is there any tricks to useing wet stones?

[Olumin]

In watchmaking school we used a glas plate with a grained abrasive & water to plane stones. We had a fine ceramic and Arkansas stone, as well as a much courser one I forgot the name of. Silicon carbide I think. The latter needed frequent cleaning & planeing I remember.

 

[JCLYMAN]

There are a few must haves. dmt diamond stone, i have the older blue/red combo, i would get the diasharps now if i was getting them as big as you can afford 8-12 inched whtever they have now

the next necessity is 25 dollar combo japanese whetsone, use the diamond stone to true_flatten_the whetstinbe after use. when i used it alot i floated it water since i was using it a few times a week

If you want to learn from one of the best, if your in nyc, watch the master at korin in tribeca, Yes theey used to arguie with me about the diamond stone trueing the whetsone, now they sell them. or there is a great book by leonard lee

Tip, when sharpening, ask yourself whats the intended use, that will effect your included angle. for example, i like my 10 inch chef knife toothy, so my angle is a little higher. most people on double bevel chef knife say the included angle somwehere between 25-32, i think 7 quarters is 28.

truth is witrh all my expensive knives Japanese single bevel and german doules, i havent used a whetstone i 10 years. Diamond stones are much quicker and more efficient.
Freehand sharpening is a learned skill that can be mastered if you practice. practice on old poop knives.
On my search for norton white lilly which is oashita stone from arkansa, joel m of brooklyn had a bunch of them. Took the subway there, walked into his massive woodworking shop.... we spoke....he said he had no more for sale. he said you want to sharpen i said sure.....busted out the only knife i had on me a gentlemans folder a spyder kiwi that i just got with a razor sharp edge, he said start sharpening and i did and as i messed iup the blade, he showed me where i was messing up and the process began. over the next few hours i learned alot, still havent gotten my lilly yet but.......

 

[JCLYMAN]

The key to sharpening on a whetstone is to practice daily for decades...once you build that foundation you can then finally learn how to sharpen on a whetstone.

The secret is honing....if you hone then you won't need to sharpen but about every 6+ months if it's a daily used kitchen knife.
If you don't hone then you must sharpen often.

I send my Japanese kitchen knives to Jason at Traditional Sharpening. I hone before every use.

I sharpen my pocket knives on a paper wheel and/or belt sander.

Stay away from these modern super steels. The harder the steel the harder it is to sharpen.

yeah b ut the super steels like vg-10 etc hold their edge way longer. your correct that steel will work most of the time but when i need to remove metal i use diamond stones while me whetstones are floating in water!

 

[Monocrom]

...Freehand sharpening is a learned skill that can be mastered if you practice. practice on old poop knives...

Agree with everything, except this part.
Some of those poop knives aren't even remotely properly heat treated, if at all. Practicing on those, just a waste of time. They never get sharp.

 

[JCLYMAN]

Agree with everything, except this part.
Some of those poop knives aren't even remotely properly heat treated, if at all. Practicing on those, just a waste of time. They never get sharp.

guess your not ruining good steel!!!

 

[desert.snake]

Agree with everything, except this part.
Some of those poop knives aren't even remotely properly heat treated, if at all. Practicing on those, just a waste of time. They never get sharp.

These unhardened knives are very good for practicing deburring, that is, moving the knife along the workpiece with very little pressure. It will immediately become dull if you start cutting something hard with it, but you can sharpen it sharply. I remembered the video, the man made a knife from rice flour


There is no need to be afraid of modern super steels, today I received a knife made of S30V from a friend, it was dull (they cut food on the plate), it was as easy to sharpen as my Case made from their CV steel (1095 + little chrome and vanadium). I used regular carborundum Norton Crystalon, with diamonds it would be even faster. Here is only the middle stage - fine carborundum, before that, first the rough side of the stone, after - a piece of fine india stone. Interestingly, it had a small burr, which was more difficult to get rid of than on the Case, apparently due to the greater strength of the steel


In my opinion, the main thing is a satisfying result. If a lingering V-sharpener made of tungsten carbide suits a person, then we can only be happy for him, or if other man likes natural Japanese water stones. The only thing I would advise them all is that they need to control the result during the process (magnifying glass, tactile sensations on a nail or a piece of paper or something else). This will allow you to stop at the right moment without wasting extra time and removing excess metal

Ah, well, since the topic is about tricks, then a good option for stones that it is desirable to lubricate with oil (carborundum, aluminum oxide, Arkansas, washita, etc.), use this soap, it protects the stone just as well from contamination with steel powder as oil, but it's easier to wash off later and doesn't damage the skin

But I haven't tried it with Japanese natural stones, I don't think I should, it still contains a little oil and it can ruin the stone

 

[Monocrom]

Just remembered one trick to NOT using them. Use one for quite a long while, especially one side instead of the other, you can dish-out your stone. Once that happens, grab a black magic marker, put a large X on that side. Then only use the other side. If that one gets dished-out, time to completely stop using the stone and buy a new one.

