Best all around reprofiling stone(s) for EP?

toocool006

toocool006

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Hi y'all,

I'm pretty new to sharpening, and love my EP set-up for maintaining angles I already have (Boride T2 series stones in 150, 220, 400, 800, 1200, and Boride CS-HD series stones in 150, 220, 400, 800, 1000).

I'm looking for a stone (or two) to take on major reprofiling and/or repair duty that will fit nicely in with this kit. I have some high wear resistant steels in the collection, but the majority is in the S30V range.

Thanks for any advice y'all can provide!
 
Diamonds will be your best friend here. I'd recommend looking at the Matrix or Venev bonded diamond stones, or plated diamond stones from DMT, Atoma or less expensive plated options from Chef Knives To Go.

There are many roads to Dublin...as someone I greatly respect likes to say. These are just a few options that come quickly to mind.
 
Blues said:
Diamonds will be your best friend here. I'd recommend looking at the Matrix or Venev bonded diamond stones, or plated diamond stones from DMT, Atoma or less expensive plated options from Chef Knives To Go.

There are many roads to Dublin...as someone I greatly respect likes to say. These are just a few options that come quickly to mind.
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Thank you, I have heard great things about Venev - you definitely recommend diamond over say CBN? I like the cost savings and I guess CBN might be overkill if I'm not dealing with super steels regularly?

Mr.Wizard said:
Do you find the 150 grit stones slow? You should roughen the surface of these on loose 60 grit SiC before using them.
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Oh that's a good idea, I hadn't heard that before. Just SiC paper will do the trick? And I haven't found them slow for sharpening work but I have a couple knives I want to fairly radically reprofile so looking for a beast of a cutter, if that makes sense.

Thanks to you both!
 
toocool006 said:
Oh that's a good idea, I hadn't heard that before. Just SiC paper will do the trick? And I haven't found them slow for sharpening work but I have a couple knives I want to fairly radically reprofile so looking for a beast of a cutter, if that makes sense.
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No, it really needs to be loose grit to work best. You can get it from lapidary shops or from Edge Pro directly. This really should be standard equipment. You need some way to flatten the stones, and the loose grit method makes a huge difference at the lower (stone) grits; if you use a diamond plate you can polish the surface of the stones, blunting the abrasive particles, rather than chipping off particles to expose fresh, sharp ones. Stones that wear quickly refresh themselves, but the harder stones that you have really benefit from this manual refreshing. The loose SiC breaks down in use so if you start with your coarser stones and work toward the finer ones you can use one grade of SiC for multiple stones. Nevertheless I personally would not use the 60 grit for stones finer than 400 as it will over-roughen finer stones.
 
toocool006 said:
Thank you, I have heard great things about Venev - you definitely recommend diamond over say CBN? I like the cost savings and I guess CBN might be overkill if I'm not dealing with super steels regularly?
Click to expand...

Diamond is much more widely available and often more economical. I haven't used CBN, have heard good things about it. That said, for my sharpening and honing purposes I don't see any benefit in its use over diamond which I know is capable of sharpening any knife steel I put in its path.
 
Mr.Wizard said:
No, it really needs to be loose grit to work best. You can get it from lapidary shops or from Edge Pro directly. This really should be standard equipment. You need some way to flatten the stones, and the loose grit method makes a huge difference at the lower (stone) grits; if you use a diamond plate you can polish the surface of the stones, blunting the abrasive particles, rather than chipping off particles to expose fresh, sharp ones. Stones that wear quickly refresh themselves, but the harder stones that you have really benefit from this manual refreshing. The loose SiC breaks down in use so if you start with your coarser stones and work toward the finer ones you can use one grade of SiC for multiple stones. Nevertheless I personally would not use the 60 grit for stones finer than 400 as it will over-roughen finer stones.
Click to expand...

This is INCREDIBLY helpful information, can't thank you enough.
 
toocool006 said:
love my EP set-up for maintaining angles
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Amen and hallelujah !
Hey I haven't tried it yet (all heck as broken loose with my work (in a good way . . . sort of . . . if I have to . . . I guess)) and I haven't use the stone yet but check out the :
Gritomatic "Ruby" 60

It looks and feels like a six inch milling machine to me. Not expensive at all.
Sunday for sure !
 
Wowbagger Wowbagger Please give your experience after using that stone. I believe Ben Dale tried the 60 or 80 grit Ruby stones and found that they don't cut as fast as the 120 CS-HD. Additionally there are papers that indicate that there is a point of diminishing returns with coarser grit where it doesn't remove material significantly faster, but presumably leaves deep scratches that will be harder to remove in the next step, such as the figure below.

