Spyderco Fine Ceramic Stone

J

JMFWSU

Joined
Apr 23, 2002
Messages
181
Hi,

I've been learning a lot here, and I'm finally just able to get decent edges off of my Norton combination India stone. I still use the DMT clamp as an angle guide for consistency.
I would like to try to take my edges to the next level as well as be able to touch up knives that have already been professionally sharpened.
Right now I'm considering the spyderco fine bench stone. Would this be a good choice? Do they come perfectly flat, as I would like to be able to sharpen a kiridashi on it that has a perfectly straight edge?

Thanks,
Jason
 
Your going to find a host of different responses my friend. There will be those who support Spyderco and those who prefer another. If you want MY CHOICE, I say Shapton. But if you are looking for advice I will offer that any high quality stone will give very good results. I would say that you are unlikely to find many(if any) professionals sharpening with Spyderco stones. The majority is going to be high quality ceramic water stones. And everyone has their favorites! As I said, the Shapton Glass are my top pick. But I like ALL water stones! At the end of the day, it's your money, it's your knives and it's YOU! Go with what your heart tells you.
 
It is a good stone and should work great after your Norton. I really like the Spyderco ceramics. They can be used dry or with a little water if you'd like. I prefer using them dry. I got rid of all my Japanese water stones and kept my diamonds and Spyderco ceramics. Yes the Spydercos are flat and stay flat as well.
 
The spyderco uf ceramic was my first fine stone after I got a set of dmts.. I think they're good for beginners especially if you start freehanding.. could be wrong but that's what I heard and that's why I got it when I did.. I don't use it very much anymore though I do think you'd be better off with a shapton.. u can get the 12k shapton pro for like 60 bucks if u get the Japan version on Amazon
 
I actually prefer the fine over the ultra-fine. It just seems to " cut" better and the price upgrade to the UF lapped was more also.
Light pressure works best and Bar Keepers friend or Comet cleans it easily. I even do my convex edges on it sometimes and I've been freehanding for many years.
As a fine finishing stone, I think they are awesome and they don't dish-out like other stones.

They come pretty flat , but on new ones I take a coarse diamond plate /warm water and smooth out all the edges as they are a little rough from the factory. Good to go after that and that stone will last forever if you clean it regularily.

Good stone to have in the arsenal.
 
I have two Spyderco fine. They both came far from flat. It took a while to true all four sides, and a 8x3 (80 grid) and a 11,4x8,2 (60 grid) diamond plate were dulled in the process. Well, the dulled diamond plates are ideal for trueing all waterstones up to 4000 now and even better for natural stones. Since the trueing changed the surface massively, i conditioned the sides of the Spydercos in four steps somewhere between rough (about 6 K) to UF (ore higher). It was a PITA. OK, i got the Spydercos cheaper than the normal price and i learned a ton about trueing and conditioning stones. And now i use the Shapton Kuromakus .... o_O

So, in my experience, if you want to use a stone, then Shapton is far mor useful. If you like a challenge, then get a spyderco and blisters tying to flatten it. :eek:
 
If you're still learning to freehand like I am, I would also recommend the Shapton Kuromaku (the Japanese version of the Shapton Pro line, they're available on Amazon and Ebay for way cheaper than the Pro models). I started off with all DMT stones and the Spyderco Fine and Ultra Fine, but eventually bought a Shapton Kuromaku to try it out. The "feedback" that you get from a waterstone is so much more helpful than I expected. You can really tell when your angles are off by how the stone feels. You get pretty much zero feedback on a diamond plate or Spyderco ceramic stone, which means you could be grinding away without any appreciable increase in sharpness.
 
My Spyderco UF bench stone came perfectly flat. Works well for perfectly straight edges like CQC7Bs and Yojimbos. I've done both of those on my UF stone.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far. I'm definitely going to think more about the water stones. I like the idea of better feedback.
Would I be better off going with the spyderco UF over the fine? Would it be too much of a jump from a norton fine? Is the UF more reliably flatter than the fine?
 
For chisel ground knives (like many kirkdashis) a fine or ultra fine spyderco stone is an integral part of my sharpening routine.