For anyone confused, dishing-out is what happens when one flat side is no longer flat. Instead, the middle of the stone develops a shallow (sometimes not so shallow) valley. Meaning, as you run the blade across it, it becomes literally impossible to sharpen the edge on the stone due to it no longer having a flat surface to maintain contact on.

 

[captianworkbench]

I will echo other's comments in that practice and consistency are key when using a hand held sharpening stone, whichever type or brand you choose. I am typically a very patient person, but in this case I never achieved the success with a hand stone that some others have had. So, with that in mind, years ago, I purchased and stuck with a Lanskey system. Like a few others, it will guide the angle of the stone relative to the blade. This allows me to maintain the desired bevel. Now it did take me some time to reprofile a few of the blades that I have, and now that some of my stones are wearing from years of use, I am upgrading to diamond stones, which will remove material much faster from harder steels. One thing that the Lanskey will not do is larger knives easily. It is too small. There are other systems out there that are similar that have their own pros and cons. I would further say that I would stay away from the powered sharpeners except for when you are working on the lawnmower or edger blade.

 

[bykfixer]

I still use my pop's whet stone that was his pop's. It takes practice and patience to use one. I understand why folks prefer more modern approaches yet there's something satisfying to hone an edge with one. It can be relaxing.

One year I bought a $3 knife that would not cut through butter and spent some hours reshaping the edge like my pop showed me.

About every 3-6 months I spend about 5 minutes re-honing the edge to get it back dangerously sharp again. But frankly I don't want it but so sharp so I don't get sliced closing it. When I first finished the edge I shaved my forearm with it.

Does it hold an edge like a good knife? Certainly not but for $3 and some time it's gotten the job done since about 2015.

 

[Monocrom]

Just a follow-up to my previous post regarding sharpening stones.
That advice does NOT apply to diamond-dust impregnated plastic rectangles in the shape of a traditional sharpening stone. Those never get dished out. And, they work well.

 

[iacchus]

you can reflatten stones, and if you have decent ones part of the care and feeding is to resurface it occasionally to ensure it doesn't dish.

Something like this works, of course there are other more DIY ways out there.

also, the going rule of thumb is above 4% wt Vanadium content, move to diamond. You're just gonna dish or glaze the old arkansas stone.
Are there exceptions? you bet! By the time you learn the exceptions and why they matter, you aren't asking those questions anymore though.

 

[Monocrom]

you can reflatten stones, and if you have decent ones part of the care and feeding is to resurface it occasionally to ensure it doesn't dish.

Something like this works, of course there are other more DIY ways out there.

No offense, literally never heard of a re-flattener for sharpening stones. Most of mine are traditional Arkansas sharpening stones. They'd likely crack or break before they could be re-flattened.

 

[iacchus]

No offense, literally never heard of a re-flattener for sharpening stones. Most of mine are traditional Arkansas sharpening stones. They'd likely crack or break before they could be re-flattened.

some of the nicer stones get quite spendy.
When you are paying several hundred dollars for a single stone, you want the most life out of it as possible.

Like everything else, there is a quality : price spectrum. A flattener lasts a long time and are cheap enough to have on hand if somebody is getting serious about benchstones, though.

 

[Fuzzywuzzies]

Some good comments here, as usual! It's taken me years to find my groove with sharpening edges. I've used everything from dad's whetstone to the Lansky, from pull-throughs (man I hate those things) to the Wicked Edge. I've finally settled on the Tormek, which copes with the volume we do these days.
Even just my pocket knife gets sharpened every 3-10 days; because it get such a beating opening industrial machine crates. (I'm supposed to use a utility knife, but the blades are too short, and I just don't like those things anyway.)

If your usage is low though, it's worth persisting and learning the art of the whetstone. You can get a screaming sharp edge with amazing longevity once you get that hang of it.

My 2 cents

 

[Monocrom]

Must admit, I do use a pull-through sharpener. But only on my cheap as hell kitchen knives. Nothing else.

 

[iacchus]

Probably 80% of my sharpening happens on Fallkniven CC4 & DC4 pocket stones.
Anything up to 5" or so it's quick and easy. I've been nothing but impressed with the edges those little stones can achieve.

I'll still use a guided system on the longer Gyuto or Nakiri in the kitchen. Setting it up is still quicker than soaking stones, and it's swift to set a bevel when it's time.
My kitchen knives are VG10 at ~62rc or so though, so not the toughest thing in the world to get a good edge on.