As a follow on from the recent thread on sharpening stone boxes, I am including a quick run down on the process I use to flatten the top surface of my honing stones. The use of loose sic powder is generally restricted to those harder stones that are well out of flat when purchased 2nd hand on ebay, and would respond too slowly if worked on w & d sandpaper alone. After the initial flattening of the stone with the loose sic process, general maintenance of the top surface of the stone shouldn't require much more than a light work over using 400 grit w & d. Extra care should be taken when working narrower type blades and chisels across the surface of stone to avoid localize wear.

The following is a purple welsh slate stone that has a lime green inclusion to one end. The loose sic powder being used is 280 grit. To avoid localized wear over the float glass, its recommended you work the wet sic slurry and stone in a figure 8 motion, utilizing the full flat surface of the float glass. Randomly reversing the direction of the figure 8 motion is also considered sound practice.



At the completion of using the loose sic powder, its recommended you leave the wet slurry to harden to a dry crust before clean up.