Is this $10 carborundum a water stone?

I followed your link and paged down to the product description and it said :
Before use, you should read our instructions to produce the sharpest blade:

Step 1: soak the sharpening stone in water for 5-10 minutes, place it on a sturdy flat surface. (drop water on the sharpening stone surface while sharpening, although it has been soaked)
Click to expand...
That is pretty diggly dangged clear to me.

But I know what you mean. What with "product info" being what it is in amazon listings it could say : Paper air plane; NOT MENT FOR FREE RELEASE IN OPEN AIR.
and
most of the people here would put oil on that stone. I believe.
I'm a water stone person who has been known to put water on Arkansas stones (I hate wiping a stone with a rag and the stone is so much cleaner if rinsed under a running tap). I struggle to like oil stones and reluctantly even put oil on one occasionally.

That said watch this vid

 
PS: For what it is worth . . . let it be known my second to last stone I just purchased this previous week was a Silicon Carbide Gritomatic 320
( Boride CS-HD Series 6" x 1" x 0.25" Silicon Carbide Sharpening Stone with Aluminum Mounting for Edge Pro 320 Grit )
I will be putting oil on it . . . if I have to . . .
I guess. :(
:)
 
PPS: I went looking for my question to Ankerson so I could leave a link to his recommendation to use Windex for lube on a stone like this (Silicon Carbide).
I didn't find that post but . . .

here ! Here ! HERE ! is where it aaaaallllllll started.
The moment that led our dear Jim Ankerson down the path to non diamond using and the leap from polished edges to coarse and toothy rope devouring, edge testing to the max . . .

well I'm running out of BS to had to that paragraph but here's the link anyway.

Windex dude !
Windex is all you need !
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...-sil-carbide-stone.856322/page-2#post-9699722
 
From the vendor's own description on the linked page:
"...made of natural carborundum being fried with special formula by temperature of 1000+ Celsius inside industrial oven..."
Click to expand...

Red flag^

There's no such thing as 'natural carborundum', as carborundum (a.k.a., trade name for silicon carbide) is purely man-made. I'm betting they've mistaken 'corundum' (naturally-occurring aluminum oxide) for what they're calling 'carborundum'.

Probably is an aluminum oxide stone intended for use with water, like other waterstones commonly made of aluminum oxide.

It always worries me when vendors don't seem to know the difference, for products like this.
 
Last edited:
PPPS: I'm having a great time here so why not keep going.

Taken out of context this is some pretty funny sheet stuff :

You have got to have some sort of secret custom made tactical toilet paper
Click to expand...
Charmin Ultra Strong, same as I always used, the the one with the Red Label.
Click to expand...

Who'da thought there was a super cool guy tactical toilet paper.
I've been doing it wrong all this time . . . and me being so full of . . .

[that was from the last link I posted just page down]
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
It always worries me when vendors don't seem to know the difference, for products like this.
Click to expand...
This drives me to distraction !
Why they let yo yos who are just entering web site / amazon adds make this stuff up rather than have them type verbatim what the actual tech people at the company need them to type I will never know.

If this keeps up we will have astronauts spend months getting to another planet in our solar system, the astronauts will land, get out and discover they are on Venus rather than the intended Mars.

That's already happened in a movie called Abbott and Costello Go To Mars and for the reason absolute morons are "driving" the ship.
 
Thank you for all of the answers.

It's pretty obvious that this is Amazon page is written by a Chinese writer. Marketing by Chinese writers who know nothing about English, leave alone the product they are marketing, are dominating amazon and ebay more and more. Thanks to American industry for moving their factories to China in the 80s and 90s to make a few more cents profit so they could get their bonuses that year. Now look at things.

Anyway, given that you can't trust anything these Chinese writers say, because they don't have a clue, I asked my question.

I have since found a couple of pretty in depth sharpening websites that state that water stones are also made from silicon carbide, not just aluminum oxide. So my original concern, that it could not be a water stone since it's silicom carbide, isn't necessarily founded, and I'll assume it's a water stone.

I swore I'd never try freehand sharpening again but I spent an entire day, literally, trying to put a new bevel on a cheap Chinese (there we are again) but well-liked little fixed blade. I am ready to try using a stone again, and the Lansky scarred the blade up so I have little to loose. This cheap stone is claimed to have 200 and 500 grit so maybe it will work.

Thanks again to all.

Jim
 
river251 said:
Thanks to American industry for moving their factories to China in the 80s and 90s to make a few more cents profit so they could get their bonuses that year. Now look at things.
Click to expand...
That is a very clear eyed comment. I get tired of the "The Chinese are evil because they make stuff" comments. In many cases we took our manufacturing over there and asked them to make stuff for us. :confused:
river251 said:
spent an entire day, literally, trying to put a new bevel on a cheap . . . but well-liked little fixed blade. I am ready to try using a stone again,
Click to expand...
Maybe try some plain high carbon steel blade to learn on which might be easier to debur. I am assuming the knife you are having trouble with is stainless steel which tends to be tricky to debur if it isn't pretty good stuff and on the higher end of the harness scale.
 
river251 said:
Thank you for all of the answers.

It's pretty obvious that this is Amazon page is written by a Chinese writer. Marketing by Chinese writers who know nothing about English, leave alone the product they are marketing, are dominating amazon and ebay more and more. Thanks to American industry for moving their factories to China in the 80s and 90s to make a few more cents profit so they could get their bonuses that year. Now look at things.

Anyway, given that you can't trust anything these Chinese writers say, because they don't have a clue, I asked my question.

I have since found a couple of pretty in depth sharpening websites that state that water stones are also made from silicon carbide, not just aluminum oxide. So my original concern, that it could not be a water stone since it's silicom carbide, isn't necessarily founded, and I'll assume it's a water stone.

I swore I'd never try freehand sharpening again but I spent an entire day, literally, trying to put a new bevel on a cheap Chinese (there we are again) but well-liked little fixed blade. I am ready to try using a stone again, and the Lansky scarred the blade up so I have little to loose. This cheap stone is claimed to have 200 and 500 grit so maybe it will work.

Thanks again to all.

Jim
Click to expand...


IMHO always follow the manufacturers recommendation first. It can occur naturally but is either synthetic or AlumOx as natural forms are pretty uncommon.

There are quite a few waterstones made with silicon carbide.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top