Honing stones

Honing stones

Honing stones are aids for the manual honing of ground tools. A distinction is made between natural stones and artificial stones. Natural stones come from quarries and therefore vary in size, quality and appearance. Artificial stones consist of ceramic materials that have been pressed into molds and fired. They are homogeneous in structure and have the same shape and appearance. They can be produced in different grain sizes (degrees of fineness) and the following whetstones have proven themselves for high-quality cutting tools used by carpenters, wood sculptors and wood turners:

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A - Natural stones

Yellow Belgian chunk - a water whetstone.
This is the best known natural whetstone. It is available in two qualities: Quality I (extra-extra) and Quality II (extra-fine) and in different sizes and shapes: Bench stone in a rectangular shape, chunks in an irregular shape and as a shaped stone. The specified qualities are mainly optical grades. Quality II may have blemishes. However, it is identical to grade I in terms of stone quality. In addition, a distinction is made between the expensive, solid yellow chunks and the chunks and bench stone with a slate backing. The slate backing is necessary to stabilize the yellow stones, as the thin layers of stone in the quarries generally provide the best quality.

Blue Belgian chunk - also a water whetstone
In the search for an alternative to the dwindling number of yellow stones, a high-quality sharpening stone with almost identical properties was discovered, only in a blue-grey color, which comes from iron oxide. This stone contains approx. 30 % garnets compared to the yellow stone with approx. 40 %. As a result, this blue stone is somewhat