Concern about freezing the grinding stone

[David Dalley]

I live in a fairly cold area of Utah where it gets down to freezing quite often.  My shop is only heated when I am working.  My question is how do you keep the stone from freezing? 

[jeffs55]

I am no expert on this but have a couple of ideas. Put some antifreeze in the water or maybe salt, then the stone will not freeze. The salt might cause problems with carbon steel implements but I dont think it would harm stainless. I dont know the effects of anti freeze on steel but it works in cars. I dont think it would matter at all if a dry stone froze, only expanding water due to ice would crumble it in my opinion. This is the opinion of an uneducated man so take it with a whole salt shaker!

[Jeff Farris]

Jeff, neither of those are a good idea, in fact, they're really bad ideas, sorry.  Salt is corrosive to both the tools you're sharpening and the machine itself.  Anti-freeze makes anything it touches (including the grindstone) slick, rendering its abrasives ineffective.

Take your Tormek or at least the grindstone to the house if your shop is going to be below freezing shortly after use. 

[jeffs55]

Oops, I hope the original poster read your comments!

[David Dalley]

Jeff, thank for your suggestion.  I will just store the machine in a warm spot in teh house when not in use.

[Big Guy]

Simple solution Put a box over your wheel and put a light bulb under the box.  The heat from a 40W bulb will keep the temp. above freezing.

[jeffs55]

I think "Big Guy" has the best answer. Mine was stupid, duhhhhhhh.