Bigger Diamonds on DMT Sharpening Stones?

L

loren

Joined
May 30, 2024
Messages
2
Hello everyone!

Two weeks ago I decided to purchase a diamond sharpening stone to sharpen my knifes.
After some research I settled on the "DMT Dia-Sharp Coarse/325 Mesh". A reason for this decision was that I would rather pay a little extra for a product that was not made in China.
For the higher price I was also expecting a decent quality. After the stone had arrived I noticed some minor damage to the stone on all sides. It also had some kind of film on the back. (see pictures)
This was something I could tolerate even though to me the product I got looked like B-stock.
The thing I was more worried about were embedded particles on the diamond coated side that look like contamination of bigger diamonds to me. (see pictures)
The problem is, I can't tell for sure because this is the first sharpening stone I ever bought and I would like the opinion of an expert if I should send it back.

Thanks a lot in advance for your answers! (:
Greetings Lorenz

Back side of the stone:
IMG-20240530-WA0003.jpg

Damage to the side:
IMG-20240530-WA0005.jpg

Bigger particles in finer array of diamonds:
IMG-20240530-WA0001.jpg

Damage to the front and macro view of the particles. If you open the picture with "rightclick->open in new tab" you can see the "contamination" more clearly.
IMG-20240530-WA0006.jpg
 
Those "bigger diamonds" are piles of diamonds, and you need to knock them down before you put a good edge on there!

The last few DMT stones I purchased needed a lot more break-in than other stones I've used. Without a fairly grueling break-in process, they would chip an edge to death, they were unusable out of the box.

I wouldn't worry about the non-working surfaces, just break it in and you should be fine.
 
Hey Khromo!
Thank you for your reply! Like I mentioned I'm a noob with using sharpening stones so I didn't know that I was supposed to break-in the stone before I use it. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
Have a nice day - Lorenz
 
I like to use the spine of a kitchen knife to clean up a new diamond stone. I don't like the sharp 90 degree profile on the spine of many kitchen knives, because I sometimes use a pinch grip, grabbing the top of the blade between thumb and fingertips. Dragging the spine of a long knife across the new diamond stone lets you feel the high spots so you can slowly smooth out the surface, and round the spine at the same time.

Keep the surface flooded while you work, because you don't want the newly dislodged diamonds to be rolling around and grinding against the surface of the stone. Keep it well rinsed!
 
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