Clay, the diamond stones are working perfectly thus far. I assume the rust comes from the metal dust from the knives I am sharpening trapped in between the pores on the stones. I scrub the stones a lot so not sure what to do about that. Once suggestion was to use alcohol rather than water and the other to put the stones in the plastic holder in the sun to see if I get any condensation. I will try both and report back in a day.

BTW, I have never been able to sharpen a knife by hand. Your system has made me the envy of my family and friends. I am getting shaving sharp edges with a beautiful polished edge using the 1200/1600 ceramic and leather strops to finish the blades. Cannot thank you enough and am looking forward to being able to purchase the new guide rods.

Dan,

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I don't clean my stones very often, maybe once every 30 knives or so. How often are you cleaning yours?

DanClement wrote:

DanClement wrote:


This brings up a good point. Is Alcohol a recommended cleaning agent for the stones? What is the "official" recommendation for cleaning them?

Good questions Thomas - there are some gentlemen on this forum that know vastly more than I do about the chemistry involved in cleaning the stones, so it may be worthwhile to consult with them or browse their other posts on the topic.

What I've found to work well so far on the diamond plates is a dish brush with warm, soapy water. I then pat the stones dry and leave them standing on end with plenty of air circulation to finish drying.

For my ceramic stones, I use a soft pink eraser most of the time, a fibrous eraser (soon to be available on our site) when it's really getting fouled up. I recently tried Soft Scrub foaming spray on my Mirco-Fine ceramics and had great success. Some people highly recommend Barkeeper's Friend for the ceramic stones.

ThomasMeeks wrote:

I clean them after every use. I watched all of YouTube videos I could find on the WickedEdge and that was the suggestion from a lot of the videos. I will do fewer cleanings; perhaps that is part of my problem.

I had the same issue Dan i clean them every time as well.... I have since been putting a drop of oil on each side and rubbing it in on the whole stone face. It's been working great with no negative effects that I have seen.

Are you using something like Ballistol or CLP? Do you have any issues with the metal dust sticking to the oil? If not, this might solve the issue of the rust for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

Actually I'm using CLP and it's been working great. I think I found out my problem though... I put my wet choseras in the tupperware container with my diamond stones . I did just order some silica gel packets that I will throw in with my stones too. They're cheap

Thanks so much. I wanted to give the oil suggestion a try for a few days and then reply back. I cleaned the diamond stones as usual "warm soapy water, an old disposable electric toothbrush", dried the stones with a towel and applied my favorite oil (ballistol). The Ballistol immediately pulled up a bunch of gunk from the diamond stones that the soap, water and toothbrush did not get. In fact,
It was like I had not cleaned the stones at all giving the amount of gunk that came out of the stones.

I washed the gunk out, dried the stones again and applied another light coat of oil. I have had no rust issues since using your suggestion of the oil and it has not affected the performance of the stones. I like to use Ballistol because it is not toxic to humans and many of the knives I sharpen are kitchen knives.

Thanks so much for the help, I truly appreciate it and perhaps this will help others with the same issue.

Dan...

Dan, I did the same (using Ballistol) about a week ago and am happy with the results so far. I was initially concerned that there might be a tendency for the diamond stones to get gunked up, but this did not happen. I will probably continue to use it in this manner until I notice any potential problems. I plan to use it only on the diamond stones.

Ralph