Stone for sharpening knives & axes with in UK

[Joe tahkahikew]

I seen another post where a guy was selling Japanese sharpening stones for some bucks. That made me wonder if there are good stones in UK for this purpose.

I saw a couple of places where you could get good stone for sharpening tools in UK. I also saw wheel shaped things made from stone with handle to make them go around and sharpen things.

Up here you can find good places where you can get sharpening stones in plenty and it is good enough to make knives and axes as sharp as you need. I also tried the stone my friend used in UK and he got it locally and it was perfect for knive/axe sharpening

Where are the other places in UK? and what kind of stone?

 

[WealdenWoodsman]

There are quite a few locally available stones in the UK which would work, Welsh slate being one. Around where I am we have an abundance of sandstone which I have used in the past, mostly out of blatant curiosity. Once the surface was made flat it worked rather well, only problem was that it wears down very quickly.

 

[Broch]

There are a couple of places in the UK that provide igneous hard stone that has been used for blade sharpening for a very long time (I must ask the missus about this as she's a geologist!!). I think the most well known area is Charnwood.

However, if I'm out and about and in need of dressing a blade, I usually look for something a bit softer and use a flattish sedimentary stone. I can usually find something with a fine grain structure that will give me a decent edge until I get back especially once I've stropped it. Around here it's Ordovician mudstone (with some Silurian seams); I can often find some nice flat pieces to use wet.

Buying a stone is just a convenient way to get a usable piece in the workshop for me and I would never dream of buying Japanese natural stone - maybe I would if I had a real antique Samurai sword

Cheers,
Broch

 

[Janne]

Just east of Mayfield, East Sussex, down in the valley there is a stream.
Footpath down. Nice fine grained stone in stream!

 

[sunndog]

Yeah plenty of hard or soft stone in any shape you want. Those waterstones though would have been expensive because they are perfectly flat and fine enough to give a mirror finish.....sure, i'v gotten knives as sharp as they need to be on soft sandstone but folks like a nice looking finish

 

[Bishop]

Dug a couple of pictures out of my photo archive.

Location: Mid Wales East of Llyn Brianne


Fractured Grey Mudstone at the reservoir


Mudstone again I think. Hennog valley rough location



Bedrock at the dam Google Street View

 

[Robson Valley]

I guessed as much: except for bragging rights, British stone is as good as anybody else's for sharpening.
The forges and bladesmiths around Sheffield have been making edge tools for centuries.
Where do you suppose they got all the stone that they needed?

 

[snappingturtle]

Lot of sand stone here Joe, we have a local city pretty much built from it, it comes in soft to quite hard I built my fire place from it, you can cut it with a wood saw and shape with a rasp but it dose eat your tools !

 

[C_Claycomb]

Stone referred to as Hornfels. Miners also called it whetstone.

Slates can also be used, and there are plenty of places to find slate in the UK.

http://www.inigojones.co.uk/products/Honing-Stone.php

Probably less heard of now simply because other types and sources have been more commercially successful.

I have played with some prepared natural stones. How well they work depends greatly on how even the stone is in consistency and the make up of the steel and its hardness. I am very fond of my old Arkansas stone, but less so of the other natural stones I have inherited...they are slow and in one case, exhibit uneven texture. The majority of Japanese water stones are man-made, so you get precise grit size, even wear characteristics, consistency and predictability. Their big selling point is in speed of cut. I even have one Japanese style stone made using ceramic abrasive that sharpens high vanadium content steels like S90V as readily as my other stones handle O-1.

Joe, the stone your friend got in the UK, was it a dressed stone that was quarried from the UK, a lump of stone that your friend picked up (river worn or that he dressed) or something that was bought branded as UK, but the geological source unknown?

 

[Toddy]

Moughton whetson is superb. Used for sharpening razors.

M

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Joe, the stone your friend got in the UK, was it a dressed stone that was quarried from the UK, a lump of stone that your friend picked up (river worn or that he dressed) or something that was bought branded as UK, but the geological source unknown?

Thanks for that information sir.

My friend builds walls from stones and does what is known as hedgelaying. He has some different stone for sharpening tools. One flat stone was sort of brownish yellow, he calls sandstone I think, and he got it from a place where it used to be mined/quarried out of cliff where it was sold for sharpening tools many years ago. He took a nice piece of our sharpening stone back home with him - it is quite different from the stuff I saw in yorkshire. Next time I see a geologist up here I must ask him what kind of stone ours is. We have nothing like that sandstone up here.

