Japanese water stone question

madpawn

madpawn

Joined
Jan 5, 2017
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I am a sharpening newbie, just look in my kitchen, all my knives are dull. After viewing a bunch of videos on YouTube, I decided on a King deluxe 1000 stone, a King S-3 6000, a King nagura stone, made my own sink bridge to hold both stones, and glued some veg tanned leather to a piece of 2X4 that also fit on my sink bridge for a strop. I got some green stropping compound for the leather and started sharpening. This was going to be a 3-step process and scary sharp was what I was aiming for.
First step with the 1000 stone went okay, I cut into the stone a couple of times but finally got my strokes down where I was only applying pressure when the edge was trailing. I maintained my angle as well as I could but still managed to scuff up a few places above the cutting bevel. It's not super pretty but I think I can fix it later with the buffing wheel on my Grizzly.
On the second step with the 6000 stone is where I have my question. while I was making the sink bridge and fitting it for the slightly larger 6000 stone, I chipped a fairly big piece off the top. I didn't realize it was so fragile. I had already removed the stone from its cheap plastic base at this point and scraped the glue from the bottom so I thought, I would just sharpen on the bottom un-chipped side. Good idea, right? There was discoloration on the stone from the glue but it was flat and smooth. Immediately I notice the 6000 stone was reacting differently than the 1000. I was leaving lots of black streaks. I used the nagura to erase these and to create the slurry it was made for and started again. Same result. Now I'm thinking that discoloration is some glue solvent that seeped into the stone so I flipped it over to work on the top, chipped side, but I notice the same black streaking effect. Now I'm not sure if I have completely messed up this stone by bringing some glue solvent to the unglued side with the nagura or it's normal to get much more black streaks than the 1000 stone? The slurry from the nagura on the 6000 is a little glue-like and not like the 1000 slurry without nagura. Has anyone ever done what I did or am I the only idiot? I would just buy another 6000 stone but it cost me $37 and I'd like to salvage it if I can. Maybe sand it down where the discoloration is gone?
 
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Pictures would help a lot.

Usually, streaks mean the stone is being worked too dry.
Did you re-flatten the stone on an arato, flattening master stone, or 100 grit diamond plate?
 
what kind of steel on the blade, high carbon?
black streaks are normal on the 6000 stone,
that's the blade being honed

keep rinsing the stone with water
you don't want a slurry, you want the stone clean

see the black arc

mTKzsIX.jpg
 
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I agree with Harbeer that the King 6000 can load up with swarf from a carbon steel blade and get black streaks on it. I can't remember the last time I put stainless steel on it, but I'm guessing you'd still get swarf from it on the stone. The feel of the King 1000 and 6000 are very different to me, as well as the mud that you can get from the stones.
 
Thanks all. The blade is forged from 5160. It is my first knife. I have a video of me chopping coconuts on this forum. You can see when it came to chopping the water bottle, it didn't do so well. That's when I decided I needed to learn sharpening.
Thanks for the picture HSC. My 6000 stone started out a nice even light beige color but now when it's wet, it has freckles. That worried me too. I assume it is normal looking at your stone. Are you sure you don't want a slurry? I thought that's what the Nagura is for?
Thanks Stacy. No, I didn't pre-soak the 6000. I thought it was splash-and-go. I couldn't make sense of the directions on the box. It was in Japanese. I only pre-soaked the 1000. And I didn't re-flatten either stone. I thought they come flat from the factory.
Thank you milkbaby. I learned a new word today, "swarf".
 
madpawn said:
Are you sure you don't want a slurry? I thought that's what the Nagura is for?
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. all I know about sharpening I learned from Murray Carter, you can see in any one of his sharpening videos online, he constantly splashes water on the stones to wash away the slurry and keep the stone clean.

If you learn anything different, I'm interested to know.
regards
 
HSC /// said:
. all I know about sharpening I learned from Murray Carter, you can see in any one of his sharpening videos online, he constantly splashes water on the stones to wash away the slurry and keep the stone clean.

If you learn anything different, I'm interested to know.
regards
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I watched the Korin Knives videos on YouTube and only a few Murray Carter ones. I was also on the Burrfection channel but Ricky talks too much. :)
My understanding is that the slurry helps with the polish and should not be washed off.
 
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madpawn said:
I watched the Korin Knives videos on YouTube and only a few Murray Carter ones. I was also on the Burrfection channel but Ricky talks too much. :)
My understanding is that the slurry helps with the polish and should not be washed off.
Click to expand...
have a look at this video and lmk what you think

 
HSC /// said:
have a look at this video and lmk what you think

Click to expand...
Thanks HSC for sending this video. What he says makes sense to me. I was thinking slurry help with "polish" but on a 6000 stone you are still "cutting", right? In any case, I am going to strop afterwards with green compound. That should give all the polish it needs. I won't be buying another nagura stone but will still stick with the water stones. After all, I've already got them and built a sink bridge.
 
