I have a whetstone I've had for 15-20 years that I recently uncovered while cleaning the garage to move my woodworking stuff into my "shop" area, and now that I have several chisels and a plane that need some attention on their cutting edges, I dug it out last week, then promptly put it away when I discovered why it got "lost" in the first place.

The issue is that as a kid/teenager I was less than gentle with it, and there are some pretty good indentations in it where the material crumbled because I apparently ground the tip of something pretty good, probably without any kind of lubricant (water, oil, etc). It is a combination stone, and the larger grit side seems to be the one with most of the damage.

Is there any way I can restore the flat surface?

Norton makes a flattening stone for this.
https://www.amazon.com/Norton-...ords=stone+flattener

I have used this on waterstones and it works well
depending on how damaged your stone is will determine if you can completely clean it up.

Well that was fast. Thanks; it looks like that's exactly what I need.

I highly doubt I'll be able to grind the groove out completely, but I bet I can get pretty close and get a good amount of usable surface area around it.

Flattening stone - $32

New Stone - $10

Synthetic diamond stones can be used to true up natural stones, but use water and know the great the damage the longer the effort involved.

Good gift idea.

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