[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Tuesday, 6 January 1998 Volume 02 : Number 031 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: amoss@mindspring.com (John Amoss) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 11:04:32 +0300 Subject: [Baren 132] sharpening Helllo all- I have been practicing sharpening lately. I have a medium sized double-sided waterstone. To sharpen the "knife" tool I have been pushing and drawing along the edge by holding the handle with my left hand and pushing down with my right fingers to keep the correct edge angle. First of all, is this right? and second of all, I have been developing troughs in the stone's surface where I have been making contact. I guess that I could vary the strokes to work the whole stone's surface, but now that I have these troughs, how can one get rid of them? Also, does anyone use a leather strop to get rid of the burr? Thanks! - -john ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 10:01:59 -0800 Subject: [Baren 133] Re: sharpening The method I use is.... Water slip stones needed. 250 grit. This is for sharpening major defects in cutting edge, ie major shaping or broken tip. 1000 grit. This is in combination with my 200 grit (opposite side of stone) and is for fine tuning the edges. 4000 grit This is to hone the blade. They finish up with a mirror like finish. Burr... with the 1000 and 4000 grit turn the blade over to gently remove the burr. I have four 4000 grit slip stones of different shapes..... chisel, wedge, roundover.... which will do the variety of blade shapes. They are small about 4" long and 1 1/2 wide wedge shape with a roundover on one side. Always us the whole surface of the stone or at least vary the location so you don't get the dreaded grove. To flatten the stone take a stone of equal grit or greater and rub them to gether. I use the my 250/1000 grit stone 8" x 2" x 1" size this removes the necessary high sections and flattens your stone beautifully. Graham ------------------------------ From: David Bull Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 08:32:30 +0900 Subject: [Baren 134] Re: sharpening john asked some questions about sharpening ... john, it's funny you should ask these just now, because just the other day I was working on one of my stones, flattening it out, and was thinking of asking [Baren] members what ideas they had on this topic ... In addition to the three standard stones for sharpening (heavy - usually blue, medium - usually black or red, fine - usually grey), there is another stone called 'nagura' that is used. Each time a tool is to be sharpened on any particular stone, you have to make a bunch of 'mud' first. This is done by taking the nagura stone and rubbing it with water on top of the sharpening stone. A nice mud starts to form, and I think that it's the action of the grit in this mud that does most of the sharpening. But the nagura has one more function. Make sure you rub it _all_ over the surface, not just in a trough - and it will help keep the stone surface flat ... But even so, grooves may form, and even if you're careful to keep the tool moving around in different places, the stone will still develop a 'dip' in the middle. What I was told to do by a carver once (and what I was doing when I was thinking of [Baren] the other day), was to take the stone outdoors, find a smooth area of concrete somewhere, and rub it face down on that surface (with plenty of water ...) until it becomes flat. The neighbours here are now quite used to seeing me kneeling in the parking lot of this apartment 'scrubbing' my stones on a particular bit of concrete that I've found that is nice and smooth. And now, after nine years of doing this, _boy_ is it ever nice and smooth! But the story can't end there ... A couple of years ago, I was in the sharpening stone shop in Asakusa picking out a new stone, and got to chatting with the lady there (the daughter of the 'old master' stone man who sat hunched up over a stove at the back of the room). When I mentioned that I had been doing this concrete thing to level the stones, she chewed me out good! "Never, never never do that! If you're sharpening properly, and using the nagura properly, you should never have to do that! You'll destroy the stone. I think if that's the case, you shouldn't be taking this particular stone ... let me find you something a bit less expensive ..." And she tried to take back the stone I had chosen! I 'promised' her that I wouldn't do it again, and she let me go! (But I lied! I've tried to keep the stones level with just the nagura, but ....) All I can think is that when she said 'you'll destroy the stone' she perhaps meant that if I chose a spot of concrete that wasn't quite level, I might break the stone, but I'm quite careful about that. And of course I haven't chosen some very rough and bumpy spot that would scratch the stone surface either, it's quite smooth and seems completely 'safe'. The stones come out beautifully flat and smooth ... So there you have it - on the one hand the 'official' way, and on the other hand the way that works ... for me. Dave By the way, you should see that place! An entire shop of nothing but sharpening stones. From a couple of yen, right up to hundreds of thousands of yen for 'famous strata of famous quarry' stuff ... ------------------------------ From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown) Date: 06 Jan 98 00:19:58 EST Subject: [Baren 135] Barens Dave and Graham, Can you both get into a few specifics about barens for a would-be buyer? (Like where and what?) Dave's prodding has me wondering if this beautiful plastic baren of mine is 'not the only fish in the sea for me'. Also, would like to recommend a book to everyone I just recieved called "Quiet Elegance, Japan Through the Eyes of Nine American Artists", by Michael Verne and Betsy Franco, Tuttle Press. Just out about three months ago, this is a beautiful book. Almost half the work is woodblock, mostly from the last ten years. Dan Kelly, Joshua Rome, Carol Jessen are three of the nine I have found particularly interesting. You can find this book at www.amazon.com. Matt ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V2 #31 **************************