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Milling table stone

madmachinst

Stainless
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Location
Central FL
OK got one and ran into the shop to use it, maybe I didn't used enough oil or something and on the Coarse side the middle is clogged with metal or god knows what and on the fine side there is almost a ring of the same stuff. Can I put the stone in muriatic or something to clean it and get rid of that metal?
 
Soaking in mineral spirits or a run through the wifes dish washer should help unclog the stone. You didn’t hear the dish washer trick from me. SWIMBO has access to all of my pressure points...
Jor
 
You're going to want to make sure that whatever you're stoning is CLEAN first, or you're going to get all kinds of crap clogged in the pores of the hone. After that, the mineral spirits is what I use as a lubricant - while stoning, not after - and it works great. Never have any kind of loading or clogging problems when using it.
 
Dilute the acid, 10%, ( patio cleaner), allow to soak, probably overnight,
Good rinse, dunk in some alkaline if you like should be good as new, stones are ceramic bond so should be impervious,
If conc acid AAA, always add acid, to water that is!,
Mark
 
I heard other folks say use comet at first. give good scrub and then use barkeepers friend cleaner and scrub that in should work. If that doesn't work going with what boslab said cause I have no ultrasonic cleaner. Use some NaOH for alkaline and then mineral spirits. Yep that table was clean before I stoned it.
 
I keep my stones soaked in mineral spirits when stored.
That way, the pretty much never pick up and hold any debris.
Sounds like you have a stone that no one knew how to care for
and properly use. Does it belong to the shop or you personal
stone you keep in your box. If it belongs to the shop, any
advice here about care and use will probably be frustrating
to follow. Sad but reality most of the time.

-D
 
OK got one and ran into the shop to use it, maybe I didn't used enough oil or something and on the Coarse side the middle is clogged with metal or god knows what and on the fine side there is almost a ring of the same stuff. Can I put the stone in muriatic or something to clean it and get rid of that metal?

"Clean" might be "relative". You have to MEAN it... so that all that is THERE to BE picked-up ....is the burrs ... and nowt ELSE.

Just go get a new one...use wet, per eKretz , store wet, per Doozer, et al. Put the machine back to WORK. Sort the FUBAR-tombstone some other day. A vintage Alvis Speed 20 it was never.

Then hide it well.

Decent stones attract abusive idiots worser and faster than even political rallies with free milkshakes could ever do.

:(
 
Kerosene also works well to clean and lube stones. Dad used to have a coffee can with various sized stones soaking. He said that the pores needed to be full of lubricant to keep them from clogging. I have used WD-40 on mine for the same purpose.
 
When you say you got a "ring" of embedded material, it sounds like the stone face isn't flat.

Do you have a good surface grinder? If so, you can make the stone flat with a diamond wheel, just block the stone in well so it can't move/lift. If not, perhaps some silicon carbide sandpaper backed by a surface plate (with water/dishwashing soap as a lube) may bring the stone in. Diamond lapping sheets would be better, but pricier.

The flatted stone should be more effective in not damaging the mill table anyway.
 
Kerosene also works well to clean and lube stones. Dad used to have a coffee can with various sized stones soaking. He said that the pores needed to be full of lubricant to keep them from clogging. I have used WD-40 on mine for the same purpose.

First-off, I suspect that far too many of us use WD-40 for FAR too many things it not only was not intended for, it is actually a rather BAD choice for, and also more costly than it needs to be.

Regardless.. "Day Job" used Stoddard Solvent AKA "Varsol 1" to keep the stones clean.

Haven't seen it in a tin for a longish while. Seems to have fallen out of "favour"? Carcingens? Toxicity?

Description here:

Stoddard Solvent - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

Might be an even nastier choice than WD-40?

Can't win....
 
Stoddard solvent is pretty much the same as mineral spirits. WD-40 works okay but I like mineral spirits better. Kero would probably work very well also. As far as the stone being flat/flattening it - I have been doing that for so long (must have been near 30 years ago since I started doing that) I forget that it's not common practice for everyone. I tend to assume that everyone is using a flattened stone. If you're not, you absolutely should be. They don't come very flat from the factory.
 
Stoddard solvent is pretty much the same as mineral spirits. WD-40 works okay but I like mineral spirits better. Kero would probably work very well also. As far as the stone being flat/flattening it - I have been doing that for so long (must have been near 30 years ago since I started doing that) I forget that it's not common practice for everyone. I tend to assume that everyone is using a flattened stone. If you're not, you absolutely should be. They don't come very flat from the factory.

OK I'll bite. How do you flatten a stone?
 
OK I'll bite. How do you flatten a stone?

There are myriad ways. Lots of guys have been talking up the "precision ground" stones lately. Those are ground flat on a surface grinder with a diamond wheel.

They can also be flattened with a good quality electroplated diamond hone.

They can be flattened with loose silicon carbide grit on a lapping plate or a very flat piece of glass.

They can be flattened with wet/dry sandpaper with a flat backer like a lapping plate, flat piece of glass or a cheap import surface plate.

And finally, there is the very first method I ever used as a young apprentice, which is to mount a diamond nib in a flycutter and mount it in a mill, then use that to basically "mill/dress" the stone surface flat. (That one was a method I made up on the fly when frustrated with a non-flat hone and had no other method available in a pinch, but it worked).
 
There are myriad ways. Lots of guys have been talking up the "precision ground" stones lately. Those are ground flat on a surface grinder with a diamond wheel.

They can also be flattened with a good quality electroplated diamond hone.

They can be flattened with loose silicon carbide grit on a lapping plate or a very flat piece of glass.

They can be flattened with wet/dry sandpaper with a flat backer like a lapping plate, flat piece of glass or a cheap import surface plate.

And finally, there is the very first method I ever used as a young apprentice, which is to mount a diamond nib in a flycutter and mount it in a mill, then use that to basically "mill/dress" the stone surface flat. (That one was a method I made up on the fly when frustrated with a non-flat hone and had no other method available in a pinch, but it worked).

Thanks, I like the NIB thing.
 
I like using Gojo and/or Boraxo to clean gunk out. If I get metal embedded and it's a basic use stone (precision stones get treated differently), rub two stones together, or rub the stone over some sandpaper with a flat precision surface behind it (old granite or machine table). In some cases you can use a sharp pick to get the bigger bits out. To keep it from happening, clean the surface before you stone and/or use mineral spirits or some other fluid medium to wet-stone the surface. I've also used Simple Green and Windex. Just something to lubricate the cut and help rinse as you cut so that the dust doesn't just roll around under the cutting action, the same as any other metal cutting operation.
 








 
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