Stone maintenance Q.

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P_A_S_1

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Feb 17, 2021
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After cleaning my bench stones I often rub them together under running water with some soap to help keep them flat and deglazed. They're all nortons.... a hard arkansas, a med india, and a combo crystolon... all used with water instead of oil. Is this good practice or not? Ive read threads about lapping with grit but would rubbing them together not do the same thing? Is there a negative to this practice?
 
As long as it's working for you keep doing it. Provided the stones are the same size they will actually be flatter than what loose grit will do.
Being a dinosaur I frequently rub stones together also. Usually the same species but not always.
Simple, effective and economical.
 
the only thing I'd worry about is embedding larger grit from the course stone into the finner stone and causing scratches in your knife when you transition over. doesn't seem like a big issue as those particles will probably fall out pretty easy
 
I wouldn’t do that with the Norton hard Arkansas stone. You are changing The surface when you rub the stones together. The hard stone is a finishing stone, and I wouldn’t want to put anything on it other than water and steel.
 
Artyh said:
I wouldn’t do that with the Norton hard Arkansas stone. You are changing The surface when you rub the stones together. The hard stone is a finishing stone, and I wouldn’t want to put anything on it other than water and steel.
Click to expand...
Changing how?
 
You could be making the Arkansas rougher, especially with the Crystolon stone. Also, if not careful, you can round the edges and also reduce how flat the stone is. Norton Hard Arkansas stones are expensive and I would only try to rub something on them that I wanted to sharpen. If the stone goes out of flat, and needs to be flattened, that is a different story. I have a few Norton Hard Arkansas stones, and they are pretty flat and excellent for woodworking blades. They are finished better than other Arkansas stones that I have. The India and Crystolon stones are impregnated with oil. If you want to use the Arkansas with water (as I do and prefer water), I would try to keep oil off the stone. Norton hard Arkansas stones have gotten very expensive and so I am careful with mine. It is also more difficult to get good ones, and Nortons are the best that I have seen. I also have some Dan’s stones, and they are not as flat as my Norton stones. As mentioned by another poster, you could get particles from the other stones lodged in the Arkansas and reduce how fine it is.
 
They are expensive, mine was pricey. I agree with the rougher part however it does make it faster which I like. Appreciate the explanation, thanks
 
Pretty often I will rub 2 stones together in order to clean them and check for flatness.
As for my translucent Arks I like to keep one of them dressed with 30/60 grit SiC. This gives the advantage of sharpening on a fine stone but it gives a little more speed and doesn’t have the suction feedback of a regular translucent.

Totally unnecessary but I like to sharpen and change things up a bit.
 
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