Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Waterstone pond..... and accessorizing your sharpening stones


Rough stock. An old, decrepit sailboat, full of still valuable teak.

This



Into this 


A stone platform for a new waterstone pond.





Also ……

Old, OLD old-growth redwood, washed up on the Oregon coast about 6 years back. Some of it turned into windowsills for our house but this ribbon figured piece.... What will IT be?


The surface, as left by a Japanese plane, then a file.




 The plane gave a good finished surface with some minor blemishes, and just the slightest bit undulate.... Following the surface grain. I lightly hand sanded with 330 grit, even though I know better. Muddy. Then draw-file using a flat mill file. Better. VERY hard to avoid ALL tear-out, particularly in a such a soft wood as redwood.

Still, I can do better..... A different plane, one of my favorites, a small 42mm ko-ganna, single blade. Bought from Junji (eBay seller yusui), then cleaned/tuned and put to work.


The kanji is hard to read. Nothing too special, just a good, user plane. The blade does use a nice ren-tetsu wrought iron for the backing metal, though. Each blade is different. I love that.


Tight mouth = reduced likelihood of tear-out.


Much better. Sharper grain definition. The sheen is back.




Notice the difference in surface quality. The chamfer is much rougher than the other two faces.


The rougher chamfer is the file finish. I may leave it this way, I haven't decided. And what is this to be, you may ask? My original intent is for it to be a box enclosure for a 1200 grit synthetic waterstone. Something practical for kitchen knives, and nice enough that it doesn't get stuffed into a drawer, never to be used.


The inside has been hollowed and will get lined with some thinly planed teak. The base platform will be Brazilian walnut...... We'll see.



I am of two minds divided. Stone enclosures, while great for oil stones, are less well suited for thirsty synthetic waterstones. Some man-made stones suck up a LOT of water and the box prevents drying out.....AND the man-made stones are messy, too. This kind of defeats the purpose of a nice box.


This is what is in our kitchen.....


.... an old carborundum oilstone in a simple, fitted mahogany box. It gives a nice, toothy edge to knives. I mostly use this dry, but sometimes with water. If I use a LOT of water, I can expect the box to swell/shrink for the next two weeks or so. A more rational mind might just use oil instead of water (so messy!) OR, say, cut the box for a looser fit, hmmm?


Rational..... bah!


1 comment:

  1. Nice! I like the teak and the redwood. Both excellent wood for the respective jobs. I should tell Charlie to check out what you did with the teak!

    ReplyDelete

Like all of us, I am figuring this out as I go, so when you see something that is incorrect or flat out wrong (and you will!), let me know. This is a learning process. Real people and names, please. Constructive comments and questions are very welcome, but hate speak/politics are not! Life (get one!) is too short.


Thanks, Jason