Catastrophic Glass Platen Failure

[john april]

in my shop the glass pyroceram doesnt last much longer than steel platens. the first place to show wear is from doing profiling.

 

[Mecha]

I use hardened D2 platens. I keep three of them around. When it wears I flip it over. When that wears I use another one. When they're all worn I put them on the surface grinder and they're as good as new. I've been using the same hard steel platens in production for years. I personally don't understand the wide appeal of glass platens. They make sense for some people, I know, but I would think that hard steel platens would be more popular with knifemakers. We all work with steel, heat treat isn't mysterious and surface grinders are pretty common. Why isn't hard steel the norm?

Ya beats me, I had a glass platen on my old grinder, it wore out pretty quickly and had me wondering what the fuss was about.

What would be the best platen material of all, hypothetically speaking? Diamond?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

While diamond is harder, you can't get a flat surface 10X2"/250X50mm diamond.
Tungsten carbide would be the most practical hardest platen material readily available My guess is a 10X2" plate would run around $500.

I don't see the issue with glass platens. Mine come from reliable sources and the only reason I ever had to replace one is when I break it setting the flat platen arm on the floor when switching tool arms.