One known unknown Never thought I’d miss the days of Rumsfeld

Often, slurry stones of all types are maddeningly slow. What I do with all slurry stones is to round one or more edges using a flattening plate or SiC sandpaper. I also rough up any surface that is adjacent to a rounded edge. I generally throw the slurry stone(s) in a small dish of water while I get other parts of my sharpening kit together. The idea is to get the binder in the stone a little softer. Five minutes is all you need.

To raise a slurry, I use a rounded edge and rub it on the base stone with light to medium pressure. Using the flat of a slurry stone distributes your downward force over too large an area and impedes the breaking off of stone bits. A rounded edge does not typically scratch the underlying stone. With some stones, it will take a while to get a slurry started, but the thickness of the slurry will build quickly once a start is made.

In the case of a tomo, I often use a diamond plate to raise a slurry simply because I’m impatient. I scrub lightly with the plate. I’ve been told at length how wrong I am to do this. There is the risk of diamonds getting embedded in the base stone’s surface, or of diamonds getting in the slurry, or that the surface texture of the base stone becomes too coarse to properly finish an edge. Yet, I manage to get great edges. I’m convinced (atm) that these concerns are all low probability.

Recently, I came across the method of using a diamond plate to raise a slurry, and then use a slurry stone (along with the slurry that was raised) to modify the surface texture left by the diamond stone. I’ve used this method and it seems to work well.

Hope this helps.