Why don't you use ceramic stones?

[george wilson]

Patrick,I said no other stone that I TRIED. Diamond "stones" aren't really stones last time I looked. They seem to be steel coated with diamonds. And,I don't care for water stones. Tried them years ago,and they are messy and seemed to rust my tools some no matter how dry I wiped them.

I use a LITTLE squirt of water on my Spydercos,but that little bit doesn't seem to rust my tools like a really wet water stone did. I just don't like a lot of mess,so no stones in "ponds",etc., for me. Also,I just don't have room for a dedicated "sharpening station". Too many tools! Nor am I going to pay often silly prices for stones that dish and wear out. I gave David my never used 2 sided Belgian coticle as it is really for razors,which he shaves with. (I just break a piece of window glass and shave with that!!)

My Spydercos will be around for many years after I am gone. Money spent once for stones that will cut anything and leave razor sharp edges. No fuss,no muss! I take them down,use them,and put them back up out of the way.

Someone asked about cleaning: The flat stones with a spritz of slightly soapy water will only get a little steel imbedded in them compared to using a DRY slip stone. You can clean them with Ajax or Comet cleanser or the like at the sink once in a while,or give them a brief scrub with the diamond plate. I don't need to clean my ceramics too often.

Since you are putting a great deal of pressure on a small area with slip stones(like a phonograph needle),they will get gray pretty soon compared to a broad.flat,and wetted bench stone. A LITTLE gray doesn't bother me. The stones don't need to be spotless to be effective.

[Robert Engel]

Reponse to the previous post: So what if a diamond plate isn't a "stone"? As far as rusting tools, I've been using water stones for over 20 years and have never had a problem all I do is a quick spray of WD40.

I don't use them mostly because I can't justify cost when diamond plates and waterstones do the trick fine for me.

My only experience (I'm sure I'll be told something is wrong) with ceramic stones was two ceramic stones came with a chip carving set I bought.
They did not perform well for me. I spent an hour to prepare and hone a chip carving knife.
Don't know what the grits were but my experience with them tell me they didn't cut that well.
I also realized if you don't keep them clean, they clog up and will not cut well at all.

[Howard Pollack]

I've been, perhaps unnecessarily, daunted by the idea of flattening such a hard stone. Does anyone, besides Spyderco, produce ceramic stones that are already flat? Thanks.
-Howard

[Reinis Kanders]

From my three Spyderco's only the UF was flatish. Medium one was easy enough to flatten with diamond xcoarse DMT honeycomb. The third one us a big 3x8 UF and it has a significant hollow along the long axes, I still have not finished flattening it, not worth the diamonds and it gives a bit of a polished camber this way

[george wilson]

Woodcraft sold a smaller,pink ceramic stone. I bought one years ago for a doctor friend who wanted one to sharpen his kitchen knives.

Response to Robert: I don't like oil on my tools to get on the wood and on my hands to get on my wood. Or in my skin to possibly cause arthritis. I have enough of that already. Certainly not to get on my skin on a regular basis. WD40 has also been found to leave a very difficult to remove hard coating of dried crud if left too long on steel. You may not be having that problem if you are wiping your tools often,but be warned,if for some reason you store your tools away during a vacation ,move or what ever. This fact is well known to machinists and often discussed on machinist's fora that I visit. i'd rather just use what stones I have and not have to oil my tools.

If you only have white ceramic stones,you need the more coarse "black" one to use first. I hone on a diamond plate first,then use black ceramic then white. Then strop as mentioned many times over the eternally re started threads on sharpening.

If you find ceramic stones don't work for you,you are doing something wrong. They work just fine,but you can't expect to get a quick,sharp edge on a significantly dull tool,starting with a white ceramic. It is too fine. That would be like trying to get a quick edge on a dull tool with a very fine grit water stone.

[Robert Engel]

Woodcraft sold a smaller,pink ceramic stone. I bought one years ago for a doctor friend who wanted one to sharpen his kitchen knives.

Response to Robert: I don't like oil on my tools to get on the wood and on my hands to get on my wood. Or in my skin to possibly cause arthritis. I have enough of that already. Certainly not to get on my skin on a regular basis. WD40 has also been found to leave a very difficult to remove hard coating of dried crud if left too long on steel. You may not be having that problem if you are wiping your tools often,but be warned,if for some reason you store your tools away during a vacation ,move or what ever.

I use WD40 to displace the water after sharpening, not for lubrication.

I've never had a problem with residue getting on wood because after sharpening, I wipe it off so the residue will be minor. Plus, I apply jatoba oil. Before using the plane, I set the lateral lever by test planing a thin piece of wood, followed by a few test strokes to dial in the depth before using on my piece. Any residue will be removed.

WD40 causing arthritis us news to me. In fact, I know people who swear by rubbing WD40 on arthritic joints helps it.

