Fall will soon arrive, perhaps my favorite season, and it seemed like a good time to take on some tasks that are easier outside the shop rather than inside the shop.

The front steps of our house is a perfect place to flatten waterstones. I can enjoy a beautiful, sunny day and splash water without trying to avoid making a mess!

Flattening waterstones is a general maintenance task I need to do every few months. The stones become concave after a few weeks of sharpening, and though not a problem for honing an edge, a concave stone doesn’t lend itself to polishing the back of a blade very well.

It just takes a few minutes to flatten waterstones. I draw a few lines on the stones with a pencil, add water, and rub the waterstones against a hard, coarse, flat surface until all the pencil lines are gone.

For years I relied on a cinder block as the hard, coarse and flat surface and it worked well, but a few months ago I bought a stone made specifically for flattening waterstones and it does leave a nicer surface on the stones, though I don’t know if that really matters.

Now it’s time for coffee and a trip back into the dulcimer mine.

You can see dulcimers in progress by following me on Instagram