How to Clean an oily plugged up stone?

Unregistered · Post by **Unregistered** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 7:31 pm

I just picked up a sharpening stone (not water or diamond) and it is full of oil plugging up the abrasive. What is the best way to clean the stone?

Also what is the best way to flatten the stone?

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:16 am

I don't have experience with this, but it seems I remember reading about flattening a stone by rubbing it on wet/dry sandpaper laying on a piece of plate glass. Since it is an oil stone, I imagine you could use mineral spirits instead of water. That would have the added bonus of cleaning the oil out of the stone.

kenb · Post by **kenb** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:33 am

I'm a meatcutter and our stones get oil clogged all the time. Just soak in hot water then rinse under hot water, use your thumb on the faucet to get more water pressure.

Unregistered · Post by **Unregistered** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:15 am

If the meatcutter's solution doesn't work, then you could cut right to the chase and get some lapping grit from lee valley.

Find a plate of glass (or some other dead flat hard surface), pour on some grit, then some mineral oil and make a slurry. Rub the clogged stone over the slurry. It will also flatten your stone too.

Unregistered · Post by **Unregistered** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:23 am

Oh, and I forgot -- you clean up the stone by pouring some mineral oil on it. When you want to dry off the stone, do NOT wipe it -- you want to take some cloth or paper towels and dob/dab. Do not wipe back and forth or you'll have bits of cloth/paper in the abrasive.

Just as a side note, I used to use oilstones quite a bit until I started using sandpaper. All you need is a dead flat (or near dead flat) surface and a variety of grits of sandpaper (can buy these from shopsmith or klingspor). I went to a kitchen counter/marble place that had tons of cut offs lying around. They were happy to up and give me one. It was a nice long piece that was wide enough to accommodate a plane iron. Works great.

The best part is that when the sandpaper becomes loaded, you either brush it with a wisk broom or toss it. You can make the paper stick to the stone by simple capilary action with a spritz of water on the plate. Or, you could buy PSA sandpaper or use that 3M mounter's adhesive.