A lean and mean shop

[jayco]

Does anyone else ever use a piece of sandstone or field stone to shine or smooth something in the shop?

Kind of like a cross between a whet stone and sandpaper.
Handy when you want to shine a tool to 'run the colors'
I've used 'found' stones to smooth the edges of fullers and chisels for years........I hadn't heard anyone else mention it.

I find them in the little creek behind the shop.........and they're free!

[Frosty]

Uh. . . Yeah, I've used stone to "file" grind, polish, etc. metalwork but not as a cost saving strategy. I figure my time is worth enough to use the grinder if available.

Plunging in and out of a bucket of sharp sand is another way to polish up a point while tempering.

I still prefer power tools though.

Frosty

[jayco]

I have one of those old 20 inch grinding wheels with the crank handle.Sharpening an axe, hoe,etc, is painfully slow with it.

I am glad we have power tools in this modern age as well, Frosty!

I just usually have a piece of stone around the shop somewhere.
If I want to take a grinding burr off a punch or chisel, I'll rub the edge of the tool on the stone to make things smooth.
Of course sandpaper will do the same thing........the funny thing is; I usually have to hunt for the sandpaper, and the stone is always where I can find it.......(my son borrows the sandpaper)

James

[Glenn]

Use a broken grinding wheel to remove the scale from a piece of metal so you can watch the colors run. As Jayco says, also good to remove a burr.

[Ten Hammers]

I'm fairly tight all the time in the shop anyway. Sometimes to the point of being foolish I guess but try to learn from my mistakes. A torch and a gas saver is much faster than firing a forge for many small issues BUT many times making extra coke is a smart way to fire for something small. A hacksaw on the forge side is much faster than going around to the other side and using the chopsaw. I don't do much heat treat but do use muriatic for de-scale. A hot file will save you a lot of time sometimes. Of course a good belt grinder is hard to replace along with dedicated side grinders with rocks and flap wheels. Compressor air is ALWAYS turned off at the tank along with all bottles when I leave and not turned on unless I use them.