Wearing down a coarse silicon carbide stone?

Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
366
I have reshaped many 1095 and 5610 blades before and now I'm on my 3rd 3V blade with this stone and it's taking a very long time. I was feeling the side of this coarse silicon carbide stone stone and noticed it was more aggressive by a margin. I am wonder if I wore the thing smooth, it feels almost as smooth as he soft arkansas stone. Worth it to get a new one?

Oh, an I have tried both sandpaper and diamond stones, they both wore out quickly.
 
Maybe you just need to clean the surface to get rid of filings that may have settled in?

Or you could relevel it to expose fresh material under the current surface.
 
I've rebeveled dozens of blades on the coarse side of my jb8, a lot of them much more wear resistant than 3v.
I think it gets coarser the more it's used.
What brand is yours, and Do you use oil ?
 
Might want to try taking some soap and water with the coarse/scotch brite side of a sponge and see if you can get the metal particles that get compacted into the grit.
For taking away a lot of material, if you do it a lot, might want to invest in a cheap belt grinder.
 
How do you relevel it?

Try cleaning it first as others have suggested also. After you have cleaned it, use water or oil as you're sharpening to wash the steel bits from settling onto the stone surface.

To relevel, you can youtube "flattening sharpening stone." people use a portion of a flat cement sidewalk to $20 to $50 flattening stones to real expensive flattening stones.
 
To relevel, you can youtube "flattening sharpening stone." people use a portion of a flat cement sidewalk to $20 to $50 flattening stones to real expensive flattening stones.

Yup, that'll work,
abrasive grain/grit on a piece of glass or a tile or another stone is about as basic and advanced as it gets,
theoretically available for $1-$3,
the $0-$1 version is loosen grain from your existing stone,
so the steps are,
mark stone surface up with a pencil , its flat when pencil marks are gone,
use a nail to scratch the surface and loosen some grit,
followed by a short 10-20 second rub (figure eight movements) with lube (water or oil whatever you regularly use) on another stone (dollar tree) or a brick or concrete or glass ...
thats all you need to condition/resurface stones like regular hardware store stone (sic or alumox, hard bond "oil stone")
if pencil marks are gone you're finished, you've just conditioned your stone, flush/wash and use for sharpening
if there is pencil left after 10-20 seconds, it needs flattening, so just keep rubbing until pencil is removed,
after its flat, then wash/flush the stone, and condition it (scratch with nail to loosen some grit, rub 10-20 seconds max , stop)

more detail in How To straighten/flatten out a lansky stone ??
 
A Norton SiC coarse stone will wear and require leveling. But I'd clean it first w/ a wire brush and comet. Then if unlevel I mark it with a Sharpie and start rubbing on a flat area of wetted concrete. I've Never noticed any improvement after 20-30 seconds. Improvement occurs after 30 minutes. I can be mostly finished in 45 minutes to an hour. Scrap up the grit and save it in a jar. To be used later on a strop. I would not scratch it with a nail. DM
 
Thanks for all the feed back. I actually found another Sic in my closet I forgot about. Would it be terrible to use that stone to relevel this one?

Note: the other stone is a little more awkward to use, and I don't exactly want to start using a new stone when the old one just needs a small touch up.
 
Personally I'd say no as you could easily just wind up glazing both of them.

If you have some blasting grit or maybe even play sand to use as a lapping grit between the two, then go right ahead - plenty of water and I like to use a blob of dishsoap to hold it together a bit. Figure 8s and swap end for end every so often, adding extra grit as needed.
 
Yes, I would not do that either. I'd use a surface that was more coarse. Rub in that fashion ^ for 5-10 minutes. Then look at it. DM
 
Personally I'd say no as you could easily just wind up glazing both of them...
Learned that the hard way. Slightly soapy water + sand on flat sidewalk seems to work OK for cheaper SIC stones. Also polishes the sidewalk smooth.
 
Lighter fluid and a steel brush cleans sic stones great IMHO. I have a 10×3×3 sic stone and all 4 sides glazed . I used boiling water , bar keepers friend, dawn , acetone ,ballistol,wd-40 oven cleaner and lighter fluid (not all at the same time ) . Anyhow the lighter fluid worked the best and globs and globs of slurry came off , the other stuff I listed worked out but the lighter fluid was the best .
 
Back
Top