Oilstone box

[AndyT]

In the recent thread where I showed a nice old Salmen's Yellow Lake honing stone I just bought, I said I would store its historic cardboard box and make it a proper wooden one. I got round to it at the weekend, so here are some pictures, to prove it happened.

I started with a bit of mahogany, salvaged from an old, scrapped piano:

planed off the French polish

marked and planed to size

measured to fit the stone centrally

and made the lid the same length

To excavate the space for the stone, I first tried drilling out the waste with a large Forstner bit

followed by chiselling

and levelling with a router plane

This was ok but slow, so for the lid I just chiselled,

and used a more modern router

which worked ok and got me this far

To bevel the top, I marked pencil lines a little way down the edges and along the centre and ends of the top

then planed down the ends

followed by the sides. With a couple of applications of boiled linseed oil, it looks like this

which is good enough for me. All it needs now is some clipped off pins to hold it on the bench, or maybe a little bit of wood across it that can be gripped in the vice.

 

[Racers]

Nice!

I have an old one with scallops taken out of the bottom long sides, makes it easer to pick up.


Pete

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Excellent stuff! Just the sort of home the Yellowlake needs.

I particularly liked the open-throated wooden router plane - rather unusual design, that.

A tip culled from Jim Kingshott's book on sharpening (Sharpening; the complete guide) is to stick a piece of rubber or non-slip mat under the box at each end. It's just as effective at preventing the box sliding across the bench, with the advantage that it doesn't damage the bench surface as clipped pins tend to do. Kinder to the fingers, too.

(For anybody wanting a slightly more elaborate design, Graham Haydon has a very good video of the making of an oilstone box on his blog - http://gshaydon.co.uk/blog/making-oilstone-boxes )

 

[bugbear]

In the recent thread where I showed a nice old Salmen's Yellow Lake honing stone I just bought, I said I would store its historic cardboard box and make it a proper wooden one. I got round to it at the weekend, so here are some pictures, to prove it happened.

which is good enough for me. All it needs now is some clipped off pins to hold it on the bench, or maybe a little bit of wood across it that can be gripped in the vice.

Needs a bead (scratch stock!) round the lower edge of the lid.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Thanks CC, I think I will try the non-slip mat option. I'm not averse to knocking the odd nail into the bench, but not unless I need to.

And Graham - that's a very smart box you made, with the big curvy base. I could have done one like that - with a bead, BB - I actually have made another one with a bead round it - but I'll use the excuse that a) my wood was thinner and b) I wanted to match this one, passed on to me from a family member's effects

Also, Graham, I like your mix of old and new hand tools - as you can probably tell!

 

[bugbear]

...I wanted to match this one, passed on to me from a family member's effects

That looks (a lot) like a Washita.

BugBear

 

[Grahamshed]

Very nice. I have one that was my fathers and undoubtably someone else before him but it has no lid. Yet another thing for my todo list.

 

[AndyT]

...I wanted to match this one, passed on to me from a family member's effects

That looks (a lot) like a Washita.

BugBear

Thanks BB. I may have referred to it on here as an Arkansas, but I think you are right.

Further supporting evidence: Page 55 of the TATHS book, explains that although the two are geologically similar, Washita is commoner, less dense and more porous. I know that the stone's previous owner had some good tools but he was mostly a lorry driver, not a professional woodworker. Looking in a 1953 Buck and Hickman (which is likely to be around the time he would have bought it) a 6" x 2" x 1" British cut, mounted Arkansas was 45 shillings, the same price as Record 5 1/2 Jack plane, while the same size Washita was 12s 6d. That would still have been a serious price to pay - an ordinary India or Carborundum stone of the same size was only 6s - but I think it would have been as far as he would have stretched.

Whatever it is, it's hard and fine and works well.

 

[G S Haydon]

Andy, the box looks realy good and they are a nice quick little project. A nice tip from CC on the rubber or non slip, I intend to do the same. I actually unlisted the video because it's not as good as I'd hoped. Hopefuly future efforts can improve. It's still on the blog but you cant search for it in you tube. The tools are quite fluid, I buy them second hand mostly and move it on if I'm not happy with it.

I just read my article. I have revised it, I often write late in the evening, much of it was very very poor English #-o

 

[bugbear]

Thanks BB. I may have referred to it on here as an Arkansas, but I think you are right.

Further supporting evidence: Page 55 of the TATHS book, explains that although the two are geologically similar, Washita is commoner, less dense and more porous. I know that the stone's previous owner had some good tools but he was mostly a lorry driver, not a professional woodworker. Looking in a 1953 Buck and Hickman (which is likely to be around the time he would have bought it) a 6" x 2" x 1" British cut, mounted Arkansas was 45 shillings, the same price as Record 5 1/2 Jack plane, while the same size Washita was 12s 6d. That would still have been a serious price to pay - an ordinary India or Carborundum stone of the same size was only 6s - but I think it would have been as far as he would have stretched.

Whatever it is, it's hard and fine and works well.

I bought a "nice" but unknown stone a while back. I knew it wasn't Arkansas, because I have some of those, and these was browner, and not quite as fine.

blue square enlarged:

OLDTOOLs said (in net) that it was likely a washita, especially when I checked the density.

http://swingleydev.com/archive/get.php? ... t_thread=1
http://swingleydev.com/archive/get.php? ... t_thread=1

Eventually, the car boot Gods smiled:

I have now found an excellent way to ID this stone.

