New bloke with a Supergrind 2000

[Jeff Farris]

At this point, I wouldn't worry about using any oil. Just use the honing compound. Looks like it has already been well oiled.

[violaine]

thanks much guys.

i cant believe i am talking to you guys and its ok even if its not in real time..so until then.

[violaine]

hah, after the long wait...I finally got the truing tool...

the instruction was clear and brief...It took me about 30 minutes to finally flattened the stone...the initial spun was too much vibration...perhaps due to the unevenness of the stone...after about 10 spins, the surface became flat..(although I purchased the dressing stone, I went straight away to honing a chisel...)

and for 3 minutes or less and here is the first bevel...


and another minute or two, the next bevel..


what a wonderful sharpening tool!

[violaine]

btw, I used this to soften the "scorched" leather strop before applying the honing paste...is this ok?


I recalled I haven't cleaned up the water trough...got pictures of the "mud" after truing the stone..the previous owner must have used the tool incorrectly (dry honing)...

taken when still wet...


and when dried up...it must weight around 50 grams (guestimate)


and this is the state of the stone now...it is still almost near the 250mm mark!

[grepper]

I'm sure that oil is just fine.  About any oil would do, umm... well, any petroleum based oil.  Probably would not want to use vegetable oil!

You only want to use just barely enough oil to get the honing compound to stick to the leather.  The honing  compound contains oil, so once you get to that point it kind of takes care of itself.

What you don't want to do is to apply too much oil so that the wheel becomes rubbery and slippery.  You don't want the honing compound to slip and slop around on the surface of the leather.  It needs to stick to the leather to do its job.  When you have it right, you can almost feel it cutting the steel.  It has sort of a smooth tug on the blade.  Hard to explain, but you will know it when you feel it.

I suspect that it would work fine even if you never used any extra oil at all, but it would use up more compound until the  leather became saturated.  At any rate, when it comes to oil, it's better to  use too little than to use too much.

BTW, that is the most beautiful picture of slough I've ever seen! 

[Rob]

If you think Slough's nice you should see Maidenhead on Thames :-)

[violaine]

I also felt the same that I must not "wet" the strop too much so that the honing paste can still infiltrate the surface fibers and not slip because of over oiling.

oh and that is called..."slough"!

thanks for the comments on the pics...now let me get my hands busy sharpening more tool iron for "..the devil will find work for idle hands to do.."