If you're worried about getting it on you, just wear gloves. You could use alcohol just as well.

If I was storing a tool I would not use WD40 but coat the whole tool in motor oil and wrap in plastic.

Finally, I think WD40 has an unwarranted bad rep for a lot of ww'ers + Frank Klausz uses it so it must be ok, right?

Have a good one!

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick,I said no other stone that I TRIED

You're right, reading comprehension error on my part. Thanks for the patient reply.

[Patrick Chase]

Reponse to the previous post: So what if a diamond plate isn't a "stone"? As far as rusting tools, I've been using water stones for over 20 years and have never had a problem all I do is a quick spray of WD40.

I don't use them mostly because I can't justify cost when diamond plates and waterstones do the trick fine for me.

While I personally don't like the ceramic stones very much, this seems a bit unfair to them. They last basically forever with the right care, so the economics are quite good in the long run.

The key words being "right care". You have to use them with a lubricant (when I used them on skis I used either water with a mild detergent or a 50:50 alcohol/water mix - both worked better than water for me), and you have to occasionally scrub them out with kitchen cleanser. If you let them get "packed" with swarf then they can be a righteous pain to restore. In my experience the brown ones were fairly easy to score, so that's another thing to watch out for.

While that may sound like a lot of work, IMO it's a lower maintenance overhead than managing water stones (soaking, spritzing, flattening, building shrines in the case of JNats), so I would argue that that's actually an advantage of the ceramics. For that matter I think they're competitive with oilstones in terms of overall hassle factor, and as George says they can cut stuff that novaculite won't.

FWIW I lightly coat my blades with CRC 3-36 (same basic idea as WD40) after using water stones. Like you I have no rust issues whatsoever.

[Patrick Chase]

Response to Robert: I don't like oil on my tools to get on the wood and on my hands to get on my wood. Or in my skin to possibly cause arthritis. I have enough of that already.

I don't know of anything in WD40 (its basic composition is well known) that has been linked to arthritis via contact exposure. You don't want to imbibe or huff the stuff, but it's pretty mild overall.

[Mike Holbrook]

"Well Known" nonsense. The label on the can says DANGER in a big yellow box. It warns against prolonged contact with the skin. I'm sorry Patrick but IMHO it is irresponsible to suggest that something containing all the elements in the article you point to is "safe". Show me an article where actual testing has been done with all those elements on human skin. My guess is none exist and that it would be illegal, not to mention irresponsible to conduct such a test with humans. I guarantee it want make prolonged contact with this posters skin!

I was unable to do woodworking for large parts of two years because of allergic reactions on my skin. I would not wish those allergic responses on anyone. Still not sure what kept on & on triggering it. I have found that like apparently 5% of the population I am allergic to Neosporin. Apparently some of these allergic reactions are cumulative, I never had any slight indication of issues before. If a wound medication causes severe reactions on that large a % of the population...Google Neosporin allergic reactions if you don't believe me.

[Charles Bjorgen]

I was an early adopter of the Spyderco stones when George first introduced this topic nearly two years ago. I have the medium brown/black and the white untra fine stones. Mine were pretty flat when they arrived but I did a bit of truing with the diamond plate I use for flattening water stones. I'm always able to achieve a burr with the Spydercos and like George, I finish on a strop. It's a pretty nice, clean, easy system. For reference if I need to regrind a bevel I do so on my old 16-year-old Tormek for a hollow grind and finish free hand to get a micro bevel.

Like a lot of folks here I have several systems that also includes Eze-Lap plates and Arkansas stones. I tend to use them all because I can.

[george wilson]

At my age,and with the pains i already have in my back,neck,wrists and right thumb(worn out from playing guitar since 1952)AND 2 worn out knees,I am very cautious about what I get on my skin,what I breathe,etc.. I breathed too many lacquer fumes,used too much turpentine(which IS bad for you. They banned its use in the museum's paint shop),breathed way too much exotic wood dust,and did myself enough harm already!!

By now,I have gotten pretty sensitive to some of the smells I was around for over 60 years. Some things give me an instant headache,and I am very short on breath. No longer indestructible! I may be over cautious at this stage of my life. But,better safe than sorry.

Charles just above is getting good results,apparently. Of course you have to start with coarse media(the diamond plate) and move to black,then white ceramic stones,just as you move from coarse to finer sandpaper.

About Arkansas stones: I have easily ground broken white Arkansas slip stones into different,useful shapes,using blue ceramic belts(which happened to be on the belt grinder at the time I was experimenting with re shaping the slip stones.) Arkansas is soft as butter compared to ceramic.

[Trevor Goodwin]

Just so it's clear, you're concerned with WD40 causing Arthritis? Not Dermatitis?

Aren't there a bunch of other suitable oils for honing? eg. Norton honing oil, plain mineral oil (paraffin?), baby oil, etc.

