Hi All,
Probably like many of you, from the time I was a kid and later, the local hardware stores and lumber yards had carborundum stones as the only sharpening stones in stock.
So, we bought and used them. I still have a big stone I bought as a young man, inherited another from dad, and got a really large carborundum stone in an assortment of oil stones I recently bought.
I bet a lot of the rest of you still have a large carborundum stone or two as well. Some in the assortment of oil stones I bought are dished out, and need flattening. Most I mine have a coarse and a smooth side, but in reality the sides should be called coarse and extremely coarse.
The questions I have are:
1. Should they be used with oil like an oil stone? (The boxes say they can be used dry or with oil.)
2. What is a way to flatten them, other than diamond stones, as I am NOT going to try to flatten one with one of my diamond stones. They won't get anywhere near one of my diamond stones, it isn't going to happen!
3. Are there applications where they are fairly useful?
I use mine for sharpening my wife's kitchen knives, and for initial rough work like the first stage of sharpening nickers, etc.
I ask because I have several, including two big ones.
I have thought about trying to flatten the dished out ones with coarse wet or dry sand paper on a left over piece of granite from a kitchen counter.
I have thought that once dead flat they might be OK for a coarse stone in a set of oil stones for a carpenters travel tool set when doing carpentry away from home. I want oil stones for that sort of tool chest because I don't want water stones in the box with tools because of potential rust formation due to a wet stone, and I don't want to take diamond stones because they are so heavy.
My current sharpening, once the iron or chisel is rough ground to roughly the correct angle, leaving a small flat on the end of the iron, is with coarse followed by fine diamond stones, then going to 1200 and 6000 water stones. Lastly I finish up by stropping. So oil stones don't play much of a factor, but for a travel tool chest they might be the preferred sharpening set up.
However, again, when on the road and having to carry the stones in a tool chest, I am thinking coarse carborundum followed by fine carborundum, followed by medium oil stone, followed by a fine oil stone and ending with stropping.
What do you think?
Thanks and regards,
Stew