Quote Originally Posted by HNSB View Post
I've recently been using anti-microbial hand soap in my soaking water. I used to use bleach to prevent the slimy stuff from developing in water. The problem with bleach is that if I used a little too much it would sometimes cause darkening of the blades I was honing.
Using anti-microbial hand soap sounds like a good idea. I'll have to try it the next time I change the hone water.

How much bleach did you use? I use 1 tablespoon of bleach per quart of water. That works great for me. (I typically use that bleach-to-water solution to rinse my meat grinder or other kitchen tools used on meat.) I change out the water every 6 months, just in case, even though I never see any residue in there.

I soak my 1K and Norton 4K/8K stones together and have not had any problems. It's probably because I rinse off my stones when I take them out of the water container, and rinse again right before I place them back into the container. I get a feeling that the rinse water remaining on the stone may be slightly diluting the storage water, which is why I change the water out 6 months later.