I found a close-to-identical stone (I have carefully compared
both "used" and "lapped" areas on both.

But the new stone is in a labelled case, marked
with a Pike logo and "Washita".

There's one other interesting and disconcerting fact,
This new stone, and a stone I saw a few weeks ago,
share a fault.

In both cases, someone had attempted to remove them
from the case, and the STONE HAD DELAMINATED before
the glue gave up.

I know that any number of architectural/structural design
books will tell you that stone is great in compression and lousy
in tension, but I hadn't seen this before.

So - be careful out there.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Ok BB I have followed up your links and done some measurements of my old stone, using the reasonably accurate digital kitchen scales and calculating the volume of my stone by assuming all six faces are flat. That gets me a density of around 2.34g per cubic centimetre.

Allowing for my dodgy recollections of O-level physics, I think those units are directly comparable to the specific gravity figures given on the Dan's Whetstone page, taking the density of water as 1 g per cc.

That page says that a Washita has a specific gravity of under 2.25, soft Arkansas is 2.25 to 2.30 and hard Arkansas is above 2.30, so on the basis of its density, my old stone could be an Arkansas.

I'm happy to think of it as a nice hard Washita or a softer grade of Arkansas, and I certainly don't intend to get my own electron microscope to examine the grain structure or delve into X-ray Diffraction for chemical analysis. :wink:

 

[Cheshirechappie]

That's an interesting point about stones being glued into their boxes, BB.

There's a very good case for NOT glueing a stone into it's box, for several reasons. Firstly, you may wish to use the edge of the stone for some tasks, such as wooden spokeshave irons on which the upstanding tangs won't allow you to use the face of the stone. Secondly, periodic maintenance (deep cleaning, flattening) of the stone is easier if it's unencumbered by a wooden obstacle. Thirdly, it allows you to use both faces of a stone. Fourthly, with combination stones, the whole advantage of having two grades of abrasive is lost if it's firmly glued in!

(P.S. I do accept that some natural stones were in times past 'finished' on one surface only, so seating them positively in a box is necessary. Jim Kingshott suggests bedding the stone into the box with plaster-of-paris in such cases.)

 

[WoodMangler]

If I might make a suggestion here.. For users of honing jigs like the Eclipse or Veritas ones, it's useful to extend the slot an inch or so, so you can insert a piece of wood the same thickness as the stone for the jig's roller to run on. This way you get to use the full length of the stone without the jig 'falling off the end'.

 

[rafezetter]

If I might make a suggestion here.. For users of honing jigs like the Eclipse or Veritas ones, it's useful to extend the slot an inch or so, so you can insert a piece of wood the same thickness as the stone for the jig's roller to run on. This way you get to use the full length of the stone without the jig 'falling off the end'.

Totally showing my ignorance but..don't you just turn it around? or should they only be used in one direction to keep the swarf at one end?

 

[G S Haydon]

WoodManglers tip is also mentioned in "Planecraft" by Record Tools from the 1930's. It seems like a sensible idea. I gave it a try and when combined with a sharpening medium resistant to fast wearing it seems fine.

 

[WoodMangler]

WoodManglers tip is also mentioned in "Planecraft" by Record Tools from the 1930's. It seems like a sensible idea.

I claim no originality here, I got it off a woodworking newsgroup about 20 years ago.

Re: the picture, is that a leather-covered wood block for honing on the right ? If so, I have a few questions please :-

1) Is the leather stuck down ?
2) Which side of the leather faces up ?
3) What's the stuff in the tube ?
4) Do you hone using the Eclipse jig, or freehand ?
5) Am I right in thinking you only pull the blade to hone, never push (as it might dig in) ?
6) Do you hone the back as well ?

Alternatively, do you know of a web-site where this described in detail ?

TIA

 

[WoodMangler]

Totally showing my ignorance but..don't you just turn it around? or should they only be used in one direction to keep the swarf at one end?

The longer the stroke, the less strokes you have to make.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

WoodManglers tip is also mentioned in "Planecraft" by Record Tools from the 1930's. It seems like a sensible idea.

I claim no originality here, I got it off a woodworking newsgroup about 20 years ago.

Re: the picture, is that a leather-covered wood block for honing on the right ? If so, I have a few questions please :-

1) Is the leather stuck down ?
2) Which side of the leather faces up ?
3) What's the stuff in the tube ?
4) Do you hone using the Eclipse jig, or freehand ?
5) Am I right in thinking you only pull the blade to hone, never push (as it might dig in) ?
6) Do you hone the back as well ?

Alternatively, do you know of a web-site where this described in detail ?

TIA

Hopefully, Graham's blog will provide the answers, specifically the entries "The Strop" and "Sharpening a Chisel", both under "Latest" at the top left hand side of the page, and "Beginner's Guide to Sharpening" under "Basics".

http://gshaydon.co.uk/blog

 

[G S Haydon]

Thanks CC

WM, yes, leather is stuck down, fluffy side up, autosol which is mildly abrasive metal polish, hone freehand and If a grinder is not at hand I would use the eclipse to guide to get the primary bevel back, I would pull on very small or narrow tools or when breaking the corners of a smoothing plane blade, I do create the same degree of honing on the back as I do the secondary bevel.

You can watch me do it if you like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpWmcmhntGs please note,equally valid alternative methods available and doubtless demostrated much better than I do.