Where can I get a cheap, but quality hard Arkansas stone?

Question

Or other good stone for honing my carving tools?

Answer 1

Try

Woodzone.com

Answer 2

This is a long answer, I'm giving you the benefit of thirty-five years of carving and cabinet making. My edge tools are all razor sharp and I usually start sharpening where most people leave off. Carving tools especially, must be sharp and you can see the difference in the quality of surface left by a well-sharpened tool versus one that is not sufficiently sharp. Most carvings are not sanded when completed, the finish left by your carving tool is the final finish. Therefore, you want those carving tools to be sharp.

Arkansas stones are usually not cheap. Woodcraft has an excellent and extensive offering of sharpening stones, including natural Arkansas stones, as well as man-made oil stones and water stones. I particularly like the Japanese style water stones, especially in the shapes needed to whet your carving tools. They're not very expensive and they work well. I store them in a tupperware container full of water so that they're all wet and ready to go at any time.

After more than thirty-five years of using a lot of edge tools, including doing a lot of carving, I can tell you that there are a few different ways to skin this cat and you should be looking for a fast and reliable solution so that you can spend more time carving and less time sharpening. If you're using carving tools, you'll probably want a few "slip" stones in different shapes. You can get these as Arkansas stones, you can also get them as artificial stones, like the Japanese style water stones, which I recommend. The next best thing to invest in for your sharpening is either a motor with an arbor on it, or even an inexpensive grinder or even an arbor you can chuck in a drill press, but get something to hold a spiral sewn cotton buffing wheel. My advice would be to spend a little money on a cheap, Chinese made 6" grinder from some place that sells junky tools for cheap, like Harbor Freight or find one at a yard sale, and take off the grinding wheels and mount a spiral sewn cotton buff on one arbor, and a loose sections buff on the other.

Get some buffing compounds, Eastwood has a great selection, and I would recommend this four-bar set: http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/produ... which will last you a lifetime, even if you're carving all day, every day. Use the emery compound sparingly, it is very fast cutting. The tripoli and/or the stainless compound and the rouge will do most of the work.

If your tools are ground to your liking, and you've honed them so that they're reasonably sharp, you shouldn't need to put a stone to them very often unless you nick an edge on metal, drop it, etc. You can touch up your edges with the fine slip stones and the buffs and keep your tools sharper than a razor. It's fast and easy and will keep you carving and not spending a lot of time sharpening. Having a cheap grinder dedicated to the buffs will allow you to quickly touch up your edges and keep them very sharp so that you are able to keep carving.

I think that I probably have every sharpening tool, machine, stone, etc. ever made. I love the Arkansas stones, maybe for nostalgia or sentimental reasons, but in reality they are not the most efficient way of getting the job done. And, your stones will eventually need to be trued again as, even trying to use them evenly, they still develop and trough in the middle. I have had a flat, turntable style Japanese water stone grinder that is extremely useful for general honing. For the carving tools, you'll mostly need to touch them up with the slip stones and points and then you can buff them to a razor's edge.

If you like the buffing wheel solution, you might also want to add a hard felt wheel and a leather stropping wheel. Both available from Woodcraft, both handy to me in keeping my carving tools sharp. These buffs, leather strops, and hard felt wheels, charged with the buffing compounds, are all nothing more than different ways of getting abrasive to work the edge tool sharp. As you become more familiar working with these things, you'll see what works and what doesn't work best for your needs. Reading my explanation will not give the experience, which is what you really need. You need the experience and familiarity with working with these means of sharpening.

Don't be suckered into buying a very expensive, all-in-one sharpening machine. Some "experts" will recommend these but I think they're a big waste of money and more for the guy who has to have everything.

Also, when using any wheel or any buff, pay attention to the amount of heat being generated so that you don't overheat your tools and lose the temper of the steel in your tools.