YCk26Gl.png
 
Interesting. Thank you for the heads up !
Mr.Wizard said:
the 120 CS-HD
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I have that stone. I found it to be just OK. In addition, to have it at it's best, I used oil.

I must admit I just do not like blotting the stone and dampening it with oil and blotting it over and over to clean it. I am so spoiled by reaching over and rinsing the hell out of stones under a good jet of water from the kitchen tap that what ever I gain in cutting efficiency from using oil is lost in cleaning the stone.

I then went to the T2 Series 150 which I think I prefer. The stone is not all that aggressive, a bit smoothish because it is so flat but it is so danged hard and gouge / wear resistant one can really go to town with it pressure wise and longevity wise so I think, for me, it wins over the 120 CS-HD . . . at least for reprofiling . . . AND then when using light pressure it tends to smooth out scratches and refine the surface it created. To the point I was inclined to give it the title of a true one-stone-does-it sharpening stone. Good stuff in my book.

So far the most aggressive reprofiler as far as a bench stone would have to be my 10" DMT 220 and we are talking even on S110V; it just does the job in no time and without fuss. I don't think I even put any kind of lube on the stone. I tend to use them dry unless I'm flattening stones on it. It doesn't care . . . it's like Honey Badger . . . it just keeps plowing ahead and eating what is in front of it.

Honestly I will be quite surprised if I don't like the Ruby.

I'll let you know :rolleyes: :)
 
Mr.Wizard said:
Additionally there are papers that indicate that there is a point of diminishing returns with coarser grit
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This could be for small surface area applications.
I can tell you unequivocally that for larger surfaces, like the back side of woodworking hand tool plane blades, that 36 or 46 grit Zirconia Alumina sanding belts make my 10" DMT 220 that I just sung the praises of look useless. It is indeed perfectly useless. I spent a lot of time with it and finally went so far as to put the stone on the floor and put at least half my body weight on the blade while scrubbing it on the 220 . . .
it basically COULD NOT DO THE JOB of taking out a fraction of a millimeter of out of flat on the blade back.

Once I learned about the super coarse sanding belt trick glued to a flat surface I was able to flatten the A2 blades up on the work bench using only very firm pressure; none of this on the floor stuff.

As far as getting the scratches out I'll let you be the judge.
Go to this LINK > > > and page down to the stack of blades. Those are A2 ($50 each back in the day).
PS: fear not they finally learned to make them much flatter at the factory. NOW they are easy to prepare. :thumbsup:
 
I need to try those belts. I thought they required power to work effectively, but I don't have a place for a belt sander.
 
Diminishing return exists for all abrasives, otherwise, April Fool's 1-grit stone made of a single particle would be the best. Diminishing return can be in effect in the range of 30 grit for one application, and 220 grit for another. I can confirm the diminishing return for Venev F60 and F80. (Could be slower than F120 according to multiple customers' feedbacks.)
I'm not saying ultra coarse stones are useless. But everyone should be careful with spending money on these.
 
Gritomatic said:
Diminishing return exists for all abrasives, otherwise, April Fool's 1-grit stone made of a single particle would be the best. Diminishing return can be in effect in the range of 30 grit for one application, and 220 grit for another. I can confirm the diminishing return for Venev F60 and F80. (Could be slower than F120 according to multiple customers' feedbacks.)
I'm not saying ultra coarse stones are useless. But everyone should be careful with spending money on these.
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I generally agree but this does not apply to the 80 grit EP Matrix stone. It is well placed before the Matrix 250, big jump in performance. Also a big jump in the PIA factor to make.
 
I think if there's anything we've learned about diamonds and grit...Science of Sharp has demonstrated that very little can be taken for granted...and the proof will ultimately be in the sharpening.

Of course, some of these variables may or may not be as dramatic with (the better) bonded diamond hones...but it does appear to be the case that there is probably no free lunch here either.
 
Diemaker said:
I generally agree but this does not apply to the 80 grit EP Matrix stone. It is well placed before the Matrix 250, big jump in performance. Also a big jump in the PIA factor to make.
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Do you use a different resin formulation for that stone to optimize performance?
 
Mr.Wizard said:
Do you use a different resin formulation for that stone to optimize performance?
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Nope, they all use the same resin. The 80 grit does have more diamond by weight though. The size of the diamond makes all the difference. The bigger diamond crystals just tear everything up, everything.
 
I wonder if the extreme hardness of diamond particles lets them bite deeper than similarly coarse particles of a softer abrasive, moving the corner of performance further to the right, in terms of the chart I attached.
 
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