 

[Toddy]

I didn't want to chip in with the stones known from archaeological sources until folks posted the ones they knew of that are still used.
Dan, who found and generously passed along some of the Moughton whetstone, is already known on the forum, so that one's part of the background to some of the long term members

Otherwise, I know of quartzite, fine grained and used as belt carry stone.
Like this example, from a Viking grave in Scotland, thought known of elsewhere too, pretty common find.
http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-099-782-C

Or Palaeozoic micaceous siltstone, again a very common find, obviously much used, but there are a lot of broken bits found, so one has to wonder if they're somehow a bit fragile. There's a slightly coarser version refered to as micaceous sandstone too.

Oolithic limestone is also used, but puck shaped, like the axe sharpening stones used nowadays.

The Dalriadan (Scottish) metamorphic schists were also (and I know someone who still does use them) as whetstones. These shists seem to weather shatter into ideal long narrow shapes too. Very handy

I mind watching my Grandpa sharpen a heuk...think grass hook.... but he used a stone that made a slurry with some water and used that to clean up the edge before he honed it with a cigar shaped brownish grey stone. I have no idea what that stone was made from though. As kids we just found a smooth stone and used that to put an edge on our knives. Usually something washed smooth in a river. No wonder some of those knives ended up looking like stilettos

 

[Broch]

but he used a stone that made a slurry with some water and used that to clean up the edge before he honed it with a cigar shaped brownish grey stone.

My grandfather on my mother's side (a poacher, carpenter, and many other things!) taught me to sharpen a knife on a stone that he first built up a slurry on with another stone - unfortunately, as I was ten, I don't remember what stone it was. But then, in my eyes, he could make gold out of base metal as well . I just wish I had spent more time with him.

 

[Janne]

Japanese wet stones are hugely overpriced. I bought one (should have known better!) and it is basically a waste of money.

I expected more.

Maybe somebody in UK could start a good business selling UK wetstones?

 

[oldtimer]

As a child, I remember the actor Bernard Miles on radio telling a humorous dialect anecdote about a knight's tomb in a local church the punchline of which was that the effigy was, "the finest bit of sharpening stone in all 'ertfordshire."

I wonder if there was an element of truth in this in that a stone suitable for carving tombs from was also good for use as a whetstone. Anyone know tales of country folk sharpening scythes on tombstones?

 

[Robson Valley]

See #9. I've just ordered a slate stone from Inigo Jones.
Looked like a good price to fit my curiosity.

I have some artificial water stones. Good ones.
They have a higher ratio of known grit particle size to binder than do the cheaper stones.
Slurry is a myth composed of smashed abrasive of unknown particle size.
Water is the vehicle to carry away swarf for a clean cutting surface.

All our river stones would be suitable for sharpening. Everything else got ground into powder by the glaciers.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Japanese wet stones are hugely overpriced. I bought one (should have known better!) and it is basically a waste of money.

I expected more.

Maybe somebody in UK could start a good business selling UK wetstones?

I have seven or eight water stones, five of them definitely Japanese. I have been very happy with all of them. Some have been extraordinarily good value. They were a revelation after using elderly carborundum and trying to do too much with a fine Arkansas stone. I am very sorry that you got a duff example. Don't write off an entire class of sharpening stone on the basis of one bad example. As for price, well, I did buy all but that ceramic grit stone quite a while ago, and I have watched the prices rise significantly since then, but when I look at prices for water stones vs oil stones vs diamond stones vs ceramic, here: http://www.axminster.co.uk/hand-tools/sharpening-tools it does not appear they are over priced. Just that everything is fairly expensive at the initial outlay stage.

 

[Janne]

My Japanese water stone is a little bit different, basically a natural chunk of rock with one very flat side.
Very, very fine grit.
I think it cost me somewhere around 200 USD when it arrived. (stone, shipping, duty)

Does a good job yes. But then my combo stone ( 1500/5000 (?) grit) does it as well.

 

[Robson Valley]

I carve with crooked knives and adzes. They all have curved/swept blades.
I can't use a flat stone. I expect carving sharp edges all the time.
Those edges last 30-40 minutes, when I can feel the cutting effort go up.

Instead, I use 3M fine automotive finishing wet&dry sand papers. Dry is good.
My strop is the inside face of a breakfast cereal box, scribbled with CrOx/AlOx.
600, 800, 1,000, 1,500 and my strop. Less than $20.00 for everything.

American Redline sandpapers are a lot cheaper, must look into them as I run down my 3M supplies.

 

[mrcharly]

200USD! blimey I'd expect perfection for that

My japanese waterstone, two grits (250/1000), cost me £25. Works well.