How to travel with waterstones

karnaknives

karnaknives

Joined
Jul 28, 2021
Messages
1,344
Hello all,
This is my first post here (long time listener, first time caller)...
I am going to be traveling out of state by car, and taking some waterstones with me to do a little sharpening for family while visiting.
Question is:
Is there any best way for the stones to travel?
At the moment they are all dry, and in their original boxes (minus the bubble wrap that came on some).
Is dry preferable to wet? I'll need to plan my time accordingly if they need time to dry.
I have a tote with a lid for the various stones and things, maybe wrap them in a towel, inside the tote?

Now that I got my toe wet here I look forward to being part of the community here.
Thank you
 
Well, you didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway...
First, I decided to only travel with splash and go stones, so that helps alleviate some of the worry I have about moving wet or damp stones.
Second, I cut pieces of cardboard to fill the voids within each of the original boxes the stones are carried in, 2 pieces each, top and bottom, and the stones can't 'bounce' in their boxes.
Can't imagine I need to do much more than that, considering these came to me on a truck and they survived.
 
I have a dmt coarse/fine that I always have in my car. It's extremely likely that the edge off a coarse is way better than the rounded over edges on knives that are in serious need of sharpening.
 
Bill3152 said:
I have a dmt coarse/fine that I always have in my car. It's extremely likely that the edge off a coarse is way better than the rounded over edges on knives that are in serious need of sharpening.
Click to expand...

Normally that would be my approach as well, but I'm going to my daughter's, and I'll be sharpening a few above average knives that should be in fair shape, and I'd like to show her the whole process. So I'm taking a few grits with me and I'll be attempting to show off a little :)
 
Shapton makes a 3 stone travel set with a holder which doubles as a sharpening base. The 500, 2000, and 16,000 grit stones are splash and go.
 
I'd leave 'em at home and take a diamond hone like the DMT Diafold. Water stones and natural hones like Arkansas are great for high carbon steels with low carbide volumes, but diamonds can sharpen any steel. If your kinfolks aren't into sharpening, I doubt they'd know any difference, except their knives will be appreciably keener.
 
Buy a Spyderco medium ceramic bench-stone. Comes with a great plastic case with rubber feet, perfect for travel and good for everything. For me, at least :)
 
Based on the replies there’s several things I’ll look into for future trips. But this trip has been a lot easier than I expected and the worry was unfounded.
My Chocera and Shapton splash and goes of course travelled well and the one soaker I brought, my Suehiro Ouka 3000 also survived the trip.
I also had my Sharpmaker in the mix and it came in handy for a couple small blades.
The only reason I’d do things differently in the future is weight. My tote/tub and stones and other items weighed quite a bit and while not too heavy to carry wasn’t as truly portable as it could be.

I did get to sharpen several knives, nothing fancy, but not terrible stuff either. There was a set of Henckels Classics (Spain), a few pocket folders and a couple of other kitchen knives I couldn’t identify.
 
When I do this I pack them in my cloths. I “ranger roll” my cloths. When I pack so I just space out any stones I’m bringingnd roll them up in the cloths.

I also don’t bring my expensive stones. If I know I’m going to be dealing with hard hard steel I bring the diamonds. If I’m dealing with German steel I just pack my King 1000/6000 combo and call it a day.

If I come across a damaged knife I’ll run by Walmart and buy a cheap stone to grind on to fix chips or damaged edges. I just bought one last week at Walmart for 9 bucks.
 
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