Very Coarse Crystolon / Siox Stones Guzzling Up Oil?

[Luke Dupont]

Luke, what is your background? Are you an engineering student or practicing engineer? What discipline? What expertise do you have to suggest logic trumps the manufacturers specs? Just curious since it seems only recently that you started here stating that you had passion but no working experience. Thanks

This is going to be a really cheesy answer that won't convince anyone, but:

I do not think that specific knowledge or experience is all that important in making good judgement. It certainly helps, but even a very experienced person can adopt a very narrow methodology (and have a very narrow, if deep array of experience) that works, but still misses or even dismisses important information.

Staying open to new information, and keeping an eye on the big picture is often vital for understanding what's really going on, and can give one insight even into problems that you're lacking the specific knowledge and experience to solve. Logic and reason are powerful tools that allow us to work in the absence of certain information, and directly inform us on how to go about solving a problem or identify what information is and isn't relative or meaningful.

Let me use this example.

I know nothing about cars. Well, almost nothing. My car was having an issue whereby the battery was going dead, and I was on a wild goose chase for a number of months. Every mechanic I spoke to thought it was either the battery, or the alternator. A few of them were even really insistent that it must be one or the other, and when I inquired if it might be the cable connecting the two, flat out dismissed that as a possibility because in their experience, it was always one of the other two things (having already ruled out that the connection might just need cleaning, of course).

Well, two batteries and an alternator later, I finally convinced one of them to try replacing the cable connecting the two, and sure enough, that was the culprit. If you've heard of Occam's razor, that's largely the kind of reasoning that lead me to the conclusion early on that it was the cable; I found myself needing to justify and reason too many points to rationalize either the battery or the alternator as culprits, indicating to me that the connection was the more likely culprit.

Now, without any knowledge of cars, I correctly identified the problem before any of the three mechanics, or my family members (including my uncle, who is also a mechanic) who were helping me with it, and the only reason it got fixed at all was due to my nagging insistence that it's probably the connection.

I pursue a very broad array of interests, and I'm constantly learning. But the most valuable thing that I've learned is that there's more to "knowing" and understanding the world than mere knowledge or experience. Those are, without a doubt, critical components, but it's how you use and interpret that knowledge and what larger context you put it in that dictate whether or not it ultimately is a help or a hindrance. Logic and discernment are just as, and sometimes, more important, and can inform you of exactly what knowledge you're lacking and how to go about obtaining or at least accounting for it.

[Stewie Simpson]

great ideas always have multiple authors. Always. We like to think about the hero that triumphs against all odds, but this is a deeply misleading story. Innovation is nearly always triggered by brilliance, but it is usually collective brilliance, not individual brilliance. http://timkastelle.org/blog/2014/03/...-the-computer/

[Patrick Chase]

Back on the topic, here's Norton's statement about how and why they pre-treat Crystolon stones in manufacturing:

"Norton Crystolon@ oilstones are manufactured using a proprietary process that impregnates them with a petroleum based product that allows the lubrication used during the sharpening process to stay on the stone's surface. As a result, the metal from the object being sharpened and small pieces of abrasive that break off the stone become suspended in the lubricant. This prevents these materials from imbedding into the sharpening stone's surface, keeping it free cutting and making it easy to keep its surface clean."

"petroleum-based product" is fairly vague. It's clearly viscous enough to stay in the stone and prevent mineral oil from soaking into the stone, so that rules out simple oils, but I can think of a couple possibilities on the heavier/thicker end of the spectrum. I don't think you can go too wrong with the FWW recommendation of Vaseline.

[steven c newman]

I have a couple of these stones.....and a fairly deep tray. I think I'll just slip over to Wallie World, pick up a quart of cheap 5 weight motor oil......pour enough into the tray......let the stones soak as much as they like. Later I'll give them a try to see IF my normal 3in1 oil stays on top of the stones. If it does, I'll post back with the results.....

The Boss would shoot me, if'n I used HER oven to cook Vaseline.......

Hmm, 5 W 30...or 10 W 40?

[Patrick Chase]

The Boss would shoot me, if'n I used HER oven to cook Vaseline.......

If there's no fire it didn't happen.

