Sorry Mike, but I honestly think you would have been a lot safer using some of that Final Cut abrasive stuff on a table saw!

I've got this image of your holding the stone down on to the side of the disc... With most stationary machines, you have some kind of fence of at least a stop to prevent the piece from being snatched and dragging your digits it - I'm afraid to ask if you had anything like that in place...!

If you really wanted to take it to the angle grinder like that, you'd have been better off wedging the stone on your bench which some scraps of wood screwed in place and wedges added where necessary (if you don't have any dogs).

Do you have one where you're trimming your finger nails with that angle grinder setup???

 Mike this could be as messy as putting the cat through the planer,and more painful, it would be a pity to get blood over that nice telephone table while dialing the ambulance service.

OPJ did you see the American inventers program on the tele where the bloke had rigged up a gadget on his grind stone to trim his finger nails?

George 

Oh! Oh! Back to the old HSE again! I have in sevaral posts bemoaned them and sometimes mentioned "common sense". I now rest my case at the fingers of the Yank!

Let us now do away with the HSE and spend the money saved, on teaching " Intelligent Cognitive Thought"  ICT for short which could also stand for "In Case (of) Trouble".

If started at an early age we may survive as a productive & intelligent lifeform within the universe.

Mike

Have you ever seen a programme about a master Samurai sword maker at work?

He spends days upon days using different grades of water stone to get that unique look of the blade (not the wavy line, that's done by charcoal and heat)......at the last stage, he has a stone as thin as hair and the size of a button placed on his thumb and runs it along the blade, this he does for hours until its perfect.

I'm not saying you should use such a stone but, if water stones can make metal as shiny and sharp as a sword, I'm sure it would work for plane and chisel blades. It just takes time and patients.

With water stones being a bit cheaper than decent Diamonds and have better end effects, I will be after one for sure but, not the 10,000 grit.....I don't think I'd have that many years left just for sharpening!.

Marc,

I have seen something on Samurai swords......a programme called "The Ascent of Man" from about 20 or 30 years ago. It was the repeated folding-over and re-forging of the steel that amazed me.......I can'r remember anything of the sharpening.

Anyway, I am now a convert to "Scary Sharpening", and will be using this for the foreseeable. I am making a jig this evening to help, and am also in the middle of a sort-of copy of your grind-stone guide.

Mike 

The programme I saw was recently and called Master in which there was an episode for different masters of trades. This master in question was (if I remember correctly) taking months to grind the metal down on a wet stone......sat on the smallest stool I've ever seen and went from a large stone of around a house brick size down to that little wafer thin stone to finish off the smoothing....it shone! I'll try and find out if its going to be on again. 

I hope to see pictures later Mike and you carry on, if it works for you, all the better.

Just re-read this post.... Mike using the angle grinder to flatten the oilstone is potentially dangerous due to the disc being designed to cut on the thin edge rather than the side of the blade. Undue wear on the side of the disc may cause it to break up or fragment with some serious results. Most too horrible to think about.

OPJ! Oh! P J ! As the HSE rep (self appointed) I think you have dropped the ball on this one!

Having seen the result of a disc fragmenting at a stone masons yard ( pure accident, nothing could have prevented it other than not going to work that day ) the mason was lucky to keep his eye. The safety glasses stopped most but not all the debris.

Work safe, play safe and stay well to enjoy it all.

Best regards Rob.

Sorry Mike

Must have been the effects of sitting in a hospital most of the day!