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Hurray, I finished making a water stone holder! I've been busy fixing up a scythe from the 1950's. Scythes are sharpened regularly throughout use, so it is standard to carry a sharpening stone in a holster that contains water, keeping the stone wet and also removing grit from the stone as it's used. I looked at all the stone-holders that were available for sale online, and though they aren't that expensive, I wanted to try my hand at making one from leather. I came on this forum--thank you for being!--and found out what "boiled leather" means and what temperatures work best. I visited the Skillcult YouTube channel to review using pine pitch to waterproof a liquid-containing vessel made of leather. I designed this thing as I went along, which means a lot of the stitches end up looking kind of Frankenstein; done is better than perfect. First step was to wrap the stone twice around with cloth; put a soda-pop bottle over that; and heat-shrink the plastic to the shape of the cloth-wrapped stone. This became the "form". Then filled the bottle-plastic form with wet sand, put veg-tan leather piece into hot water until it began to tighten a tiny bit, and wrapped it around the form. (Photo quality sucks. I have a camera somewhere, but this was all taken by my computer's camera.) Here's the finished product containing the stone: Piece by piece photos: Two-part holder and stone The "holster" is also the lid to keep water from coming out. Made more sense to be able to dismantle into two parts for periodic re-waterproofing. Water holder Back in March, I spent a week collecting pine sap and resin and cooking it out into a tin, so I could use it for waterproofing and glue. This was the first time I used it to waterproof leather, in the same way that it was once used to make the English "blackjack" beer mugs out of boiled leather. All the rest of the leather is waxed for maximum waterproofing; but the inside of this was coated with pine resin, then coated again with a mixture of pine resin and beeswax. Attaching the holster-and-lid Here, half-way pulled up, not in position yet The lid has a double-layer of rings fitted to the opening of the water-holder to form a reasonably tight seal, leaving just enough room for the stone to fit through the top easily. A belt-loop would necessarily spill the water whenever I bent over. Instead, I decided it should be tied on through this hole, with the ability to hang freely when I'm not standing straight up. Holds water with minimal spillage, yay! Here's my older scythe blade, awaiting sharpening, and the stone that will hone it during use. I've used it on three occasions, and it works in the field, YAY! Again, thanks to this forum for the resource of knowledge that helped in this project.

My sharpening stones are a couple of old oilstones that are family heirlooms, then I go to a strop. The stones are quite worn, especially the medium-fine one, and I'm thinking of replacing them with water or diamond stones I've had a look at these makes; size for size and grit for grit they all seem as though they'd do the same sort of job, and for a similar price. Is there anything to choose between them? EZE Lap; DMT; Shapton The tools are clicker knife, skiving knife; awl, a small woodworking plane, woodworking chisels, camping knives, and kitchen knives.