First personal stones, need help.

B

Bocuse

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Aug 22, 2014
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I ordered a set of personal stones. A grit progression of Hard Silicon Carbide and a 1200 grit Soft Aluminum Oxide. So:

Do I need to be using these dry, with oil, or water?

If oil, what kind and how much do I apply?

If water, do these need to be soaked(and for how long) or are they "splash and go" like you do with Shapton Glass?

What do I do when I'm done sharpening? Do I just wipe them off or do I use something on it?

Is there any other maintenance, like deep cleaning every so often? (Have heard clean with paint thinner for oil and scouring powder for water?)

I keep reading about the stones clogging and "loading"; what is this, why is it bad, how do I know when it starts and how do I prevent it from happening or fix it if it starts happening?

Also, how do I know when to move on from one grit to another and what angle should I be shooting for? I have both single and double bevel knives.

Sorry for all the questions, I've have some practice sharpening via a former chef and have watched tons of videos on sharpening but I've had trouble finding answers to these questions.

Thank you for any help or advice you can give me. Have a nice day.
 
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I'm just stealing this from a previous post I made a few days ago as it has a lot of good info.

"Look up HeavyHand's washboard as Fish30114 mentioned and watch the video's and read the instructions to it. MrEdgey, jdavis, neuman2010 on youtube are also people to watch and learn from, one of them is heavyhand (or heavyhanded, cant remember what his name is exactly), and I think one of the other ones is a frequent visitor here.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...5E1C271CE6654B

https://www.youtube.com/user/MrEdgy81/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/Neuman2010/videos"

You can use those stones dry, not reccommended. Water, a lot better (I personally use water mixed with dish soap). And oil which I hear works better, I am having a tad bit of a brain fart as it's 2am here and can't think of the exact oil that most people use but it doubles as a laxative and is food safe. And use as much oil and you need, same with water. I personally like to keep the top of my stones wet when I am using my silicon carbide and india stones and I don't skimp on applying more, your not going to kill these stones by drowning it in water or oil so don't worry.

Just keep in mind going from an stone that is used to oil to water you may run into some issues, but going water to oil is no issue. I forget what the problem was, once again it's 2am but I can't fall asleep.

Admire you handiwork, rinse it off, dry it, let it air dry, worship it, etc. Pick one or more.

I used water and dish soap with mine and have used it quite often and still haven't clogged it and I hear oil works better so don't worry too much about it for now. A quick search should provide more detailed answers than I can provide.

Angles, grits, etc now that is going to get complicated and more in depth than I prefer to write to give you a proper answer that I can think of off the top of my head, hopefully someone can chime in with a more slimmed down answer than I am thinking of. But for angles the lowest angle your knife can support that you can use without damaging the edge when you actually use it (cutting phone book paper doesn't count but actually use your knife like you normally would).
 
How much would you use and how would you clean it afterwards? Just wipe it down? Any other maintenance if I oil to prevent loading or clogging?
 
I use on a 2X8" India stone less than one teaspoon for sharpening a folder of 3-3.5". Afterward just wipe the stone off with a cloth. Most of the swarf comes off. If you want it cleaner give it a shot of WD-40, scrub with a bristle brush and wipe.
We give this information weekly on this topic. Try the search feature. I know you're new so I went ahead and answered. DM
 
Ok, these will be used on kitchen knives from 3" to 14" in length but I guess that doesn't matter when talking about how much oil goes on the stone. I browsed the site and several others and couldn't find the specific info I needed so I made a new thread. Sorry if you answer similar questions frequently.
 
Bocuse said:
I ordered a set of personal stones. A grit progression of Hard Silicon Carbide and a 1200 grit Soft Aluminum Oxide.
Click to expand...

Let's back up a second. Your description sounds *kinda* like oil stones, but the terminology of "hard" and "soft" aren't used for oil stones as far as I know. What stones did you buy?

Brian.
 
Hard and soft refer to the bonding materials used, they are MouldMaster and Super Fine stones from Congress Tools.
 
And yet that had what people used in terms of amount of oil, and a few other methods of application. You have to understand something knife sharpening is one part art the other part science (or knowing what your doing), the exact method of how you get there doesn't matter but getting there does. There are a million different techniques and we are all slightly different in our approach and how we do things. So I may attempt to drown my silicon carbide stones in water/dish soap other guys prefer using a teapsoon of oil or even a few dabs of oil and rub it into the stone as needed, etc. There is no right answer or wrong answer only what works and doesn't work for you.

Just learn what your are suppose to be doing when you sharpen a knife, what to look for, and find or create a technique that works for you to get there.
 
Bocuse said:
Hard and soft refer to the bonding materials used, they are MouldMaster and Super Fine stones from Congress Tools.
Click to expand...

Hmm, ok. Those stones are very thin and narrow. Or other shapes (round, triangular) that aren't normally used for freehand sharpening. I know some people use the triangular ones on a SharpMaker. How are you planning on using these?

Given the little info they have one them, I'd treat them like regular oil stones: Use them dry, or with water, or with oil. I'm inclined towards water, as it has some of the effects of oil without the mess. The resident experts here all seem to like oil on oilstones, and I can't disagree with them because they say the stones load the least when used with oil. I just don't like it, so I use water or nothing.

Once they load up a little, you'll be able to see and feel it. Barkeeper's Friend (a powdered cleanser kind of like Comet) is awesome for removing metal swarf from the stones because it has oxalic acid which attacks the metal.

Normally I'd say the SiC stone would wear the fastest, but I think you're going to see wear on both of them since the binder in the AlO2 stone is "soft". I guess you'll need to figure out a way to flatten them, or when the get too bad, get new ones.

To me they seem like an odd choice, and I'd normally advise against them, but perhaps you have good reasons why you chose them that I'm not aware of.

Best of luck to you.

Brian.
 
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