Can shapton waterstones sharpen high wear steels such as m390 or is it not advisable?

Bladenoobie1

Bladenoobie1

Joined
Jul 20, 2012
Messages
1,261
Title says it all. I'm considering several routes in sharpening equipment and the shapton 1000 has recently come to my attention. I just wanted to know how it performed on high wear steels such as m390, which is the toughest steel I own right now.

- Bladenoobie1
 
I actually was going to post the same question today. I have Japanese water stones 1000 / 6000 I want to use for my new m390. Anyone?
 
A good 1K waterstones is fine for sharpening fine grain PM steel knives. It gives good looking bevels (back & cut). Any waterstone grit beyond 2K won't be effective for high wear resistance steels (>4% of V+W carbides, ~1-3micron-ish grain).

In theory, 1K (~12um) & 2K (~8um) are large enough to abrade steel grain without serious reverse abrasion to the waterstone by carbides. Soft abrasives smaller than 6um will abrade steel matrix but will easily get dislodge from binder by carbides. e.g. using a 6K against m390/cpm-m4 etc will wear out your stone fast and the resulting edge is weak/toothy/lumpy but get a hazy finish bevel.

You'll get sharper edge result using diamond/cbn after 1K. I've sharpened only one m390 kitchen knife using waterstone up to 1K however sharpened many other PM steels knives. I do use 8K & 12K waterstone to polish high wear steel to get sort of satin finish (thanks lapping action using dislodged binder&abrasive - aka mud), much nicer than easily scratch-up mirror finish.
 
I know it's possible, did it several times, but for wear resistant steels I would suggest the shapton gs stones, which are great.
 
Update, I just tried to sharpen my M390 on 220, 1000, 6000 Japanese stones. Even with the course stone it seems to have no effect in apexing. So after an hour of work I started over and used a Smith diamond sharpener pen and a ceramic rod from an old Lansky Kit. Then followed with green compound on a leather strop then stropped on paper from a phone book.

Results- A lot of bite on the edge for a very cheap setup. Razor sharp even light hair popping. Not too bad for my first experience with a super steel. This will hold me just fine until I get a DMT 6'' stone kit covering XC, C, F, and XF. Hopefully in a month or two.

I can't believe the waterstones had hardly any effect.
 
I don't have any blades in 390 but I have sharpened s35vn on cheap king stones. They seem to dish a bit more than my kuromaku waterstones but it is doable. I wouldn't want to reprofile anything like that on waterstones, in my book that's what diamond plates are for but I can cut a freehanding hair when I'm done so I know they work.
 
The Shapton Glass stones are about 70HRC (Al2O3). The Vanadium Carbides in M390 are 82HRC. Why would you try that combination and expect good results? I use my Shaptons for ZDP-189 at 67HRC and sharpen my M-390 blades on Diamond “stones”.
 
Yet my knife shaves hair cleanly. The steel around the carbides isn't that hard and the ceramic abrasives have to be nearly as hard. Maybe it sands them down a bit on the edge or tears them out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top