Well....I have always been pretty careful in my shop practices and yet there are time when you do things that just do not set in till later.
I have been using WD40 on all my Norton and natural Arkansas stones for doing the final sharpening on all my blades. I see that the can says avoid contact with skin and prolonged exposure. I find that I always get it on my hands, there is just no way around it. I tried wearing some of the Nitrile gloves I have around for other processes but this prohibits me from feeling the burr and assesing how things are going by feel.
I know Wayne Goddard uses Kerosene and my Mentor Tai uses the WD40.....There must be something better for my body. I tried to find a thin mineral oil but could only find some thick stuff that did not work well. And I do not plan on making the shift to water stones:)
Anyhow...if anyone knows of something let me know. Thanks
-DON:)
"with malice toward none; with charity for all...." Lincoln
Hi Don
You can really use any low viscosity oil and I've used both olive and canola oil in the kitchen. A food type oil will float the junk off as well as machine oil. You just want as low a viscosity as possible. Sewing machine oil also works and doesn't have the propellant that WD-40 has. Personally I've moved to diamond and ceramic stones for most things but that's just so I don't leave oil on any woodwork. (I should mention at this point I am an absolute beginning and a near idiot in knifemaking and my experience with sharpening is limited mostly to woodworking and kitchen tools).
However, I do know a little about chemistry and chemicals. I personally do not worry about either kerosene (except for the fire hazard) or WD-40 for long term exposure. Not having a can nearby to check, off the top of my head I worry more about the propellant than the oil itself. As long as you handle both sanely, my bet is you'll be fine. I just bought some kerosene to try as a flux and I use WD40 all over the house and lab, so I obviously not worried. Some of that is to protect the manufacturer against weirdness, like people using it to clean the kid, spraying it into an eye, or bathing in it. The legal requirements these days means warnings can get weird. I bought some standardized olive oil once from Aldrich (major chemical supplier). Standardized seems to mean no oil and no scent. The safety sheet was scary enough I wondered why I hadn't died from cooking with the stuff for all these years.
Hope that helps.
Kevin
Dont use oil period. Common dishsoap is best, when you're done rinse it off and its like new, your stone will NEVER clogg and old stones will unclogg
Dish Soap. Cool,I'll have to try it. Still interested in what others are using. Vegetable oil sounds like it may work ok & I can;t believe I have not tried that. I have never tried kerosene, but perhaps I'll see what that is like.
Still looking to hear from more folks.
I bought a can of the WD40 cause the propellant was just a draw back considering all I was doing was placing it on stones....and there was always some left in the can.
Thanks Guys, keep em coming.
-DON:)
"with malice toward none; with charity for all...." Lincoln
Hey Don
I just looked at a can of WD-40 at Lowe's and I think you're fine. There is nothing in there that worries me for skin exposure. Just FYI and of course, there's always olive oil, but then you have to worry about being mistaken for pizza <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />
I've used dish soap to clean stones but never to sharpen so I'm trying that today.
Kevin
Anybody besides me use Simple Green?
|quoted:
Anybody besides me use Simple Green?
+1 on Simple Green! You can also soak stones that were used with oil in it to freshen them up.... Wayne Goddard had an article awhile back about it in Blade magazine.
I've never used simple green but I do use 409 sometimes.
it's always worked well for me
