Oil Stone

[isotonicpies]

My knife & sharpening kit comprises a small £1.85 all purpose utility vegetable knife from the supermarket, a small chunk of a £3 oil stone from the local tool shop. Held together in a sheath made from some old shoes. Yes I'm a cheapskate!
I need to know if there is any problem using water on my oil stone instead of oil. As I don't see the need for going out and buying a pricey water stone if my cheap and cheerful oil stone will do the job nicely. And engine oil can be tricky to find out in the bush.

 

[weekend_warrior]

My knife & sharpening kit comprises a small £1.85 all purpose utility vegetable knife from the supermarket, a small chunk of a £3 oil stone from the local tool shop. Held together in a sheath made from some old shoes. Yes I'm a cheapskate!
I need to know if there is any problem using water on my oil stone instead of oil. As I don't see the need for going out and buying a pricey water stone if my cheap and cheerful oil stone will do the job nicely. And engine oil can be tricky to find out in the bush.

Oil stone and waterstones are quite different materials - use only oil on oilstone and water on waterstones!

You might find a £0.75 travel bottle from superdrug will carry all the oil you need in the field. But you haven't seen clean and sharp till you've used a waterstone!

 

[isotonicpies]

Oil stone and waterstones are quite different materials - use only oil on oilstone and water on waterstones!

You might find a £0.75 travel bottle from superdrug will carry all the oil you need in the field. But you haven't seen clean and sharp till you've used a waterstone!

Excellent, thank you!

 

[Fire Ferret]

hello

It might not seem like a big deal to use water on an oil stone but if you want to get picky water displaces the oil thats already in the stone, meaning you get an uneven sharpening.

when sharpening you want a thin film of oil or water on the top of the stone, but if you mix oil and water you get droplets, which affects the friction across the whole thing.

Hope that helps.

 

[ESpy]

Oil stone and waterstones are quite different materials - use only oil on oilstone and water on waterstones!

Up to a point.

Don't use oil on waterstones. Don't use them dry either, they need to be kept soaked. A good lump of slate can be used quite happily (and it's a lot cheaper than Japanese waterstones!).

Oilstones - so long as they aren't impregnated ones - can be successfully used soaked in water or dry. I use (and am extremely rude about) a very cheap oilstone soaked in water for scrubbing scale off forgings, as some people will have seen. Once you've started with one lubricant, stick with it - you can't really chop & change.

http://www.razoredgesystems.com/ is one of the outfits that don't advocate using any lubricant on oilstones...