rehabbing Arkansas stones

[Noah Wagener]

I started out using Norton honing oil on Arkansas stones and switched to baby oil as mentioned on here and other places as the Norton oil is so expensive. The baby oil is pretty gummy and messy. I tried Marvel Mystery oil per Tony Zaffuto's recommendation. I definitely like that better than the former two mentioned. But as winter was approaching i was concerned that the Marvel oil would thicken and would perform like the baby oil so i have been looking for something else.

I came across this thread which I'll post as there seems to be others here interested in a good honing fluid.
mineral oil as a substitute for: tool oil, sharpening stone oil

I was particularly interested in what Forrest Addy wrote. So i tried something similar to one of the things he likes to use, cleaners like Fantastik and 409. I used something called Bio-Green clean and it was outstanding. It woke up the two soft Arks i tried it on. I also tried Dawn which worked well but not as well. I guess there was no or little lubrication and the stone got cleaned as i honed. It was just infinitely more pleasant than using bay oil. There is always some particle/s stuck to stone when oil is used no matter how often i wipe it.
When i first got some Arkansaseses and lapped them with water and tried them out as i lapped; they worked like they do with the cleaning solvent and stayed clean but i just assumed there was a reason to use oil as that was tradition. I had also read that using no oil makes the stones wear faster. Yuhdoi. That's what lubrication does, prevent wear but it also prevents wear of the tool.

So i want to try and clean out my stones and reboot. I was wondering if the boiling water method often prescribed can soften or damage the stones in anyway? I would not think so considering the temps and pressure they are formed at but i wanted to makes no one has ruined a stone.

With winter coming i wont be able to use the cleaner (actually i think i'll just use water in warm months if i get the stones clean) as it is water based and was looking for something really thin that won't freeze. Kerosene and mineral spirits are out as i can not handle the smells. Any ideas?

And if there is a reason i am not seeing why oil should be used please let me know. I can see maybe wanting a little buffer on final polishing but i think you could back off pressure. These stones actually seem to polish more the harder i push down.

[David Weaver]

you can use whatever you'd like on them. You're not really going to harm them.

I use mineral oil on my coarse stones and WD 40 on the finer ones.

[bridger berdel]

My default honing fluid these days is isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle. With very dense stones like surgical black arkansas it tends towards leaving a shiny spot on the stone, which isn't helpful, but isn't the end of the world either. At the other end of the scale, very coarse porous stones drink it up too fast for it to be useful. Same for waterstones. For everything in between though it's great- fast cutting and very clean.

[Noah Wagener]

you can use whatever you like on them

I just do not know what i like. i think i know the properties i like. something like water that 1) won't thicken in the cold, 1a) does not smell. rust inhibition is nice but not high up. i think something in the solvent family is what i am looking for but i am real sensitive to the odors. paint thinner and kerosene are the worst and i gag the first whiff. mineral spirits is pretty bad as well. that Marvel oil smells like peppermint candy so i am guessing that is covering up something awful. i cannot remember if i found WD-40 objectionable. apparently something called naptha is the principle solvent. they had to divulge what was in it to sell it in Germany. is there any type of oil that is that thin without a solvent? there are some solvents made from orange peel oil but are pretty pricey. sold as an alternative to mineral spirits.

i am pretty surprised at the difference a fluid can make. the metal looks completely different off the same stone with a different fluid. sharpness does not seem to be affected though.

i recalled you mentioning alcohol before Bridger. i can not handle the smell. in that thread i posted above someone said that it evaporated too fast and this evaporation heated steel or something with an adverse effect. i could not follow. it was a machinist forum and i do not think it matters to wood tools. i did give it a try and definitely preferred it to baby oil. baby oil has an unpleasant odor as well but it does not burn like the others.

i put the cleanser i really liked in the freezer to see how it will be in the coming cold.

what about cleaning out a oil logged stone? seems harsh to boil it. does that soften the stone?