[Patrick Chase]

I have a couple of these stones.....and a fairly deep tray. I think I'll just slip over to Wallie World, pick up a quart of cheap 5 weight motor oil......pour enough into the tray......let the stones soak as much as they like.

I would guess that you may have one or both of two problems:

1. Motor oil is pretty fluid/mobile at room temperature, so I suspect you'll end up with an "oozing stone"

2. Motor oil is also soluble in 3-in-1 IIRC, so I would expect them to mix rather than the 3-in-1 staying on top. This should be easy to test beforehand - just drip some 3-in-1 on some motor oil and watch what happens.

[Stewie Simpson]

Patrick; I have contacted Norton direct, and requested further advice on restoring the oil fill within their stones. I may or may not get a response back, but its worth a try.

regards Stewie;

[Patrick Chase]

Patrick; I have contacted Norton direct, and requested further advice on restoring the oil fill within their stones. I may or may not get a response back, but its worth a try.

regards Stewie;

Yeah, I think that's a good idea [sound of me facepalming because I didn't do that when I was in the same boat].

[Pat Barry]

This is going to be a really cheesy answer that won't convince anyone, but:

I do not think that specific knowledge or experience is all that important in making good judgement. It certainly helps, but even a very experienced person can adopt a very narrow methodology (and have a very narrow, if deep array of experience) that works, but still misses or even dismisses important information.

Staying open to new information, and keeping an eye on the big picture is often vital for understanding what's really going on, and can give one insight even into problems that you're lacking the specific knowledge and experience to solve. Logic and reason are powerful tools that allow us to work in the absence of certain information, and directly inform us on how to go about solving a problem or identify what information is and isn't relative or meaningful.

Let me use this example.

I know nothing about cars. Well, almost nothing. My car was having an issue whereby the battery was going dead, and I was on a wild goose chase for a number of months. Every mechanic I spoke to thought it was either the battery, or the alternator. A few of them were even really insistent that it must be one or the other, and when I inquired if it might be the cable connecting the two, flat out dismissed that as a possibility because in their experience, it was always one of the other two things (having already ruled out that the connection might just need cleaning, of course).

Well, two batteries and an alternator later, I finally convinced one of them to try replacing the cable connecting the two, and sure enough, that was the culprit. If you've heard of Occam's razor, that's largely the kind of reasoning that lead me to the conclusion early on that it was the cable; I found myself needing to justify and reason too many points to rationalize either the battery or the alternator as culprits, indicating to me that the connection was the more likely culprit.

Now, without any knowledge of cars, I correctly identified the problem before any of the three mechanics, or my family members (including my uncle, who is also a mechanic) who were helping me with it, and the only reason it got fixed at all was due to my nagging insistence that it's probably the connection.

I pursue a very broad array of interests, and I'm constantly learning. But the most valuable thing that I've learned is that there's more to "knowing" and understanding the world than mere knowledge or experience. Those are, without a doubt, critical components, but it's how you use and interpret that knowledge and what larger context you put it in that dictate whether or not it ultimately is a help or a hindrance. Logic and discernment are just as, and sometimes, more important, and can inform you of exactly what knowledge you're lacking and how to go about obtaining or at least accounting for it.

Luke, there are two ways to go about identifying and resolving problems such as yours. Bad mechanics go by the guess and check route. This relies on their past expereince which sometimes resulted in correct problem solving. The other approach, I would say used by good mechanics, is to use a process of systematic isolation and troubleshooting. Battery and alternator problems can usually be very simply identified by disconnection of each of the devices in question and then testing them independently. I'd say you chose bad mechanics. Especially when dealing with electrical issues which are not visibly at fault (like a bad wheel bearing for example). Electrical troubleshooting requires much more diagnostic testing.

As for your background, you didn't answer my question. I think it is evident that you are non technical, perhaps a liberal arts major of some type, perhaps marketing or political science judging by your postings. You should therefore put your energy into selecting better mechanics in the future. The simplest logic I can think of for you is that you need to know when to apply your own logic and when to utilize the knowledge of others, for example the specifications and guidance offered by the manufacturer.

