Thread: Norton Bleah !!!

I bought a Norton 1K/4K waterstone to use for sharpening my
chisels.. Gosh amighty those things are SOFT...I have had to
plane the thing down twice already...THink I will stick with the
Japanese stones...Tho the nifty plastic case with feet, that holds
enought water to keep the stone wet is nice. However I do not
think I will ever buy another....YMMV

jim Ice Bear and Suehiro FOREVER in GOld Bar

We never said they were good for chisels!

I thought it was supposed to be used for plane blades, not chisels?

Welllll I got a couple of Norton Oilstones for my chisels..
I think it has something to do with the amount of surface of
material to be sharpened in contact with the stone. With a razor
there is lots, with a chisel only a little..So the waterstones work
GREAT for razors but are a little soft for chisels..However the oilstones
being much harder are less likely to be scored by the tool
.In fact I just bought a set of used
8" oilstones on ebay....Will continue to use the waterstones for
razors, but for use on woodworking tools the oilstones work better.
I was AMAZED by the edge a translucent Arkansas stone puts on
steel. Even tho it is 'grit rated' at about 1200ish..
Now a question. There are a lot of large inexpensive stones labled
"hard Arkansas"..Then there are some labled "True Hard Arkansas".
Then there is soft Arkansas...Then there is black Arkansas....Then there is
Black Gold Arkansas (you Arkinsanians have a real gift there)
I was wondering WHAT the stuff that is called "hard Arkansas" but is pretty
cheap (Nine bucks for a 8" stone). Whereas a "True hard translucent Arkansas
sells for about seventy bucks for the same size stone....I think it is a matter
of somewhat fuzzily defined terms here...
So as it stands it is waterstones for razors, oilstones for woodworking tools -
tho I suspect that waterstones would work just fine for plane blades and
stuff like that...

jim decompressing after a loooong Sunday in Gold Bar