Storing your naturals

[Friedramen]

This might be a stupid question, but how do you guys store your natural stones when you know you're not gonna use them for a while? I'm talkin a span of 3-6 months or so. As of now I put mine in a drawer in my room. Thanks.

 

[Ultimatezap]

I keep mine out in the environment , as in, not in a drawer or box. But you don't want a bunch of stuff settling on them, so a drawer wouldn't be bad, depending on what else is in there. Maybe draped with a towel. Mine are in an area where the temperature doesn't go more than five degrees above or below 70° all year. The humidity doesn't vary more than 10% from 45% all year.

I think that the biggest enemy to natural stones is big shifts in environmental conditions. They don't react well to being shocked.

I'd be more concerned about Jnats than Arkansas type stones.

 

[alex1921]

Some stones are randomly on a rack, some are on a table where the turntable is but lately the wife got me some plastic bins and I try to store them there. Makes the house a bit more organized

 

[rideon66]

Nice wood old Machinist Chest. Don't have a pic on me right now.

 

[buca3152]

Don't drop them. Don't bump them. Store dry. These are rocks. They aren't going to melt if it's humid.

 

[Gamma]

I don't store hones for that long. But, I keep hones in boxes, cases, drawers, tool boxes, etc - some are out though, I keep them covered with something like paper, towel, paper towel, etc.

 

[fatwade]

Got some storage from my work....so everything is stored in the basement

 

[David]

I learned the hard way- don’t store them on a shelf with a towel over them. Someone grabbed the towel and stones went everywhere.

 

[Kooldecker]

drawer in the toolbox

 

[Bushdoctor]

That's my cabinet, nothing of special but does the job.

 

[Norgau]

This is only part of my collection. The box makes familiar carpenter

 

[RayClem]

Remember that these are stones that have been around for a long time. The few years you will use them for honing represents a very small percentage of their lifetime. You want to minimize physical shocks like dropping them, knocking them etc. You want to minimize thermal shocks, rapid changes in temperature. You want to minimize rapid drying of a wet stone.
Yesterday, one of my hones broke in half. Fortunately, it was an inexpensive Chinese Guangxi hone costing $30. Apparently there was a crack in the stone and stresses finally became too much. It broke such that I can still use either portion as a bout. This one was a decent pre-finisher, but it was too soft and not fine enough to use for finishing.
I have another one that is a decent finisher, but it was starting to crack as well, so I sealed all but the top surface.

 

[Basil]

Had some hones that I stopped using in a box in the garage for a couple years at least. They were perfectly fine.

As long as you don’t drop them you’re golden lol