Water stone stiction question

[Chris Merriam]

Hey guys, I'm a self taught sharpener. I've done LOTS of reading but don't have too many hours actually sharpening. I just bought a new plane and was flattening the back of the iron on Shapton ceramics 1k,5k,8k.

on the 5k things got weird. The blade would ride across the surface like its on a cushion of air, which I'm assuming is stiction right? I tried a drop of dish soap in my spray bottle and it didn't help. If the stone is not making a nice swish-swish sound, does that mean it's not cutting at all?

i ended up having to go really slow, and apply lots of downward pressure to avoid the iron chattering along the stone.

i read about using short strokes across the width of the stone, but even those got pretty sticky. It would work ok for 10 seconds then the iron would just freeze up on the stone.

last point, the stones are just resting in the plastic case they came in, I haven't rigged up a stone holder yet, maybe that's the missing piece?

any other advice?

[Winton Applegate]

Water. Lots of water.
If it sticks to the stone in ten seconds then rinse all the build up off the stones(s) after eight seconds.
all like that there.
PS:
When I say rinse, I mean under a running faucet.

[Jim Koepke]

The blade would ride across the surface like its on a cushion of air, which I'm assuming is stiction right?

That isn't my understanding of stiction.

It would work ok for 10 seconds then the iron would just freeze up on the stone.

That is more like my understanding of stiction.

The blade and stone's surface are in conformity. This happens with very flat stones on just about any blade. Somehow the surface tension of the water isn't letting water flow into the area. It is like a vacuum forming between the blade and stone.

jtk

[Winton Applegate]

Make that “stiction” “surface tension” “one flat surface sticking to another flat surface which has a little too little water between them for gliding across each other” . . . work for you.

I do not use any stone holder or wooden structure around the stone (I never understood the attraction of a thing that collects stone/swarf junk in it) . . .

How do I get the stone to stay in place ?
Glad you asked that question.

You need a flat water resistant surface. Oh look here’s one in the kitchen, the laminate counter,
and . . .
it is next to the faucet/water rinsing mecca. Hmmmmm . . .
must be a sign from the gods.
Guess I will go with it.
Why fight it ? Right ?

Any way take a hunk of neoprene rubber mat. Not that foam stuff. This is 1/8 inch thick, solid, pretty hard, rubber. Get at a bearing and hydraulics supply place. Can order from Amazon by the foot also. I buy mine locally.

Take a plane ol’ wash rag, wet and wring out, wipe the counter leaving hardly any wet just a hint of damp the size of your mat. Put the mat on it.
Rinse your stone, shake all the drops off and put on the mat. Move back and forth a little.
That sucker will . . . well . . . suck right down and stick . . . like it has hide glue under it.

Sharpen to your little heart’s content. Twist the stone and it comes right up.
Rinse the stone, wipe the mat with the wash rag and repeat.

Even works with diamond stones.

[Stanley Covington]

First off, your description lists two apparently contradictory problems. The first is not enough friction when the blade is riding "across the surface like its on a cushion of air." The second problem seems to be too much friction when you wrote "even those got pretty sticky," and then after 10 seconds, the blade would "freeze up on the stone."

I can remember a similar problem with the first natural Japanese sharpening stone I owned. It was a real pig, and a total waste of money.
Don't let the goofy hat and bug burner fool you: Winton is a man of inestimable wisdom. The right amount of water should solve the second problem.... Well, maybe not "lots" of water, but more anyway. Think Goldilocks.

Besides water, the first problem of too little friction (cutting force) can be solved, I suspect, by using a decent nagura stone, (the Tsushima variety are usually pretty good), to create a bit of surface mud on the stone. It is this mud rolling and grinding between the blade and the surface of the stone (which acts as a platten or jig), that does the actual sharpening when things are going well, not the pressure of the blade on the stone, and the nagura will get it started nicely. Experiment with the amount of mud (sorry, the polite term is "slurry") and its water content to find the consistency that cuts well, while at the same time remaining on the stone's face without being splattered all over the place. You'll figure it out right away.

By itself, the mud from the nagura will only put a fine polish on a blade, but as it's particles are pushed and dragged along the stone's face, they will in turn dig up rougher particles from the surface of the sharpening stone to do the serious cutting. Once you get the right mixture of mud on the stone's face, the heat of friction and natural evaporation will gradually make the mud thicker and more viscous. Therefore, add drops of water as necessary while sharpening to maintain the right consistency. That should solve the stiction problem.

Oh yeah, and unless it gets contaminated, don't wash the stone off until you are ready to clean up at the end of the day: The time and material it costs to repeatedly make/remake the mud are too precious to waste. In my case, I cover my muddy stones with a sheet of newspaper to keep dust off them between sharpening sessions. At the end of the day, I wrap my finishing stones in newspaper with the dried mud left on the surface, ready to start again the next day, or next week, with only the addition of a bit of water. But that is just my personal preference and the blackest heresy in the eyes of some toishi worshipers. I remain defiantly unrepentant.

