On 2012-11-20 18:21, Tom Holloway wrote:
> I don't want to hear about it all being there in the Archives,
> because I don't think it has been said in a while: All this folderol
> about the time, hassle, and mess of flattening of stones of various
> traditions and provenance is one of the reasons I stick to Scary
> Sharp.

Amen to that.

I have been reading the schemes people have adopted for flattening their
stones with amazement. Hours flattening stones. More time spent
flattening that sharpening.

Now I have to admit that anyone who uses old tools does it from
enjoyment of using the tools. Most prefer to buy huge electrical
monsters that remove the worker from the wood.

Time spent on something you enjoy is time well spent. If your hobby is
flattening water stones and oil stones, go for it.

However, most of the stores in the past week do not seem to be
expressions of joy. They seem more like punishments.

I spent quite a bit of time learning about abrasives, about metal, about
how abrasives affect metal. It was a hobby and I enjoyed it and still do
enjoy research. That is time spent reading and testing, it is not time
spent woodworking. Two separate hobbies.

When it comes to sharpening tools to use I spend almost no time. In 10
minutes I sharpen a couple of three plane irons and a few chisels and am
done. No before work other than getting the stuff out of the storage
box. No after stuff other than putting it back. Now and then I replace a
piece of abrasive paper, not often.

Someone spent 3 hours flattening one stone! I don't spend 3 hours
sharpening in a year.

If sharpening is not your hobby, just a means to an end, which is
woodworking. If flattening stones is not your hobby, something you would
rather avoid if you could. If you can build a simple wooden jig and do a
few other simple tasks, you might be interested in using abrasives on
glass the way I do:

   http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/

I just watched an episode of the Big Bang Theory in which the theme was
people who cannot stop talking about a single topic. People for whom all
conversations revert to a single theme. I sure don't want to become one
of those people, so I don't mention my web site on this or any forum but
once every couple of years.

The archive search finds many threads with this link, but most of the 
threads do not have the link.

Google finds 57 hits, but some are duplicates and some were not in 
emails from me.

The reason I use sheet abrasives on glass is I could not get stones to 
work. I have plenty of water and oil stones of various kinds and they 
don't work for me. Probably 40 in total. Moved them from one storage 
shelf to another in recent months.

The one exception is the silicon carbide coarse stone I use for 
grinding. It has never needed flattening in part because I never work 
the edge on this stone - just the bevel back of the edge. The need for 
flat back there is easily met even with a stone on which I have ground 
dozens of irons over years. Not flattened once.

I should put all my stones into a FMM message some day, but I don't want 
to inflict this stuff on anyone else either.

Brent
-- 
Victoria, B.C., Canada
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