Sharpening stone

A whetstone is a composite of mineral constituents flat stone for grinding and sharpening tools or blades, in particular scythes, views, sickles or knives.

Previously whetstones were exclusively mined - for example, hard pebble sandstone in the Swabian-Franconian Forest mountains at Joke until 1923.

Nowadays, they usually consist of artificially bonded corundum. Often a graded grain size of the particles on the front and back of the whetstone available ( for coarse and fine sanding ). To whet the whetstone is usually moistened; serves as the Kumpf, also called Wetzkumpf, the mowing not only as a storage vessel for the whetstone, but also contains water, so that the stone can be used equally moistened.

The whetstone should not be confused with the fine-grained whetstone. The sharpening is done in a uniform, in stages taking place " swing " of the Wetzsteines on the front and back of the blade, while the cutting edge is drawn over the whetstone with a whetstone. Another way of sharpening knives is the treatment of the blade by means of a belt sander and a sanding belt of the grain 200 or a grinding stone.