Have I ruined my Waterstones

[Washy21]

Hi

I'm new here and new to woodworking so please excuse the novice type question.

I bought a combination stone recently and thought I was using it correctly. I was regularly flattening it with a DMT stone after using pencil marks. But I have just realized that this is only part of the stone flattening process and this morning I was shocked to see that the course side is really noticeably concave.

Is this stone beyond repair and would it actually be best to buy individual stones. It was an Ice Bear stone.

Any advice would be grateful.

 

[carlb40]

Do you have a pic of the stone?
I would leave using the diamond stone unless it is one of the guaranteed flat versions? Get a piece of float glass and some 120 wet and dry paper and use that for flattening the stones

 

[riclepp]

What was you doing to get it to the concave state????? Perhaps a bit more explanation of what you were doing, may help others more knowledgable that me to help provde an solution. As posted above, some pics would be worth a thousand words. In regards t Diamond stone is it one of the cheaper ones, i.e. £10 or so or the vastly more expensive £100+ ones? How old is it, its condition and what are you doing with it?

 

[Washy21]

Hi

I have attached a picture of the stone.

What was I doing? Here was my obviously destructive sharpening process:

• Soak the stone for about 5-10 minutes
  Use the Ice Bear holder
  Use the course side for lapping the back of chisels and plane iron
  Use Veritas honing guide on course stone to obtain edge
  Every few minutes mark the stones with pencil and flatten with the DMT block
  Use plenty of water throughout
  Use all of the stone for lapping (obviously I haven't)

The DMT was about £60 so it wasn't one of the cheap ones. It is very new as were the stones (about one week old).

So is it the case that I have forgotten to flatten the stones correctly: mistaking believing that erasing the pencil marks achieves flatness?

Again, it's not the end of the world if I have to buy another and any lessons learned are valuable.

 

[Racers]

Hi,

Do you rub the stone with DMT? I am thinking you are flexing the DMT hollowing the stone.
My main concern is the damage you may have done to your tools.

Pete

 

[carlb40]

How big is the dmt stone? Ideally you need a larger surface than the waterstone for flattening. I find that the brass rollers also contribute to wearing waterstones .

Also it takes longer but i would use lighter strokes when honing. That might help with stone wear.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Everyone is more than welcome to laugh, but I flatten mine perfectly adequately on a concrete coping stone on the garden wall. Use plenty of water, and be sure not to embed anything coarse. If you try to use the ends rather than the middle, the whole thing will stay reasonably flat. I was about to say use the sides for chisels, but obviously you can't on a combination stone. It's worth doing on single grit ones.

 

[Washy21]

Hi,

Do you rub the stone with DMT? I am thinking you are flexing the DMT hollowing the stone.
My main concern is the damage you may have done to your tools.

Pete

Hi Pete

Yes, I place pencil marks on the stone and then rub the stones with the DMT but I really didn't think I was using that much pressure so I can't believe I am flexing the DMT in this process - it's very rigid.

I think I will buy new stones and try again and as suggested use a larger area for flattening. The person who instructed me uses the same method BUT I think I have forgotten the bit where he uses a piece of glass in the process. That said, he does use the pencil mark technique and same DMT stone as I purchased.

The DMT stone is about 155mm x 50mm; shorter but wider than my stones.

Regards

 

[carlb40]

Hi,

Do you rub the stone with DMT? I am thinking you are flexing the DMT hollowing the stone.
My main concern is the damage you may have done to your tools.

Pete

The DMT stone is about 155mm x 50mm; shorter but wider than my stones.

Regards

Think that is the problem, you need both ends of the waterstone in contact with the flattening medium, otherwise you will never keep it flat.
It is like trying to use a 2ft long straight edge on an 8ft long board. You will never get a true reading

 

[Washy21]

Hi,

Do you rub the stone with DMT? I am thinking you are flexing the DMT hollowing the stone.
My main concern is the damage you may have done to your tools.

Pete

The DMT stone is about 155mm x 50mm; shorter but wider than my stones.

Regards

Think that is the problem, you need both ends of the waterstone in contact with the flattening medium, otherwise you will never keep it flat.
It is like trying to use a 2ft long straight edge on an 8ft long board. You will never get a true reading

Thanks for this:

Yes I agree and on reflection I think it's fair to say that on the course stone I have over used the middle portion and been one sided along the length. So I need to rotate the stones far more frequently.

I have been watching several videos on this topic and watched many 'experts' basically using the same procedure. The only difference is that they are clearly more aware of how the stone is wearing: checking frequently and not relying on pencil references. This is where I have gone wrong. I have assumed that 'rubbing out' the pencil references essentially flattens the stone but it's only part of the process.

One lives and learns I guess.

 

[riclepp]

Arnt waterstones fairly soft?????? Only asking here myself as I am not sure of this.

 

[riclepp]

Just a though Rob Crossman has a very good dvd out for doing dovetails, but there is a section of him sharpening his tools but he talks about how to keep the waterstones flat. If I recollect every time he turned the stone he had only done 3 maybe 4 strokes. Might be worthwhile looking at this.

 

[MIGNAL]

It has become quite concave. Get it flat and continue to use it, there's still life left in it. It seems that you are trying to flatten it too frequently and too aggresively. You don't have to flatten it every single time that you use it. You should also do your best to use use the whole (or as much as you can) of the stone when sharpening.

 

[Racers]

I flatten mine on coarse wet and dry, I wet it and stick it to a thick sheet of perspex.

Pete

 

[Washy21]

It has become quite concave. Get it flat and continue to use it, there's still life left in it. It seems that you are trying to flatten it too frequently and too aggresively. You don't have to flatten it every single time that you use it. You should also do your best to use use the whole (or as much as you can) of the stone when sharpening.

There may be life in it yet so I will have a go. And yes I probably was trying to aggressively; both with the DMT and the chisels. You see what I have been trying to do is lap new chisels and a few plane irons. I have been going at these probably too hard but not realised how the stones were getting increasingly out of true.

I might also check out the DVD as suggested.

 

[Racers]

I wore through the 240 side of a 240/1000 grit stone, they are very soft and after flattening lots of chisels and plane blades and lapping the stone flat it was all gone. The 1000 grit side is o/k I use it for knives now.

Pete

 

[Racers]

I wore out the 240 side of a 240/1000 grit waterstone after flattening lots of second-hand planes and chisels, they are very soft and need lots of flattening, #I still use the 1000 grit side for knives.

Pete

 

[carlb40]

For new chisels/blades i would start the flattening process on the dmt. When flat, then i would move to the waterstones. They will last a lot longer

 

[Washy21]

For new chisels/blades i would start the flattening process on the dmt. When flat, then i would move to the waterstones. They will last a lot longer

That makes sense - thanks for this.

 

[Dangermouse]

I hate waterstones, such a lot of faffing about and one hell of a mess and I consider water and steel should never meet. 8)
No doubt a lot of people love em, bit like Marmite I think. :roll: