Washita with Funny Steels

[D_W]

I make boring videos. Some of you guys know that. One of the things that I made a video about a while ago was trying to get newbies to not cast off things like using a single washita stone to sharpen (because it's quite nice!). I still get questions through the youtube message system (for people who don't want to post their questions in public) about buying or using washitas.

I also have glom of strange steels, though I prefer stanley/mathieson/ward type stuff. At any rate, I don't love getting out other kit just to sharpen funny steels and I thought I might make a video sharpening the clown steels on a washita. I know which ones do already (A2 is fine), and which don't (M4 is a no-no - you can burnish it and that's it), and which are in between (the in betweens like V11 will grade a washita - they sharpen fine once, but if you sharpen a couple of times, the stone stops cutting and won't even work over a fresh grind).

What I noticed is that some of the very tough steels (like what Mujingfang uses in some ill-constructed chisels) is very tough, but also sharpens on natural stones - more slowly than carbon steel and the bevel needs to be kept small, but well enough and the edge is fine. They are high speed steels - I've intentionally ground them cherry red and allowed them to cool and they seem unaffected, blue tip and all. I suspect they are a tungsten high speed steel, because I licked one and it tasted like a light bulb. That's a scientific test with a 40 standard deviation confidence, I guarantee it.

I wish western manufacturers who want to use clown steel would find out what muji uses, and adopt that. Since Muji's clown steel irons (which fit their planes and not stanley) are about $12, maybe the western manufacturers could just buy some hardened stock from Muji and braze it onto their irons.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

How do you know what lightbulubs taste like?

 

[bugbear]

Washita is rather hard to get hold of here - I know it falls of every flea market
stall and yard sale in the US, but not here.

BugBear

 

[NazNomad]

How do you know what lightbulbs taste like?

He's American, doesn't that answer your question? :-D

 

[Trafalgar]

Not sure I'd go so far as to taste the tungsten filament of a light bulb, but there it is anyway.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

If you are going to limit yourself to a Washita, then it is not the steels that are silly. Don't step outside the array of 'simple' steels and you might be OK, but it is foolish to expect more exotic steels not to require more modern sharpening media and then complain. I have had no trouble with anything I've tried to hone, but I don't limit myself to one stone. That said, I don't fuss and faff about either. I have a reasonably simple set up, that works.

Mike.

 

[D_W]

How do you know what lightbulubs taste like?

I licked the filament once and it tasted like T1 high speed steel!

 

[Trafalgar]

You're an interesting guy David, I'll give you that.

 

[lurker]

How do you know what lightbulbs taste like?

He's American, doesn't that answer your question? :-D

I am pretty sure Joseph Swann (inventor of the lightbulb) did much the same :wink:

Regarding steel from China. Before I retired, I worked in the nuclear industry, we had a devil of a job finding uncontaminated steel as the Chinese had cornered the market and was recycled radiologically contaminated tungsten. Took around ten years to work itself out of the marketplace. Just suggesting that tool manufacturers might not be entirely sure what their steel might truely be.

 

[bridger]

Hello,

If you are going to limit yourself to a Washita, then it is not the steels that are silly. Don't step outside the array of 'simple' steels and you might be OK, but it is foolish to expect more exotic steels not to require more modern sharpening media and then complain. I have had no trouble with anything I've tried to hone, but I don't limit myself to one stone. That said, I don't fuss and faff about either. I have a reasonably simple set up, that works.

Mike.

I didn't see where DW was complaining. he set up a parameter- one washita stone sharpening- and explored the parameters.

 

[memzey]

No I didn't think it was a complaint either. More like stating that a Washita is a good option for single stone honing and then exploring where the limits are. On that topic; I have a Pike Lilly white which I like a lot. Really fast on the vintage steels I use but still perhaps a bit finer than a Norton fine India in grade. I use it before a couple of swipes on a black Ark and finish with a basic strop. If I was only going to limit myself to one stone it would be the Washita, failing that, a fine India. I have no idea how they work on snazzy and expensive modern steels as I've never felt the need to go down that path. I doubt I do enough hand work or have the skills to explore their potential so vintage Sheffield steel still rules in my shed!

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I'm sorry if I misunderstood, but to me calling things funny steel or clown steel because it can't be sharpened on a Washita is something other than objective. Or putting it another way, a snarky complaint. It is nothing the OP hasn't said before but in round about ways and his conclusion is always the same; how unnecessary, useless, blah, blah, modern tool steel is and how all we need is the softer, easier old stuff that isn't made anymore.....perhaps I was just predicting how this was going to go.... again.

Mike.

 

[D_W]

Hello,

I'm sorry if I misunderstood, but to me calling things silly steel or clown steel because it can't be sharpened on a Washita is something other than objective. Or putting it another way, a snarky complaint. It is nothing the OP hasn't said before but in round about ways and his conclusion is always the same; how unnecessary, useless, blah, blah, modern tool steel is and how all we need is the softer, easier old stuff that isn't made anymore.....perhaps I was just predicting how this was going to go.... again.

Mike.

It's not snark, it's fun. I have a bunch of the clown steels, and either have or have had just about every sharpening medium that's been widely available. I've even tried coticules in the wood shop (the belgians and some french like them, but I think they fall short of the utility that arkansas stones have).

HAP40/M4 sharpens very easily on diamonds, which pretty much means that everything else will. Of course, it doesn't do much other than grade an arkansas stone, which I've found PM V11 to do, too (though the india stone works a burr up on V11 with no issue, and you can chase it with a washita).

I just made a very very long and boring video honing the two on a washita and then getting an idea for sharpness based on how thin of a white pine shaving I could get. By no means a test of practical use, I don't use shavings as thin as I could get very often because a surface has to be worked for a while to remove even the camber profile of heavier shavings when you go to shavings that are sub thousandth.

Just as an aside, I found other anomalies when I used a suita stone a couple of years ago and tried various things on it. It abraded the chinese HSS very quickly, but was slow on plain carbon steel that was at the upper hardness limit. In that was a couple of ward irons that I have that are so hard that they must be 65 on the c scale. They were almost unused. I'll bet the guys who got them in old griffiths planes (where they came from) gave up on them.

I did find something in all of this - A2, like of the LN type (which is the best A2 I've found), sharpens fine on a washita. You wouldn't want to do major flattening, but that can be done on sandpaper. V11 grades the washita and you have to scuff it every few sharpenings - I think that's a pain. And my hardest ward irons are still too much for most anything that's been pulled out of the ground and cut.

 

[essexalan]

I wonder if DW turned off the power before licking the filament? For a while it seemed every decent stone I turned up in one of those house clearance emporiums was a Washita buried under years of muck, all the salesman wanted to sell me was the nice box it came in. Dread to think how many have gone to landfill but hardly ever see any now. I think Muji call that steel A2 which it most definitely isn't and wasn't it the Aussies who tipped Record irons with something similar? Sharpened mine on diamond plates and then stropped with diamond loaded balsa. Muji planes are great to use and once sharp they seem to stay sharp will have to check and see if they glow in the dark! I will not be sharpening them on a Washita though.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

How do you know what lightbulbs taste like?

He's American, doesn't that answer your question? :-D

I am pretty sure Joseph Swann (inventor of the lightbulb) did much the same :wink:

.

I don't know about Swann, but Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the first battery did do it by taste. He noticed that copper and zinc on his tongue together had a different taste to either individually, and thought it might be related to static charges he had been researching. A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I made a 4 volt battery from 4 potatoes some copper strips and some galvanised nails to light up an LED bulb from a bike light for her school project and we did a bit of reading up on Volta and Galvani.
Apologies for diversion. Paddy

 

[D_W]

Washita is rather hard to get hold of here - I know it falls of every flea market
stall and yard sale in the US, but not here.

BugBear

They're not as common here, either. I've gotten about half or more of the washitas I've bought from the UK, as you guys were major importers of the things.

They have been pulled up by the great sucking sound on ebay, so when they are in an antique market around here for a low price, they end up with an ebay dealer (someone who has time to rifle through antique malls during the day). At the local flea market here, there are dealer hours before the place opens to the public, and there is a tool collector with a booth. He gets everything from every unknowing dealer.

We can get used india stones in droves, and carborundum, but not much for arkansas stones. There are a lot of tool and die shops around here, and those guys still use india stones. And by the looks of them, they use them until the suface clogs and then get another one.

 

[mr edd]

Anyone heard of the tomahawk brand washita, it has a large red label Washita stuck on the top face and suggests using pike brand non drying light oil.

This made it quite easy to identify!!

Lightish colour mottled with brown.

Picked it up from an antiques shop near Cambridge for £15.

 

[D_W]

If it doesn't say pike on it somewhere, the suggestion of pike oil still suggests a pike stone.

Never heard of it here, but most stuff is labeled one of the following in the states:
* Pike no 1
* Pike Rosy Red
* Pike lilywhite
* mechanics friend
* woodworker's delight
* carpenter's friend (or delight?)
* carpenter's choice
* Norton or behr manning with any of the first three labels above, sometimes norton or behr manning stones just say "washita" with no other grade
* Keen Kutter washita

The bulk of the stones that I have gotten are non-labeled, and the only one I've come across outside of ebay was non-labeled.