[Warren Mickley]

There is a reason we call these oil stones and have called them cos olearis, Olie-steen, pierre d'huile, etc. for thousands of years. Oil in centuries past was not cheap but was deemed helpful or even necessary for these stones. I like oil because it suspends the steel particles better than a less viscous fluid. It is helpful to have a slightly lighter oil in cold weather, but you still want a lot thicker than water. Here is Trevison's 1398 English translation of a 1240 Bartholomaeus text:

oilstone trevisa bartholomea 1398.pngOr as Isidore sayeth;

e cotibus alieae aquariae sunt, aliae oleo indigent in acuendo, sed oleum lenem aquariae aciem acerrimam reddunt

[David Weaver]

I just do not know what i like. i think i know the properties i like. something like water that 1) won't thicken in the cold, 1a) does not smell. rust inhibition is nice but not high up. i think something in the solvent family is what i am looking for but i am real sensitive to the odors. paint thinner and kerosene are the worst and i gag the first whiff. mineral spirits is pretty bad as well. that Marvel oil smells like peppermint candy so i am guessing that is covering up something awful. i cannot remember if i found WD-40 objectionable. apparently something called naptha is the principle solvent. they had to divulge what was in it to sell it in Germany. is there any type of oil that is that thin without a solvent? there are some solvents made from orange peel oil but are pretty pricey. sold as an alternative to mineral spirits.

i am pretty surprised at the difference a fluid can make. the metal looks completely different off the same stone with a different fluid. sharpness does not seem to be affected though.

i recalled you mentioning alcohol before Bridger. i can not handle the smell. in that thread i posted above someone said that it evaporated too fast and this evaporation heated steel or something with an adverse effect. i could not follow. it was a machinist forum and i do not think it matters to wood tools. i did give it a try and definitely preferred it to baby oil. baby oil has an unpleasant odor as well but it does not burn like the others.

i put the cleanser i really liked in the freezer to see how it will be in the coming cold.

what about cleaning out a oil logged stone? seems harsh to boil it. does that soften the stone?

I don't know what you like, either. I don't mind a thin fluid on the fine stones because I don't care about their pores, they don't have many. I like oil on the coarse stones for exactly the reason warren mentioned - because it has the ability to remove the particles from the pores or keep them from sticking there in the first place.

We have an advantage that people didn't hundreds of years ago, and that is a lot of cheap solutions to remove stuff from stones or refresh them.

The oil I have always used (and my shop gets into the 40s sometimes in the winter, but never colder) is light food grade mineral oil that I bought a gallon of quite a while ago. It's not a lot different than the norton honing oil, it just has a slightly less dry feel than the norton oil.

I can't stand the way baby oil smells, either, and it's usually a little too heavy for me, especially for fine stones.

If you're using a thicker fluid on a fine stone, just work a smaller area to evacuate some of the oil suspending the iron or chisel back off of the stone. I could get along with only mineral oil just fine, but I wouldn't take long strokes with the fine stone if there was a layer of oil on it. Bevel work doesn't matter, the bevel penetrates the oil without issue, but on back work, too much viscous oil suspends the iron unless you work short strokes at least to keep the iron on the stone and the oil around it rather than under it.

[Jonas Baker]

I only use Norton's Oil, as it's my favorite, not too thin, not to thick, and doesn't get all over the place and make an absolute mess. The drug store mineral oil is too thick, and I'm pretty sure baby oil is too thick as well. I've tried Smiths Oil and it is very thin oil, and a bit too thin and watery for my liking, as it really leaves a mess. I bought one of the large bottles of Norton oil from Tools for working wood, and I think it was $10, and that lasts a long long time.

Recently, I tried using water on one of my washita stones. What I noticed was that it clogged and glazed over the stone almost instantly, and the result that it left a finer finish, but this was negated by the fact that the stone hardly cut at all after a few uses.