BTW, if you don't have a nagura, a sharpening stone (or a piece of a broken one) of the same or finer grit can be used for the same purpose. But I recommend you get your hands on a good Tsushima nagura before too long if you intend to become proficient with Japanese waterstones.

This webpage has some interesting information about nagura. It may give you a headache, and it is not necessary to know any of it, but toishi trivia can be fun too. The guy has obviously done quite a bit of research, most of which I agree with. The blog is fun too. I am not suggesting you buy anything from this webpage. http://www.thejapanblade.com/nagura_use.htm
I have been to the toishi shop in Kyoto shown on the "Home" link at top, but the webpage owner appears to be located in Californication. Go figure.

On the subject of stone holders, like the inestimable Winton, I like rubber under my stones. In a pinch, a sheet of wet newspaper on almost any surface that can get wet will work too, and makes it easy to contain the mud from one stone to keep it from contaminating another. Wooden holders, like the one in Odate's book (thanks for letting me reminisce with your book last week, Chris) are OK.

The steel and rubber variety shown at the top of this page are very handy. http://www.fine-tools.com/schaerfsteinhalter.html. Don't get the cheap Taiwanese (probably actually mainland Chinese manufacture) type, but the one made in Japan. The Taiwanese or Chinese ones are cheaper than the Japanese ones, but they turn red and go away.

Combined with a rubber mat and newspaper, its a great setup anywhere.


Good luck.

Stan

[David Weaver]

When you're using shapton stones, the largest part of the equation that causes trouble with them is lack of experience. That doesn't sound very helpful, but if you keep using them, you'll adapt your techniques to get used to how they work and wonder why you ever had problems.

I don't have my shaptons any longer, but they were probably the best synthetics I've used (from the standpoint of someone who likes to use natural stones, too, where stiction can also be a problem). I always liked them a lot better after they were glued to something with some weight. I don't remember any stiction issues with shaptons at all after having them for a couple of months, and I flattened a lot of new irons on mine. What I learned from them equated to better use with other synthetics, too, in terms of preventing them from having parts of the surface starved for water, and in terms of not having to lap the surface every time they loaded - but instead knowing how to get the loading removed with the iron or chisel that you're flattening.

[David Weaver]

Stan, I haven't observed the single large particle issue that alex talks about there, but I've had extensive discussions with alex over the phone when I was just going nuts over everything sharpening and have bought a couple of stones from alex. He's right about several things, though, including use of a nagura, and especially what he says every once in a while about the highest class stones not being the hardest ones out there, but instead the ones that are hard enough and that are very even. Most of those stones are gone from the mines, leaving us with stuff like common tomae strata stones that may meet that hardness description but not be very fine, or have scratchy particles, and then the hardest of the ozuku types of stones that are very even but that do not have very good cutting action.

Alex manages to find nice vintage stones in japan, though his highest grade stones are way out of my price range. I've gotten a couple of misfits from him (a suita with no mine mark that he discounted because the mine stamp was long gone, and a vintage ozaki mine barber hone that is an ugly little stone but that is a measure of perfection for razors)

The loose particle thing that alex talks about *does* happen with black arkansas stones, though I don't know if it's from stiction. Anyone who is using a broken in black arkansas stone will notice that every once in a while, a clump comes loose and it feels like someone dropped a grain of sand on the surface of a stone and you can often see the scratch left from it. I'd imagine that varies from stone to stone, and maybe the best black arkansas stones don't do it. I haven't noticed it on other fine arkansas stones, but sometimes loose particles stick around from prior stones only to show up right as you've finished an edge.

There are a few others here (and there) who get nice stones, now that fujibato seems to either be too popular to have mid level stones, or has no interest in them (maybe he sells them through others). One being Takeshi Aoki (who is in hawaii) and the other one being Takeshi Kuroda (who must be somewhere near miki).

Not that it has anything to do with the thread, but I personally don't have any trust in stones at this point that have Maruka stamps. Like vintage fender guitars, the supply of them increases with the demand. I suppose if there is a giant shinden suita with a hatanaka stamp on it, I'd trust that if the quality of the stone was way over the top rare, but then it would be 3 or 5 grand, anyway.

Toishi trivia is a good way to put it. Japanese natural stones are a terrible lovely stimulating waste of money. I'm glad to see that the folks over there are making available large tsushima hones, too, after using tanba aoto, a tsushima is a very welcome change. Same price, just as big or bigger, but infinitely nicer to use and much much less sloppy.

