Can anyone identify this stone...and is it usable?

Joined
May 17, 2013
Messages
33
Found it laying around the house. Looks pretty rough. I did read a post saying how to clean up old stones but I'm not really sure if this is any good or if it could be fixed, heh. Thanks!

pS1sIQWh.jpg


QmO2PuLh.jpg
 
It looks useable, just sand the face of the stone until you get a flat surface. As to identifying it, its near impossible unless it has the brand name on the side.
 
I've no idea what it actually is, but it looks like fun. Best way to find out if it's usable as a sharpening stone, is to try it out. Personally, I'd be all over that experiment, in a hurry. :D

I'd try it first on something in a simple carbon steel (1095, CV) or basic stainless like 420HC (Case 'Tru-Sharp' stainless or Buck's standard-line knives, for example).


David
 
Heh, alright, i'll try it on a crappy folder I have! Are these stones all the same or do they have different grits (i'm not even sure if this is the proper terminology lol)? Are both sides the same?

Thanks guys!
 
It does look like a silicon carbide stone or maybe aluminum oxide, im not sure.
You can soak it in kerosene to dissolve oil and clean the swarf a bit, not very sure if its easy to do but maybe you can somehow lap and flatten it on a not-so-rough concrete surface.

Considering the probable price it may not worth it that much. (i had the same kind of stones as a kid and i remember it losing grit at a very fast rate and thus dishing fast too but it sure removed quite a lot of metal.)
 
They come in different grits. Your's looks about medium, at a guess.
Good quality construction wears & dishes slowly. Poor quality wears away like wet sand.
You will do no damage giving it a try. Giving it a good scrub in hot water & detergent is a simple way to clean. They are tough, don't be worried about wrecking it.
 
Here is how I flattened my stone: Make some marks on the face of the stone so you can tell when the stone is flat. I bought a 10" x 10" concrete paver from Wally World. If you have square concrete paver laying about that should work as well. Buy some sand. Wet the paver and through a handful of sand on it. Scrub the stone of the paver in a circular/figure 8 motion.

Or you can sharpen on the ends. Your choice because either will work.
 
It looks to be a coarse/ fine combination SiC stone. Seeing it ground off like that, makes me think the binders are weak. If so, it will still work on kitchen cutlery. Just level it by rubbing it on flat concrete with water. Then try sharpening on it using mineral oil. DM
 
Definately a combination stone. The wear pattern leads me to
think it was used to sharpen a scythe or a sickle.
 
No , and not unless you can flatten it on some concrete , gonna take awhile so grab a brew.....
 
It's usable, and it looks to be a good stone from how much use it seems to have had in its past life. You just have to decide if you have the patience to true it up (flatten it) before you put a blade to it. As far as the manufacturer, there's no way to know for sure without a maker's mark. I find stones like yours at garage sales & flea markets here, many of them in worse shape than the one in your pics. I have fifteen so far, maybe more. I have at least six or seven I haven't trued up yet. The first thing I do is set them on my glass plate, with the worn side down, and measure the wear with a standard ruler. If the "dip" is too deep (more than a quarter of the material depth for that side of the stone), I don't bother with it. The second thing I do is soak every stone I get for an hour or two (sometimes several soaks) in hot water to get rid of the oil in them, especially if they're gummed up. It's hard to tell how coarse a stone is when it's never been cleaned. The other thing is do NOT try to get rid of those rounded-off edges. From my experience, you'll only make it worse, and end up with an ugly paperweight that looks like an anorexic brick. (Don't ask me how I know, I refuse to comment. :rolleyes:)

I had a flat steel plate I used for years with silicon carbide grit & water - I originally got the idea by watching a guy in our cabinet shop flatten plane bottoms like that. Then I dropped it during a move and cracked it :grumpy: so I recycled it. I now have a piece of plate glass that I use with the same grits (wear nitrile gloves!), and I checked it with a steel machinist's straight edge last year and it's still almost perfectly flat. For the stones in the worst condition, I just start by scrubbing the stone on our driveway (you just need a flat spot), then move to the glass with the grits (or emery cloth) & water, and work my way to a finer grit. If the stone has a deep dip in the middle, don't push downward to hard, or you risk having one semi-useful stone turn into two useless ones instantly. You can seriously screw up a good stone, so go slow.

There are products like "Eze-Lap", but they can be pricey if your only flattening one or a few stones. I've had varying degrees of success with things I use, so I haven't bothered spending money on any of those products, other than the silicone carbides grits.

If you really want to get this stone into workable condition, give those things a try, and if nothing else, email me and I'll send you my address, and I'll see if I can get it flattened for you.

~Chris
 
Last edited:
I would SO use that stone. I'd flatten it first, but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it. From what I understand old stones are often better quality than new stones.

I'm not sure if it's indicative of quality, but while at the store a few weeks back I noticed that two of the Norton SiC stones were very different from each other, both in size and color. They both had the same part number too, but were made in two different countries, neither of which were ours.

I bought the smaller (but much darker, almost completely black) stone and it's working okay (although it's loaded up and I'm having trouble UN-loading it), but I'd rather have an old US made stone.
 
Back
Top