"Dougie Nisbet" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> Recently I decided to buy a sharpening stone. Now this may be a dumb
> question, but I find it really difficult to decide what side is the
> 'course' side, and what side is the 'fine' side. It has a two-tone
> construction and the instructions (which I've lost) definitely said it was
> course/fine. I've tried running my fingernail along each side but I can't
> tell with any confidence which side is which. Is it just me?

Some of this may depend on the quality of the stones. I have two of these
two sided stones. One was a present, whose source I do not know, but it has
a distinctly different pair of surfaces that are easily told apart: this is
how stones 'always used to be' in my memory at least. My other one is a
cheapo, from Wilkinson's, and it is indeed more difficult to tell the sides
apart, and it also gives a sickly rubbery smell when in use.

So it looks like it pays to buy a good brand.

S

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <NYldk.2043$(E-Mail Removed)2>,
> Spamlet <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Some of this may depend on the quality of the stones. I have two of
>> these two sided stones. One was a present, whose source I do not
>> know, but it has a distinctly different pair of surfaces that are
>> easily told apart: this is how stones 'always used to be' in my
>> memory at least. My other one is a cheapo, from Wilkinson's, and it
>> is indeed more difficult to tell the sides apart, and it also gives
>> a sickly rubbery smell when in use.
>
>> So it looks like it pays to buy a good brand.
>
> I've gone over to diamond coated steel plates for my occasional chisel
> sharpening.


Try Arkansas oilstones - reputedly the best and highly prized when I was a
very young apprentice chippie!

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:45:47 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I've gone over to diamond coated steel plates for my occasional chisel
>sharpening.

I've taken to this also, including a few strokes to the carving knife
prior to cutting the Sunday joint.

AJH

"Dougie Nisbet" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> Spamlet wrote:
> My other one is a
>> cheapo, from Wilkinson's, and it is indeed more difficult to tell the
>> sides apart, and it also gives a sickly rubbery smell when in use.
>
> That sounds familiar. I'll give you one guess where I bought mine from :-)

I might like to add that there are probably different grades of two-sided
stones too. My dad's one - probably still in use! - had the typical pink
hard honing surface on one side and fairly coarse grey on the other. No
mistake possible there (they used to have similar things on a smaller scale
inside the old Ronson razor boxes that used to be found in vast numbers at
jumble sales...). On the other hand, a met lab that kept my fingers well
ground down polishing all sorts of metal prior to hardness testing, had a
row of stones on an inclined plane with water permanently running down it.
Going through the grades, a mirror finish was nearly obtained, and then made
good on a lapping wheel with diamond paste (spectacular results when odd
shaped magnet cores dug into the spinning fabric and were hurled across the
room...)

What I really used to like were the little 'Tam-o-Shanter' green, spotty,
honing sticks, which I used to find so useful for putting the final finish
on all kinds of edges (including my finger nails, to get just the right
sound from a nylon guitar string...). Sadly, these seem to have
disappeared: I did track down a web reference to the firm and write to it a
year or three ago, but never got any reply.

Ho hum.