What is the best way to deep clean oil from a hone?

One of my recent purchases while on holiday was an old India Oil Stone. I have been trying to lap this hone, but I am coming into a bit of trouble. First I found that it is so hard that the only thing I can use to cut a slurry from this stone is a diamond plate. While I thought I had clean it up the remaining oil and gunk is gumming up the diamond plate. I have tried just letting it soak in a bucket of very soapy water. I used laundry detergent, about the same amount that I would use for about five loads of washing. Even doing this I had to stop and clean the diamond plate every minute or so.

So how do you deep clean an old oil stone? I don't have an oven, so I can't bake it. But would boiling it help?

Some people have said they have had good luck using oven cleaner.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

Some people have said they have had good luck using oven cleaner.

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+1 this post below from Howard @ the perfect edge ;

It's very important to keep your stones clean. Porous stones like the Norton can "load" with "swarf" and become steadily less useful over time. I restore several stones every week (all types) and I recommend a spray you can get at the supermarket or at Wal-Mart called "Easy-Off Fume Free". It's usually used to clean the grease and dirt from a dirty oven. You can also get it not Fume-Free but it's a harsh smell to have in the house. It's a blue can. It gets into the pores, dissolves whatever is in there, and bubbles it up to the surface. I usually let it work for a few minutes then brush with a plastic dish brush, rinse, and repeat. I've had vintage stones with decades of oil, dirt, and yuck come clean and reveal their true inner nature. BTW, the belgian stones are not porous and don't load so when I get a vintage one I clean with Easy-Off and then lap flat (they're almost always dished) with a DMT Coarse Continuous Diamond stone in 8"x3".

Howard

+1 on Oven cleaner. I have also boiled stones in water and detergent, with some sucess as well.

Mac

Soaking in mineral spirits might work well too ? I used to drop handguns in a pan of MS and let them soak to get dried oil out of the innards and then re-lube. Worked real well with those.

It's probably going to depend on how long the stone was used with oil and how porous it is. If a lot of oil has soaked well into the stone getting it all out will be more of a problem. It may take several treatments and it may need to soak in some solvent a long time otherwise it may seem like it worked but over time oil will come to the surface.

Vulpex Liquid Soap is a product I swear by when it comes to cleaning hones, it is designed to emulsify both fatty oils and mineral oils, and is the best degreaser I've tried bar none. It's made by the same people who developed Renaissance Wax, which is a good enough endorsement by my reckoning. Once I've cleaned a stone with Vulpex, I then mix some kaolin clay with a little distilled water and spread this over the honing surface to draw out any additional debris and dirt.

Kindest regards,
Alex

Cleaning surface dirt with oven cleaner or another aggressive detergent, then (repeated) overnight soaking in suds of enzyme based washing powder, overnight soaking in white spirit and rinsing with washing-up liquid is what I do, but be warned that those old Norton India stones are a pain to get completely fat-free. You'll probably always have to add a bit of detergent if you want to use it with water.

I have 3 stones soaking in Mineral Spirits now as Jimmy & Big Spender said. I have soaked some for weeks. Use Mineral Spirits not the new low VOC paint thinner. I use one of those plastic shoe boxes with a lid. Drop it in and let it soak. scrub with a brush after a couple of day and soak some more.

Dry in the sun on paper towels for a day then into another plastic shoe box filled with salt as Old School recomended. I buy the salt at the 99 cent store 2 for 99. You'll need 3-4 cans, let it sit for a week or untill it stops smelling.

Marty