# flattening oilstones



## planeBill (Oct 21, 2011)

I find myself using my coarse oilstone a lot lately rehabbing the chisels I have beem buying lately (no,not tje pexto chisels),seems I've had a fit of chiselmadness lately,like some people with planes. So in the absesce of using the sandpaper/glass method I've been using the coarse side of one of my oilstones and have discovered that it needs to be flattened. What do ya'll use to do this?coarse sandpaper? Flat concrete slab? Belt sander? Any help would be great. Thanks


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## NJWiliam (May 16, 2011)

I'm using sandpaper on granite which works fine -with some wd40 to lubricate. I've heard a concrete slab also works, as does a diamond plate.


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

i use the concrete floor in my shop or course sand paper on granite. I don't use the oil stones much anymore (got a set of DMT's) but when I did I just did it a little more often to keep them flat. It takes some time on croncrete.


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## tenontim (Feb 24, 2008)

I use a concrete block. They're a little rougher than the concrete floor.


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## MonteCristo (May 29, 2012)

A lot of guys use a piece of plate glass as glass plate is pretty darn flat. You can buy silicon carbide grit from guys like Lee Valley ( see http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=33017&cat=1,43072).

You could also get a small surface plate from someone like Lee Valley. A lot flatter than a concrete floor and not very expensive.


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## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

Float glass and silicon carbide sandpaper for me. For coarse work I still use sandpaper to help keep my stones flat (80 grit gets things done in a hurry).

Tom Fidgen and some other really good cabinetmakers just use their coarse stone to flatten their Meduim stone, and their meduim stone to flatten their fine. This seems like a good idea for water stones where grit contamination would sluff off quickly, but for oil I like to keep everything separate, I could be wrong so this aproach might be worth a try.


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## MonteCristo (May 29, 2012)

RGtools:

Using the coarse stone to flatten the finer one is also advocated by Leonard Lee of Lee Valley and he knows a ton about sharpening.


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## lysdexic (Mar 21, 2011)

Have any of you guys used the new DMT Dia-flat plates on oil stones yet?


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## planeBill (Oct 21, 2011)

All good advice amd ideas. I had been doing the concrete floor thing and was thimming that there had to be a netter way. A cinderblock worked little better and was more flat. A rough sleeve on my spindle sander worked ok but wasnt worth the money. 
I'll have to try somethimg new, maybe the powdered stuff on a glass plate. Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious, and the not so ob ious.


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