I agree with you david that thinner oil may be better on the fine arkansas stones, but I find the Norton oil works well enough for every stone.

Best,

Jonas

[David Weaver]

My only dislike for the norton oil is the price. if you use an oil bath stone or use a lot of mineral oil in general, it's kind of pricey for what it is. If used sparingly, then maybe not so much.

I paid about $14 for a gallon of mineral oil at one time when I was buying stuff from a kitchen supply place. It's less good to make that purchase when you're only buying the mineral oil, though, because you pay through the nose for shipping.

Light mineral oil can be found at farm or horse supply places for less than $20 for the gallon, and whatever is used as animal laxative is probably food safe. The stuff I got at a kitchen supply place was labeled to be used as lubricant for meat cutting equipment. All of it is just 100% light mineral oil, though. Not too thick and no stink, just like the norton oil.

Dan's whetstone sells honing oil, too, but it's kind of stinky.

[Stew Denton]

Hi Noah,

You might look at "Odorless Mineral Spirits," if you can find it in a small enough quantity to try. It is not completely odorless, but is much less odorous than is WD-40, kerosene, and ordinary mineral spirits.

The WD-40, kerosene, and ordinary mineral spirits contain several type of compounds, including aromatics and olefins. These are quite odorous and especially the aromatics are not to good for you. There are other types of compounds as well.

Naphtha has different meanings, but the common one is a distillation range of hydrocarbons in refining. It is typically not a type of material that is treated to make it low odor. A better grade of stuff treats the naphtha stream with a hydrogenation process that converts the aromatics to napthenes and the olefins into paraffins. Both of these are much less odorless and also less toxic than the aromatics and olefins that are in the untreated naphtha. The olefins, in particular, really stink. Naphthenes are ring compounds that contain only single bonds.

A step up from the hydrogenated naphtha type solvents, odor and safety wise, are solvents that do not contain naphthenes except in very low amounts. These solvents are fractionally distilled from hydrocarbons that contain only very low levels of naphthenes, olefins, or aromatics. This better stuff is more expensive to produce than is the hydrotreated naphtha.

Both the hydrotreated naphtha and the better stuff are sold as odorless mineral spirits. Obviously the better stuff is even less odorous than is the hydrotreated naphtha type material, but both types are much less odorless than is the ordinary stuff. However, it must be added that the hydrotreated naphtha has to be fractionally distilled to remove the lower boiling compounds from the material before it can be classed as "mineral spirits" and sold as such. It is just not straight hydrotreated naphtha.

That said, over a period of time even the "odorless" mineral spirits will become somewhat odorous. I won't go into why, but it will happen, and there are additives, which when added at even very low levels will help reduce greatly the odor formation, but they cannot totally prevent it. Eventually when the additive becomes spent then the odor will slowly increase. Even so, the "old" stream with the spent additive will still be much less odorous than the naphtha was to begin with.

I have also seen "odorless kerosene," but don't think it is as good a choice, because it has a wider distillation range, with more lower boiling compounds, than does the mineral spirits.

Be fore warned, however, that there is not absolute standard for these "odorless" materials, and the term may only mean "less odorless" for some brands.

Regards,

Stew

[Noah Wagener]

Thank you Stew,

I think i am going to try this solvent made from the oil of orange peels, d-limonene. I have smelt odorless mineral spirits before and do not think i could handle it gassing in my garage. The cat likes to hang out there and he is more sensitive than me. Gets real loopy. The rubbing alcohol Bridger recommended is the worst. My legs got wobbly after a few minutes and i had a giant headache the rest of the night. I think you should look into it Bridger. Witch hazel seemed very similar to isopropyl to me but without the noxious fumes.It will freeze though. I do not care for the smell but it does not seem to attack the nervous system like isopropyl. Have you tried ethanol? I was thinking of using that as an antifreeze for water. Cheap whiskey is probably cheaper than mixing grain alcohol and water though. it just occurred to me that the alcohol might evaporate leaving the water to freeze in the stone. don't know if they can separate like that. Does an open bottle of booze become water?