[Patrick Chase]

"Well Known" nonsense. The label on the can says DANGER in a big yellow box. It warns against prolonged contact with the skin. I'm sorry Patrick but IMHO it is irresponsible to suggest that something containing all the elements in the article you point to is "safe". Show me an article where actual testing has been done with all those elements on human skin. My guess is none exist and that it would be illegal, not to mention irresponsible to conduct such a test with humans. I guarantee it want make prolonged contact with this posters skin!

I was unable to do woodworking for large parts of two years because of allergic reactions on my skin. I would not wish those allergic responses on anyone. Still not sure what kept on & on triggering it. I have found that like apparently 5% of the population I am allergic to Neosporin. Apparently some of these allergic reactions are cumulative, I never had any slight indication of issues before. If a wound medication causes severe reactions on that large a % of the population...Google Neosporin allergic reactions if you don't believe me.

Mike, I'm very sorry to hear about your allergic reaction. I've had a few of those (and my family have had more) and they suck.

A couple points:

1. "Allergy" is not he same as "toxicity". People have severe, even life-threatening reactions to nontoxic substances all of the time. It sucks for that individual, but it doesn't mean that we should avoid every substance that has ever caused such a reaction. If we did we'd all starve to death (seriously).

2. Here's the MSDS for WD40. I don't know how much experience you have reading these things, but this is not remotely bad as such things go. We all, and particularly woodworkers, interact with worse toxins on a very frequent basis. It doesn't help anybody to blow things out of proportion and whip up hysteria. Before you latch onto that "death via aspiration" warning, please be aware that basically every oil carries that one.

EDIT: Antibiotics like Neosporin are notorious for causing severe allergic reactions. If we're taking a balanced, realistic view of overall risks that stuff is far more hazardous than something like WD-40.

[Mike Holbrook]

Patrick my objective here is to save other posters a considerable amount of misery, not to argue or prove a point. I have had reasons to talk with quite a few doctors, read a few books and do a fair amount of research. IMHO one of the largest issues many people face with their health is they often expect: a doctor, medications, a label, the internet to protect them from heath issues when that is often an unrealistic expectation in our fast changing world. Ultimately we have to take charge of our own health and make informed decisions based on our own personal experiences. Medications and even foods in the current world we live in can be dangerous to a large segment of the population. There are currently laws being debated to deal with some of these issues. As we know, laws change slowly while the “engineered/man made substances" in our world often change faster than the human immune system can.

Possibly the most pervasive medical issue for humans in our fast growing world is inflammation. Inflammation is believed to be a/the major contributing factor in some/all of our largest medical issues: all sorts of dementia, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, cancer, liver disease, obesity….Some of the medications which fight: allergic reactions, joint issues, even cancer are the same as they apparently combat inflammation. Methotrexate which was designed as a cancer drug, was prescribed for my skin issues. It is also prescribed for severe arthritis issues. Immune system issues, allergic reactions and inflammation are some of the most pervasive medical issues facing humans today. HIV/AIDS may be the clearest example of what pervasive immune system issues can become.

I see these issues personified with many of the dogs I deal with at clubs and professionally. Very heathy dogs sometimes have fast, severe inflammation/immune deficiency issues that veterinarians are struggling to find reasons for. The best guess seems to be the foods and medications provided by people who are attempting to provide exemplary care for their pets. Dogs handle diet changes and many medications worse than humans do. Change the main protein or any of many other ingredients in one of my German shepherds diets and you will be cleaning diarrhea up for weeks or as much as a month. I mention dogs because medications which may be illegal to use on humans are legal for dogs. Dogs are often the “guinea pigs” for human medications.

There are more and more genetically engineered and “man made" substances, which may not have been properly tested, that end up in our food and other substances we may use. Take wheat, gluten. All of the wheat grown in the US today is an entirely different, genetically engineered, plant than the plant grown just a few decades ago. The gluten content in the genetically engineered plant is at least several times that of the original plant. There is a large segment of the population which apparently has a large array of health issues from eating gluten in the growing amounts it occurs in our diets. Gluten is cheap and is often added to foods in alarming amounts simply because it is cheap. Pick up a bag of “Corn Meal” in any grocery store, turn the bag over and read the label. The first, largest qty, of substances in that “corn meal” is wheat. Gluten is even frequently added to meat. Things change faster and faster in the world we live in, frequently laws and medical testing can't keep up. As Patrick’s article above testifies WD40 is made from Petroleum Distillates. These are man made/engineered ingredients which have not been tested in terms of their effect on the human immune system.

The point is at least two posters are saying they believe they have experienced issues with WD40. There is considerable evidence that many allergic/immune/inflammation issues are related. In many instances current drugs used to combat these seemingly unrelated issues are the same because they deal with allergic/immune/inflammation issues. I thought we were all here to learn from each others experiences? Sometimes I grow confused when posters feel the need to argue and debate with other posters about their personal experiences.