Flattening Waterstones

[Denis Tranchemontagne]

I have a couple waterstones and have never flattened them.
Typically I use a combination scary sharp on a piece of granite tile andwaterstones to sharpen planes and chisels.

I was wonder what people use to flatten their stones.

Thanks

Denis

[Danny Thompson]

I use this Norton Flattening Stone.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=5775

[Mike Henderson]

I use this Norton Flattening Stone.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=5775

My experience with that Norton flattening stone has not been good. The problem is that the flattening stone must be kept flat or it transfers its non-flat shape to the working stones.

I use a DMT extra coarse diamond stone for flattening my working stones.

Mike

[Eddie Darby]

If you have a piece of granite already then you can use the surface plate to flatten your stones.

You should be flattening them quite frequently.

The fast cutting waterstones act fast because they wear so easily, producing fresh cutting compound in the process. The downside to this desirable fast performance is that they dish fast as well.

I have a DMT diamond stone, x-coarse/coarse, that I use, even though I have a granite surface plate which is much flatter, for convenience sake, because I can take the diamond stone to the waterstone, and do a quick touch-up very easily in between tools.

[Sam Yerardi]

Another option that I've heard of and read about in FWW (I've never tried it myself) is to use one stone to flatten the other. Place them together with a small amount of water, and rub across each other. Don't remove the paste that develops. Eventually they will flatten each other. If I can find the article I read I'll post the issue #.

[Danny Thompson]

To Mike's earlier point, the instructions that came with the Norton Flattening Stone say to periodically flatten it with a diamond stone.

[Gary Benson]

I also use the DMT x-corse diamond stone. I find that I need it to initially flatten older blades and chisels anyway, so it gets double duty. I have not had good luck using stones to flatten other stones due to differences in hardness. If you had 2 that were the same it would likely work well. I just use the diamond stone to flatten all of them.

[Thomas Knighton]

I'm trying to remember where I saw this, but there is at least one person who uses a cement block to flatten his stones. I haven't tried it myself, since my water stones haven't gotten here yet, so take this with a grain of salt!

Tom

[Greg Funk]

I've flattened waterstones with a piece of wet/dry sandpaper and any flat surface like a tablesaw top. It is not difficult.

Greg

[Mike Henderson]

Another option that I've heard of and read about in FWW (I've never tried it myself) is to use one stone to flatten the other. Place them together with a small amount of water, and rub across each other. Don't remove the paste that develops. Eventually they will flatten each other. If I can find the article I read I'll post the issue #.

This point has been discussed quite a bit before. If you rub two surfaces together, you get two conforming surfaces - not necessarily two flat surfaces (two flat surfaces are one possibily since they are conforming). The most likely outcome, however, is that one surface becomes convex while the other becomes concave.

Mike

[Christoph Schmitz]

Hi,

there is one (low-cost, I might add) technique that has been popularized in the German handtool community by Friedrich Kollenrott. He proposes to flatten your waterstones on bricks. In order to keep the bricks flat, you employ a technique that is well known in other areas (he quotes the making of precision surfaces in optics).

The key idea is to maintain three bricks and get these flat by rubbing them on one another in a cyclic fashion. If you number the bricks 1-2-3, the order would be: 2 on 1, 3 on 1, 1 on 2, 3 on 2, 1 on 3, 2 on 3. With this technique, you cancel out the effect of one brick becoming concave and the other one convex.

You can add grooves to the bricks to take away the swarf, and use silicon carbide powder to speed up the flattening of the bricks.

Those who speak German or want to take a look at his pictures, see http://www.woodworking.de/schaerfprojekt/schaerf2.html.

Best regards,
Christoph

[Sam Yerardi]

Mike,

It's good to know that. Like I said I've never tried it. Thanks!

[Bill White]

Another option that I've heard of and read about in FWW (I've never tried it myself) is to use one stone to flatten the other. Place them together with a small amount of water, and rub across each other. Don't remove the paste that develops. Eventually they will flatten each other. If I can find the article I read I'll post the issue #.

I agree w/ Sam. Been doin' this for years w/ good results.
Bill

[Sam Yerardi]

What makes me think this is worth trying is it does make sense. I don't remember the author's name in FWW but he even went so far as to suggest having an extra stone for each one just for this purpose.

[Larry Heflin]

Rob Cosman demonstrates and uses this technique in one of his videos.

Another option that I've heard of and read about in FWW (I've never tried it myself) is to use one stone to flatten the other. Place them together with a small amount of water, and rub across each other. Don't remove the paste that develops. Eventually they will flatten each other. If I can find the article I read I'll post the issue #.