[Brian Deakin]

Thank you Stew,

I think i am going to try this solvent made from the oil of orange peels, d-limonene. I have smelt odorless mineral spirits before and do not think i could handle it gassing in my garage. The cat likes to hang out there and he is more sensitive than me. Gets real loopy. The rubbing alcohol Bridger recommended is the worst. My legs got wobbly after a few minutes and i had a giant headache the rest of the night. I think you should look into it Bridger. Witch hazel seemed very similar to isopropyl to me but without the noxious fumes.It will freeze though. I do not care for the smell but it does not seem to attack the nervous system like isopropyl. Have you tried ethanol? I was thinking of using that as an antifreeze for water. Cheap whiskey is probably cheaper than mixing grain alcohol and water though. it just occurred to me that the alcohol might evaporate leaving the water to freeze in the stone. don't know if they can separate like that. Does an open bottle of booze become water?

mineral oil


Please see link below for composition of Norton honing oil

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ton-honing-oil

regards Brian

[Stew Denton]

Noah, d-limonene smells wonderful, has a very pleasant citrus type smell. It is apparently not very toxic, but is listed as a sensitizer, which means that over a period of time some folks can develop allergic reactions to it. It has a boiling point that is inside the boiling range of mineral spirits, and I would think it would act like mineral spirits for honing oil.

We've had it in our lab for over 25 years. Nice stuff.

Regards,

Stew

[bridger berdel]

Thank you Stew,

I think i am going to try this solvent made from the oil of orange peels, d-limonene. I have smelt odorless mineral spirits before and do not think i could handle it gassing in my garage. The cat likes to hang out there and he is more sensitive than me. Gets real loopy. The rubbing alcohol Bridger recommended is the worst. My legs got wobbly after a few minutes and i had a giant headache the rest of the night. I think you should look into it Bridger. Witch hazel seemed very similar to isopropyl to me but without the noxious fumes.It will freeze though. I do not care for the smell but it does not seem to attack the nervous system like isopropyl. Have you tried ethanol? I was thinking of using that as an antifreeze for water. Cheap whiskey is probably cheaper than mixing grain alcohol and water though. it just occurred to me that the alcohol might evaporate leaving the water to freeze in the stone. don't know if they can separate like that. Does an open bottle of booze become water?

I think you're mixing up isopropyl alcohol and methyl alcohol. Methyl is the one that causes nerve damage. Isopropyl, aside from being safe for skin contact, is a little slower evaporating, especially in the commonly available 70%.

[Warren Mickley]

A few notes. With the exceptions of water and alcohol, all of the fluids mentioned here are soluble in honing oil. They can be added to the oil you are now using, Noah, to lower the viscosity as needed in colder weather. If you like the honing oil viscosity, you can maintain that with judicious additions.

Honing oil is mineral oil, but I believe that honing oil is more highly refined than the cheaper mineral oil. That the cheaper stuff has a wider range of oils in its make up. The more volatile oils will evaporate over time and leave the heavier oils which are more gummy. This is not a problem for a regular user, but may be for someone whose use is irregular, having long periods when the oil can get gummy.

The advantage of oil over water is that the viscosity suspends the steel particles. I am having trouble seeing the advantage of light fluids (alcohol, wd40, mineral spirits, and the like) over water.

[David Weaver]

WD 40 just has a much better feel on the fine stones than water does, and you can use it on a stone that's had oil on it without just pushing suspended drops of water around and getting no benefit from them.

I agree on the oil for two points (that it should be highly refined, like a food prep or veterinary oil), one being because you don't want it to oxidize and disappear, but two because the oils that are not well refined can be suspected carcinogens, mineral oil included. Baby oils, food prep and veterinary supply oils should all be highly refined (and they're cheap, and in the case of vet supply and food oils, free of odor).