Tool Sharpening

[ebee]

Hi nonstandard.
I have an oilstone that has an uneven surface. To follow your above comment, all I need do to restore it is use wet & dry on a flat surface?

 

[nonstandard]

It would seem that the correct procedure is to mark the surface of the stone with cross-hatchings in pencil; then rub it face down on a wetted sheet of wet and dry stuck down with water onto a sheet of plate glass or polished granite, machine bed etc.

You rub it in a figure of 8 pattern until the pencil marks are all gone, I must add that my stones were very nearly flat to start with and that apparently oilstones are a lot harder than whetstones and take a lot more redressing.

 

[hedgerow pete]

if you are going toflaten an old oil stone there are two sorts man made and solid stone, you want to get the roughest wet and dry you can to do the worst of it and the say a 180 grit to finish a man made stone is fairly quick to do where as a solid stone with a big deep through in it will take ages and a lot of elbow grease, if you cam whizz the worst of with an electric drill sander disk or do as my dad used to do which was a bench sander set flat and a brick ontop of the stone to weigh it down and sit and have a cup of tea, either way after it is flat we could also do with removeling all the old oil in the stone which is a boil the stone jobbie with a large hand full of washing powder we want it to be a simmer not a masive rolling boil and it will take about an hour to push as much out as you can

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You can also soak the stone in a pot of petrol for 24 hours - it'll lift out the gunked up oil and all the metal deposits. It will also tell you whether you've got a good quality stone or not (the cheaper ones will just crumble!!)
Not the best of methods though.