[James Waldron]

great ideas always have multiple authors. Always. We like to think about the hero that triumphs against all odds, but this is a deeply misleading story. Innovation is nearly always triggered by brilliance, but it is usually collective brilliance, not individual brilliance. http://timkastelle.org/blog/2014/03/...-the-computer/

After retiring from a 35 year practice of patent law, I've fairly thoroughly learned to avoid "always" in connection with innovation and invention. It's important to consider the idea (whether great or mundane) separately from the implementation (whether creative or routine).

Viewed in context, "great ideas" sometimes have single authors. Example, general and special relativity, and E=mc^2 was created by a single, somewhat insular individual. The first nuclear bomb based on those ideas took a vast team of engineers and some highly creative engineering work to implement. Taken together, they were quite an innovation. Engineers and scientists are still hard at work today and into the foreseeable future, striving and often struggling to implement Einstein's great ideas. (And some have been and are striving and struggling and - so far - failing to "disprove" Einstein's ideas.) Einstein himself remained comfortably ensconced at Princeton and had (almost) nothing to do with the Manhattan Project.

In a broader context, I can also say that most "great ideas" have multiple authors. And I can also say that all "great ideas" are built on a foundation created by the work of others. If we could ask, I think Dr. Einstein would agree.

[Patrick Chase]

Viewed in context, "great ideas" sometimes have single authors. Example, general and special relativity, and E=mc^2 was created by a single, somewhat insular individual.

As far as we know that's true for Special Relativity and the other discoveries he published in his Annus Mirabilis (1905). I say "as far as we know" because his wife was also a physicist, and there are lingering questions about her involvement that will likely never be answered.

It isn't true for General Relativity. Einstein sucked at math (by the standards of top-rank theoretical physicists), and received nontrivial help from Hilbert in particular to create the field equations. They published simultaneously and ended up dividing priority in a way that gave Einstein credit for the underlying discovery and Hilbert credit for the mathematical derivation/proofs.

[James Waldron]

[snip]
It isn't true for General Relativity. Einstein sucked at math (by the standards of top-rank theoretical physicists), and received nontrivial help from Hilbert in particular to create the field equations. They published simultaneously and ended up dividing priority in a way that gave Einstein credit for the underlying discovery and Hilbert credit for the mathematical derivation/proofs.

As you say, the "great idea" was the contribution of Einstein and the maths (themselves a non-trivial aspect, but still not the "great idea") we can give full marks to Hilbert. Without Einstein's "great idea," there wouldn't have been those field equations for Hilbert to help create. I don't see any conflict with my point.

[Luke Dupont]

Luke, there are two ways to go about identifying and resolving problems such as yours. Bad mechanics go by the guess and check route. This relies on their past expereince which sometimes resulted in correct problem solving. The other approach, I would say used by good mechanics, is to use a process of systematic isolation and troubleshooting. Battery and alternator problems can usually be very simply identified by disconnection of each of the devices in question and then testing them independently. I'd say you chose bad mechanics. Especially when dealing with electrical issues which are not visibly at fault (like a bad wheel bearing for example). Electrical troubleshooting requires much more diagnostic testing.

As for your background, you didn't answer my question. I think it is evident that you are non technical, perhaps a liberal arts major of some type, perhaps marketing or political science judging by your postings. You should therefore put your energy into selecting better mechanics in the future. The simplest logic I can think of for you is that you need to know when to apply your own logic and when to utilize the knowledge of others, for example the specifications and guidance offered by the manufacturer.

I'm actually a programmer, so diagnosing and solving problems is something which I'm very familiar with. The example you give in regards to trouble shooting is of course the same thing I do when I have the tools and means to isolate and test things -- otherwise, I'm just left to reason them out in my head, as I did in the example above. I'm yet to find a mechanic who is as thorough and competent at troubleshooting as you describe, but I'd certainly like to.

Problem solving, however, often relies more on lateral thinking and imagination (considering unknown factors) than it does knowledge or experience. As a programmer, one often works on massively complicated programs using tools and languages which few people truly know inside and out. As such, you simply have to be able to make educated guesses based on the symptoms of a given problem, imagine what variables might be contributing to the behavior, and go about isolating and testing your different hypothesis, narrowing down your search as you go based on new information. Sometimes, the problem can be many layers deep in some obscure function of some tool that you're completely unfamiliar with, and you would have had no basis of knowledge or experience to have predicted such behavior. The only way to identify that kind of problem is through logic and intuition.

