Sharpening stones

[jabell]

About 20 years ago I bought a sharpening stone out of the miscellaneous box at Mitre 10 for $1, and now it is starting to get a bit of a hollow. I'm thinking I've probably got my money's worth out of it, and so I've been looking at Bunnings, eBay and AliExpress.

Ebay is selling worn out cruddy bits of land fill for $125, whereas Bunnings has some reasonable looking aluminium oxide stones for$10~$39.

AliExpress have a good range, including corundum, quartz sand, "Green carbon oil stone", whatever that is, all in grits from 400 to 10,000.

I mostly use mine for wood turning and ordinary chisels, and rarely a wood plane.

Any gurus on this topic?

[ventureoverland]

My first port of call would probably be Stuart at www.toolexchange.com.au

Good quality stuff at sensible prices.

[Robson Valley]

For something to be flat, stay flat and be entirely economical, you should look into
using fine wet&dry automotive finishing sandpapers. I've done it for years.
Wood turning = you will always be finishing your wood products with sand papers anyway.
Wood chisels = 800 then 1500 then hone with CrOx on box card should give you a reasonable
edge and wood surface.

Steel is crap for ultra edges anyway. Obsidian and other glasses and diamond edges would cut better
but why bother? Any finishing treatment will flow to fill the smallest imperfections anyway.

As a short note added in proof, talk to an opthalmic (eye-guy) surgeon about scalpel edges.
Steel is so Dark Ages.