DT is several orders of magnitude cheaper, and probably gives results in the same parish. I'm almost sure it's the best value really fine natural finishing stone currently available new. The nearest vintage equivalent is probably the Llyn Melynllyn (or vintage Aberllefenni slate stones if you ever come across one!).
 
Back
Top