I use Norton waterstones and recently got their new dressing stone to help keep the various grades of sharpening stones flat. It works quite well and very quickly, but be sure that both stones are very wet because the slurry is needed as part of the flattening process.
One important factor to be aware of is that the flattening stone is 220 grit. If you use it alone to flatten an 8000 stone, the fine stone will be left with heavy scratches in the flat surface. This roughness does not produce the desired mirror finish on a sharpened edge that I wanted, at least on my smoothing planes. Now, I have added the extra step of final dressing the flattened 8000 stone on 400 grit wet/dry paper, and the honed edges are what I expect from a well prepared stone.
The moral of this story is that the special flattening stone is just the first step in maintaining waterstones and achieving outstanding sharpening results, when ultimate sharpness for fine work is the goal.
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To flatten water stones I use 220 grit wet/dry sandpaper on the top of a piece of glass.
That's what David Charlesworth recommends as well.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Rob Cosman (featured in various LN videos on handplane use, cutting dovetails, etc.) simply flattens his water stones by rubbing two water stones together. Before every sharpening, he laid a 1000 grit stone on top of the stone he was going to sharpen on (even the 8000 grit), rubbed the stones together in quick circular motions, put the 1000 grit back in the pond, and set to sharpening. The whole process took no more than 15 seconds, and he did not use any extra flattening devise (dedicated flattening stone or sand paper). The key seemed to be that he religiously flattened each stone before sharpening instead of waiting until the stone was so cupped that aggresive flattening was required.
After watching Rob's methods at shows, I do the same thing with my Nortons, and it works exactly like it does for him.
The key is the small circular random movements, and that he does it BEFORE every sharpening, and during, after about 50-100 swipes.The older I get, the better I was....
Thanks for the good poop, I have been looking at them for a while. I am using wet/dry on a heavy granite block. It works very well but I think that the norton stone is the right way to go over a water pond. I have seen it from $19.99 to $39.95, but have a bad case of C.R.S. I F ANY ONE SEES IT ON SALE PLEASE TAKE A POKE AT ME. Thanks, Pat
Have you tried to smooth the stone face using glass or granite under the 400 grit to eliminate the grooves left on the 8000 gr. stone?
I do that now.
If you use sandpaper on top of a piece of glass or something else flat you will notice where you use the stone the most and then adjust accordingly. When using the sharpening stone I usually I make two strokes on the end for every long stroke.
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