This has been a very helpful thread. I just joined this site tonight so I am very much a newbie here.

I am about to betray my ignorance here with my questions.
Which is better, an oil stone or a water stone?
Why do some stones require oil and others need water?

I have used both. When I was a kid my dad always used a grinder to sharpen his knives. Even when I wasn't very old I noticed that his knives were not very sharp and the more he used his grinder on them the quicker they got dull.

One day I found this small square grey stone hidden behind some items in an old box. When I asked what it was I was told it was a Spitstone that belonged to my long departed grandfather to sharpen his knives with. Back in that era the youngest child in the family learned quickly not to ask more than one question about any topic so i proceeded to teach myself how to sharpen a knife. It took me awhile and some experimenting but i soon learned to sharpen my pocket knife to the point where I could almost shave with it. Next thing I knew I was sharpening everything I could get my hands on. They eventually started raising cain with me about my sharpening because they were so used to dull knives they were cutting themselves with my sharp ones.

When I got older and moved away from home I started using oil stones. At the time I felt they were better.

I am retired and disabled now. I have taken on the task of teaching myself woodcarving and woodworking. In the years before I retired I got lazy about sharpening. Might as well be bluntly honest. My sharpening skills deteriorated. I was spending a long time to get poor results. I started fondly remembering my old spitstone. Nowadays I have my trusty laptop computer that does not care a whit how many questions I ask of it. I started to look for my old spitstone hoping that I had not lost it. After a long search I found it. Now that I actually know a little more about sharpening I have found that it is actually a medium grit stone that some folks might actually call coarse. I happily set to work with it and was soon to produce fair results.

In my search for my stone I found a lansky system that had been my father-in-laws. I found it good for rapidly taking down metal on exceptionally dull blades but for the medium work I still liked my spitstone/waterstone. For fine work I purchased a waterstone from a Belgian company.

I'm getting some decent results now but i have other tools that I want to sharpen that can't be used on a regular stone. For example I have a spokeshave with a curved blade. I want to get it razor sharp but don't want to ruin the blade while experimenting on how to sharpen. I've done an extensive YouTube search for this info. With one exception all I can find there is people showing how to do a regular flat blade. the one video I did find was good but i want to find out more before i start. If I work out a good system I'll post my own video about it. Oh.. the one video I did find was a version of the scary sharp method. The guy doing the video was wrapping different grades of sandpaper around a metal tube and sharpening his curved blades with that.

Somehow I just don't care for the idea of sandpaper. Too old fashioned in someways i guess. One more thing i found in my search was one of those huge old waterstones that the old timers used to sharpen all kinds of things. One of those that you sat on a stool and cranked a pedal with your foot. Unfortunately the stool and pedal assembly is long gone. I'd love to restore it to working condition but honestly it's another medium grit stone. I may put that up on e-bay as a local pick up only auction. Shipping it may have to be done by freight.

I'd love to hear your opinions on what you prefer and how I can solve the problem of my curved blades. Goodnight all!