I do find it interesting that you peg me as a non-technical type. I think, though, that you are confusing a preference for "Intuition" over "Sensing," and the mindset of a "generalist" over a "specialist," as being more or less technically oriented, which is not the case. As I have said before, I have a wide array of skills and interests, and I've done much more than just programming. As such, perhaps logic, reason, and intuition serve me better than knowledge or experience, because I do often find myself pursuing unfamiliar work or hobbies. I suppose one could argue, though, that knowledge and experience in one field often does aid understanding and intuition in another.

Anyway, it's an irrelevant point from a practical stance, because the only way you get knowledge and experience is by doing, and I'm one of those fools who wants to learn how to do any and everything, even if it's far removed from his field of work and doesn't make sense in an age of specialized, divided labor. Woodworking, among many other things, falls into this category for me. I'm not a woodworker. I just happen to work wood and have some basic level of knowledge and experience doing so. But I'll never claim to be "experienced," because I know that there are people who spend their entire lives focused on such work.

[Luke Dupont]

Patrick; I have contacted Norton direct, and requested further advice on restoring the oil fill within their stones. I may or may not get a response back, but its worth a try.

regards Stewie;

Awesome! I'm curious to hear what they have to say also.

[Pat Barry]

I'm actually a programmer, so diagnosing and solving problems is something which I'm very familiar with. The example you give in regards to trouble shooting is of course the same thing I do when I have the tools and means to isolate and test things -- otherwise, I'm just left to reason them out in my head, as I did in the example above. I'm yet to find a mechanic who is as thorough and competent at troubleshooting as you describe, but I'd certainly like to.

Problem solving, however, often relies more on lateral thinking and imagination (considering unknown factors) than it does knowledge or experience. As a programmer, one often works on massively complicated programs using tools and languages which few people truly know inside and out. As such, you simply have to be able to make educated guesses based on the symptoms of a given problem, imagine what variables might be contributing to the behavior, and go about isolating and testing your different hypothesis, narrowing down your search as you go based on new information. Sometimes, the problem can be many layers deep in some obscure function of some tool that you're completely unfamiliar with, and you would have had no basis of knowledge or experience to have predicted such behavior. The only way to identify that kind of problem is through logic and intuition.

I do find it interesting that you peg me as a non-technical type. I think, though, that you are confusing a preference for "Intuition" over "Sensing," and the mindset of a "generalist" over a "specialist," as being more or less technically oriented, which is not the case. As I have said before, I have a wide array of skills and interests, and I've done much more than just programming. As such, perhaps logic, reason, and intuition serve me better than knowledge or experience, because I do often find myself pursuing unfamiliar work or hobbies. I suppose one could argue, though, that knowledge and experience in one field often does aid understanding and intuition in another.

Anyway, it's an irrelevant point from a practical stance, because the only way you get knowledge and experience is by doing, and I'm one of those fools who wants to learn how to do any and everything, even if it's far removed from his field of work and doesn't make sense in an age of specialized, divided labor. Woodworking, among many other things, falls into this category for me. I'm not a woodworker. I just happen to work wood and have some basic level of knowledge and experience doing so. But I'll never claim to be "experienced," because I know that there are people who spend their entire lives focused on such work.

Oh, a programmer - I should have immediately recognized that bassed on your previous posting. Nothing wrong with programming but it does tend to reward the guess and check methodology because its so simple to make a program change and then run it. You can tend to think this method works everywhere. Its a very poor practice to follow in civil engineering for example because you need to design that bridge very carefully before you build it. In programming you come up with a concept for a subroutine, hack out some code, run it, find out it doesn't work, take a guess on how to fix it, tweak the code, etc, etc, etc. I have done plenty of programming in all different languages C, FORTRAN, basic, pascal, visual C, Visual basic, even assembly language back in the day so I know how that all works. Bigger companies are much more strict on proper code design - they don't tolerate that sort of programming from their professional coders. They expect well designed and implemented code right from the get go. Plus, if you do the coding, you know how its intended to work. Try and troubleshoot someone else's code and you will quickly see that it can be a huge nightmare if its not designed and documented properly -- of course you already know all that.