If you like to sharpen your knives and other tools yourself then I’m quite sure you have a pretty good idea of what a sharpening stone is. And just like any other tool, wear and tear from regular sharpening takes its toll on both its effectiveness and shape.
Today, I’ll help you understand how to flatten your sharpening stones. One, it will lengthen its life and you’ll get more out of your stone and secondly, it’s a lot more efficient to use a stone that is structurally uniform.
Stone flattening alternatives: There are several ways to go about it. Read on to find the one that suits you best.
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Sandpaper:
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An easy, inexpensive option for flattening stones is to use sandpaper.
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To start off, get yourself a flat glass sheet or a hard plastic sheet so you’ll have stability while you flatten your stone.
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Make sure to soak your whetstone for a couple of minutes in water. You could choose to go about the flattening process with a dry stone too but it will be quite messy.
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Now lay the sandpaper paper out flat on the plastic or glass sheet.
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Take your whetstone out of the water and place it hollow side down on the sandpaper.
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Start rubbing the stone back and forth across the sandpaper. Keep checking for progress periodically. Stop when the hollow in the whetstone is flattened to your satisfaction.
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Once you’re done with the hollow, make sure to round the sharp top-edges of your whetstone on the sandpaper to round them off. Because if you don’t your knife will catch on the sharp edges and you will end up with a damaged knife edge and a damaged whetstone.
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Using a Flattening Stone: You can flatten your coarse & fine sides using our dual grit, double sided flattening stone, It’s a two sided, dual grit, diamond grid flattening system designed to produce excellent flat surfaces on sharpening stones. Built from high quality silicon carbide the flattening stone particles help in cutting sharpening stones material precisely.