I've got a lot of thoughts on naguras, but they were formed via razor sharpening, and a bit too esoteric for me to go into them here. Safe to sum it up as I like good ones and I don't like bad ones.

[Jim Koepke]

You need a flat water resistant surface. Oh look here’s one in the kitchen, the laminate counter,
and . . .
it is next to the faucet/water rinsing mecca. Hmmmmm . . .
must be a sign from the gods.
Guess I will go with it.
Why fight it ? Right ?

My guess is you are either single or only sharpen when the wife is out shopping.

I wouldn't want anything sharp around if my wife caught me doing this.

jtk

[bridger berdel]

My guess is you are either single or only sharpen when the wife is out shopping.

I wouldn't want anything sharp around if my wife caught me doing this.

jtk

or that the kitchen knives get sharpened at the same time...

[Chris Merriam]

Thanks for all the feedback folks, I've been busy all day and forgot to check in on the forum. I think I'll definitely try out the rubber mat idea with more water(though not in the kitchen!). My current set up is not stable at all, and it's pretty easy to rock the stones around a bit. I'm also surprised to hear about more water, more slurry, I was doing the complete opposite. Once I saw the stone getting blackened up a bit I would rinse it off to avoid glazing (not that I even know what that looks like - see, I read too much).

I'm not ready to switch to any other stones at this point, I need to get my $250 worth first! And like David said, I think I need more practice. You'd think flattening a back would be easy, how much technique could there be....back and forth on a stone and keep it flat and in full contact.....

Speaking of starving a stone of water, if I'm lapping back and forth and a get a little dime sized bare spot of stone (no water in it), that is a bad sign I assume. More water in that case?

And to clarify, if my stone is not making a happy "swishy swishy" sound, does that mean it's not cutting and the iron is just floating on water?

[David Weaver]

I'm not ready to switch to any other stones at this point, I need to get my $250 worth first! And like David said, I think I need more practice. You'd think flattening a back would be easy, how much technique could there be....back and forth on a stone and keep it flat and in full contact.....

You'll be surprised how fast you become proficient with the stones. Tip number one, when you get that dry spot, you'll probably have loose water elsewhere on the stone. On a soft stone, you would just lap the iron the length of the stone. On the shapton, you want to move the iron forward an inch, and backwards a 16th or 8th less and gradually with those short strokes work up the length of the stone. When you reach the other end, do it again.

You might also think the shorter strokes will result in slow use of the stones, but that's just not the case - they will cut very fast that way. The 1k pro will make the swishy filing sound of fast cutting, the others will probably not make any sound because the particles are too small to.

If you have a dry spot that's black and plugged, a pass or two and it'll end up getting removed by your use of the stone itself.

[Chris Merriam]

Thanks for the tips. I definitely have loose water elsewhere on the stone. That's actually how I amuse myself while flattening, watching the iron chase the water around in patterns. I didn't realize I was in a fight to hold on to that water, I thought if the stone was damp then all was good. So we're back to the "more water" recommendation then, duly noted.

[David Weaver]

Yes, you want it on the stone so that you can use it. You just don't want so much between the iron that it's not contacting the surface of the stone due to suspension on water. When you first start with the stone, it seems as if the thing is all or none and you go back and forth between skating on the water and sticking. If there's no water on the stone, though, it'll definitely load.

When you get the hang of it, it'll reward you by being fast cutting, with a good polish and with good ability to keep flatness. It's worth the effort.

[Steve Friedman]

Thanks for all the feedback folks, I've been busy all day and forgot to check in on the forum. I think I'll definitely try out the rubber mat idea with more water(though not in the kitchen!).You'd think flattening a back would be easy, how much technique could there be....back and forth on a stone and keep it flat and in full contact.....

Just to add. No, back flattening is harder than honing the bevel. For one, you're removing much more material. But, I also think it's much less forgiving because there's so much more steel touching the stone, which makes stiction worse. Also, for back flattening, the stone needs to be perfectly flat, which is why some many of us use sandpaper on granite or glass. Also, even if you think you're being really good at keeping the back flat on the stone, you may still be putting more pressure on one part of the blade. I do use stones for backs, but not for the heavy lifting. Even then, I think it's important to go across the stone, letting the edge of the blade go past the edge of the stone to avoid dubbing.

Just my observations.

Steve

[Chris Merriam]

Thanks Steve, I have a granite plate and sandpaper too, but this was a new Veritas Pm11 and a Woodriver v3 I was dealing with, I thought it would be a couple swipes on each stone and good to go. Little did I know my sharpening would come to a screeching halt because I literally couldn't slide the iron over the stone anymore. It's not a problem you'd ever imagine happening lol.

i have a 220 diamond plate and flatten the stones on that, and I did it before I started on each iron (but not during).