Use whatever stone you usually use on the side with the conventional bevel. Do this until you have a nice burr across the whole edge. Then flip the thing over and lap the flat side by pushing it burr-forward on the flat ceramic stone. Apply strong downward pressure as you do this and keep the motion of your strokes as consistent as possible. You'll feel the burr coming off the lapped side as you polish an edge into it. Once you're satisfied that the back is flat, polished, and sufficiently deburred move on to stropping the thing lightly on a charged piece of leather. If you like microbevels it's usually only necessary to put a microbevel on the non-flat side, and then strop both sides. But, you can try microbevelling both sides if the back isn't flat enough for the true zero grind method to give you good results.

Works pretty great for me at least. It's a bitch to get the back of a knife flat enough and the edge sufficiently aligned for this to work, sometimes but it's stupid easy to maintain screaming sharp edges like this.
 
Any advice on deciding between UF and Fine? Would UF still work ok for an edge coming off a Norton fine? Are UF stones flatter than Fine stones?
 
Spyderco UF and F are the exact same stones, when they come out of the kilm. The only difference is the surface conditioning. I remember something like 7 µ for the fine and 3 µ for the ultrafine. Most likely some surface conditioning with diamond paste. And they must have changed something, since the forums these days don't complain about flatness. Yet still, if you want them for razors, it's Do-It-Yourself again.
 
I have the Spyderco fine ceramic in 2 x 8" size. One side came decently leveled. The other side required leveling. And as hein says, they are a pain to do. It dulled my coarse and fine diamond plate and took some careful rubbing but I walked away with one side a UF stone and well level. So, if you factor in the cost of a UF stone against 2 old diamond plates I broke even and gained some experience. Once you level them they will stay that way for your lifetime.
Now, I sharpen a lot on a fine India (320 grit) and taking a blade coming off this to a fine ceramic is a Loong jump. Unless you got the medium ceramic as well (600 grit).
I have the ceramic stone but don't use it much except for my straight razor. As I don't care to take my knife that fine. Still, it fills a grit area in my sharpening stones range. Your call. DM
 
David Martin said:
... It dulled my coarse and fine diamond plate and took some careful rubbing but I walked away with one side a UF stone and well level. So, if you factor in the cost of a UF stone against 2 old diamond plates I broke even and gained some experience. Once you level them they will stay that way for your lifetime.
Now, I sharpen a lot on a fine India (320 grit) and taking a blade coming off this to a fine ceramic is a Loong jump. Unless you got the medium ceramic as well (600 grit).
I have the ceramic stone but don't use it much except for my straight razor. As I don't care to take my knife that fine. Still, it fills a grit area in my sharpening stones range. Your call. DM
Click to expand...

I agree, the experience and the far more useful stones itself justify all the effort.

But i didn't try to complain about the dulled diamond plates. People go a long way to break in Arkansas stones, the term "sacrificial knife" was unknown to me even as a concept untill i read about conditioning an arkansas stone the right way. Think of the Spyderco stones as sacrificial stones for breaking in an otherwise brutal rough surface, that has few meaninful ways to use it other than tearing stones appart, surface first ... Now all the diamond stones i used for the process of refining the Spydercos are more reliable, have less high spot stria and are mostly still sharp enough to do tons of work in flattening and refining all kind of stones. :thumbsup: And the Spydercos really needed it and only gained from all the rough buisiness.

Now, for truly breaking in a diamond plate one or two arkansas will do the job, you don't need four sides of Spyderco hardness to do the job! :)
 
When I leveled the Spyderco ceramic stone using my DMT coarse stone it rendered my diamond stone useless. Not enough left to use it in sharpening. My fine diamond stone still has some left to be able to use it. I should have used my SiC stones for this leveling. Which would have worked slower but I would have more material left on the stone. Still, I was able to get a UF ceramic and learn something. DM
 
Halfway through the trueing of the spydercos i searched for other experiences on the forums. Someone suggested starting with 60grid SiC on a tile. Later i found someone who said, anything other than diamondpaste was a waste of money or effort. I read, that Spydero uses machines and diamondpaste. :confused:

For me, it's still mostly diamondplates. Since i didn't use the Spydercos much, so far there was no need to recondition the surface. Who knows, maybe i try out some of the chinese diamond stuff. If anyone knows how to safely condition the surface to a certain expected grid, it would be helpful! :)
 
It should be noted that some grit used during leveling can be left embedded in the ceramic stones surface. This will be removed during sharpening on the first few knives. And the stones grit is not changed. Just some features of this leveling. DM
 
I was wondering if the Spyderco ceramic stone is any harder material than a Norton India? Both being aluminum oxide. The ceramic maybe fired different. DM
 
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