My experience with most water stones (I wasted a lot of money monkeying with them), is that most are too soft unless you're specifically sharpening Japanese style bevels or others where you can sharpen to a zero edge by laying the bevel flat against the stone. Maybe I never got the technique right, but I tried a bunch of the highly regarded ones and simply found them to suck for flat ground knives with a secondary edge bevel that has to be held at angle. They're just way too easy to gouge and dish quickly destroying your edge when you're holding it above grade.


I settled on the Shapton glass stones finally, which are hard, and cut like a champ for almost anything I've ever used with it from carbon to high perf stainless, although I still have a course large arkansas bench stone, that gets a lot of work when I'm establishing final edges for the first time on my knives, it's roughly "400" grit, is a great transition after setting up the final edge on a 200 grit shapton glass, then I go from there to a 1k shapton, and finish with a few strokes on an old Coticule hone, too many swipes and I'll end up with a slick edge that pops hair but wont cut meat or thin plastic worth a shit. Personally other than occasionally buffing (extremely light, single pass on a stiff buff with green compound) a stubborn bur, I never go further than this. However in fairness, I'm not making highly specialized single task knives that need to make daikon paper or whatever. I expect almost any blade I make to cut any material, easily and aggressively. I have no need for an edge that'll tree-top hairs, or shave letters off newspaper but not anything that's tough or abrasive.



Most of the problems I see with people sharpening, especially trying to take to insane grits, is they start too high, and never actually establish a fine edge before moving up. You can shave at 200 grit if you know what you're doing, it's not a fine shave (of course, it's toothy edged at this point), but if you can't do that, or consistently cut paper, you haven't gone far enough, or you've got a rolled bur in your way.
 
You should always check the flatness of stones even if new. They should be flat, but I prefer to make sure by marking a grid in pencil and flatting with a very coarse diamond plate.
 
While I am a new knifemaker hobbyist I have been sharpening knives on stones most my life. I switched from arkansas oil stones about 10 years ago to Japanese water stones. I use Naniwa in 600 then 1000 then 3000 then 5000 then 10000 then green compound on a leather strop. I soak mine fully submerged for about 15 minutes before starting.

The slurry is critical in helping to refine the edge. By washing it off your just wasting the life of your stone and your time. You do add more water as you sharpen because it will dry it out the longer you go but dont add so much that you wash the slurry off. Keep it wet, keep the slurry, hold the angle and progress through tje the grits evenly and you will be sharp as sharp in no time. I use a resurfacing stone after every knife so its ready to go for the next knife. A really dull knife to a really sharp knife takes me about half an hour.
 
Javand is dead-on. You can't use a 6K stone to establish a bevel. If your edge won't shave a forearm after a 1K, it won't improve at all at those higher grits. Come to think of it, those super-fine grits aren't useful for real-life cutting. Once you've established a crazy-fine edge, the first carrot you slice will knock it back down. I can't imagine needing anything finer than 2K for practical use. I touch up my straight razors with 8K and 12K stones, but knives? Never.

Oh, and the stone discoloration is normal. The streaking is probably just metal particles. Rinse it off if it bothers you ... or take advantage of the slurry and keep sharpening.
 
Shapton glass or diamond plate are very nice for leading edge strokes on microbevels.
For higher grits either buy natural stones or go for top Chosera, those are hard enough not to gouge under your leading edge.
Take it very easy with trailing strokes, very light, only at the end of the final honing process, just a few strokes....otherwise you'll raise an ugly foil burr, difficult to eliminate with a flitz loaded linen stropping
 
Wow, thanks for all the extra information fellas! I'm going to look into getting a stone flattener. None of you have ever removed a stone from its plastic base, removed the glue, and used the bottom side? I may be an idiot apart on this one...
 
madpawn said:
None of you have ever removed a stone from its plastic base, removed the glue, and used the bottom side? ...
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The Naniwa ones I buy dont come with any bases on them. I use one of them stone gripper/holder things bought seperatly. Sorry I cant recall what they are called.
 
Should have gone with Naniwa... I like the sink bridge idea so I built one. It holds the stones and the mess goes into the sink. I have a double sink so I can have the stones soaking on the right and the bridge on the left. Washing or getting water on the stones is easier too.
 
After doing more sharpening this weekend, here are my findings. If you damage or dish the top of a King stone that is glued to a base, you can remove the base and use the bottom side. You have to scrape off the glue and sand it until you cannot see any discoloration from the glue that seeped into the stone (solvent?). Just getting it flat will not be sufficient. You can see the discoloration when you soak the stone in water. If you don't do this, the solvent will combine with the slurry and probably will not be effective for sharpening. But most importantly, it will leave tobacco-like stains on your blade and you can potentially transfer that solvent to something else like a Nagura stone. I chipped a big piece off the top of my King 6000 stone which led to all of this. I don't recommend using the bottom but it can be done.
 
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