jig for Japanese Water Stones?

B

Ballard_st

Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
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I've been meaning tomake a dharpmaker style jig, to hold my stones at a fixed angle so I can just hold my knives vertical. I've seen people use Arkansas stones with this you're of jig.

I just inherited a couple of used Japanese Water Stones. Well my idea still work? I'm worried I've heard they're supposed to be submerged while you use them? Would periodically re-wetting them keep them wet enough? Or that the slush might not stay on correctly if the stone is at an angle?

Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.
 
That hurt to read... you want a jig.. use little stones.. you want to use Japanese water stones.. learn to use your hands... with no jigs.. otherwise IMO it is counter intuitive..
 
sloth357 said:
That hurt to read... you want a jig.. use little stones.. you want to use Japanese water stones.. learn to use your hands... with no jigs.. otherwise IMO it is counter intuitive..
Click to expand...

+1

Using jigs on waterstones can cause a number of issues.
 
I thought you were talking about the basic whetstone holder, which is just a wooden base for the stone.
 
I've seen a lot of good reviews of this style, I just want sure if it would work with the Japanese stones I ended up with.
 
Japanese waterstones need to have water on the surface for proper sharpening, at such an angle it would be difficult to do that.
 
You can also make a jig that holds the stone at a lower angle -- say 15 degrees or 20 degrees -- basically a ramp. Instead of holding the blade vertically on the sharpening stroke, you hold it horizontally. With waterstones, you can keep more water on the stone, and the sharpening posture you take is almost identical to that of the standard freehand position.

With these jigs, you can set an angle as accurately as you can hold a blade in the horizontal position. The ramp jig can be adjustable, and it can also serve as a holder for your strop so you can maintain a near-perfect angle. The more perfectly you can hold a proper angle on the strop, the lighter the pressure you can use and the better your results.
 
Twindog said:
You can also make a jig that holds the stone at a lower angle -- say 15 degrees or 20 degrees -- basically a ramp. Instead of holding the blade vertically on the sharpening stroke, you hold it horizontally. With waterstones, you can keep more water on the stone, and the sharpening posture you take is almost identical to that of the standard freehand position.

With these jigs, you can set an angle as accurately as you can hold a blade in the horizontal position. The ramp jig can be adjustable, and it can also serve as a holder for your strop so you can maintain a near-perfect angle. The more perfectly you can hold a proper angle on the strop, the lighter the pressure you can use and the better your results.
Click to expand...

I am going this route myself but I realized there's no free lunch in that while this makes it easy to hold the blade in a horizontal position, I think you have to be mindful of the direction of the movement you use to move the knife. The force would have to be parallel to the stone or else you'd be digging into the stone which may cause problems.

Having the stones horizontal means you have to develop a method to consistently and reliably hold the blade at the right angle and having the stones at an angle means you have to develop a method to consistently and reliably apply the right directional force to move the blade across the stone. But, like I said, I'm still moving in this direction and I'll see if this is a real issue or if there are some other issues.
 
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