Flattening Stones by Pride Abrasives Made in USA

The basic concept of sharpening with waterstones is that friable abrasive material makes a slurry, and the slurry sharpens your tool. It works well, but the sharpening stone can dish and become curved. Once your stone is not flat, your blade is in danger of following suit: the blade will not continuously touch the stone in sharpening, will work more slowly as a result and worst of all, slowly adopt the curvature of the stone.

The solution to this problem is to flatten your waterstone on a regular basis -- i.e., prevent the problem so you don’t have to grapple with a bigger problem.

Pride Abrasives, a family run company, manufactures two sizes of flattening stones: a smaller 9"x3" stone and a larger 10" x 6" stone.

Both flattening stones are made of a 120 hard abrasive, in a hard binder. That the the flattening stone will stay flat after years in use. Both stones are also ground flat after manufacture for a precise flat surface. This grinding process ensures a very flat reference but also slows down the abrasive action compared to unground stones. You also get a finer texture on your water stone than you would with an unground stone. This is a real boon when flattening polishing stones.

We personally prefer the larger of the two stones. It actually cuts a little slower than the smaller version because being bigger the waterstone is always totally on the stone and you get no edge action. But this also leads to a slightly flatter result which is why we prefer it.

These flattening stones offer a cost effective alternative to DMT diamond hard coat lapping plates for keeping your waterstones in tip top shape.

Made in USA.