Dia sharp and spyderco ceramic

R

rlwhite5599

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Jun 2, 2013
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Looking to pick up the double sided dmt diasharp kit. (Xc,c,f,ef). Also looking to get a spyderco medium bench stone. I have a double stuff from spyderco now and I like the finish I get from it. If I get the dmt is there any point in getting the medium syderco or would I just be wasting money. Any advice is appreciated.
 
On many mainstream steels, the finish you get from the medium Spyderco will be fairly close to what you'll get from the EF DMT. The DMT EF might still be just a tad coarser, especially on more wear-resistant steels (because the diamond will cut more deeply than the ceramic on those). If you're already favoring the finish you get from the Spyderco medium on your DoubleStuff hone, you might get away with using just the XC, C and F DMT's prior to using the medium Spyderco.

On the other hand, if you're using high-wear steels like S30V, with heavy vanadium carbide content, I'd recommend the finer diamond hones over the ceramics, because the diamond will cut the carbides much more efficiently and consistently; you'll notice this more as you go finer in finish, when the size of the carbides begin to impede less-hard abrasives at smaller effective grit (such as the alumina in the ceramics). It gets more difficult to thin or refine the 2-4µ vanadium carbides (in S30V) with less-hard abrasives of similarly small size. At coarser grits above 5-10µ and larger, the carbides will just be 'scooped out' of the matrix steel and not refined so much anyway; in which case, using diamond isn't as necessary for honing at that slightly coarser finish. The DMT EF is 9µ, and that's right at the threshold where you'll begin to notice much better performance on more wear-resistant steels, as compared to ceramics.

In the short term, you might try out the new Dia-Sharp hones and see how they finish through the EF, and following with your existing DoubleStuff hone's medium side. You might figure out you won't need the additional Spyderco medium bench stone so much, if you don't see much improvement going from the EF DMT to your DoubleStuff's medium side.

(I have the Medium and Fine Spyderco bench stones, and have almost never used them, BTW.)


David
 
rlwhite5599 said:
Would the EEF dmt be a good step up from there or maybe just use a strop.
Click to expand...

Just depends on how far you want to take it. The EEF DMT is the next logical step after the EF, but you can get great edges on anything from the 'Fine' and up (and even from the 'Coarse' DMT, for that matter). Only comes down to how toothy or polished you want your finished edges. If you'd ultimately like to pursue more polished edges, a tight sequence through the EEF and beyond (with stropping pastes, etc) is the best way to do it.


David
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Just depends on how far you want to take it. The EEF DMT is the next logical step after the EF, but you can get great edges on anything from the 'Fine' and up (and even from the 'Coarse' DMT, for that matter). Only comes down to how toothy or polished you want your finished edges. If you'd ultimately like to pursue more polished edges, a tight sequence through the EEF and beyond (with stropping pastes, etc) is the best way to do it.


David
Click to expand...

I've picked up a few pointers from you so I'm just trying to be helpful not argumentative. Technically, there's a step in between the EF and the EEF DMT. They call it Medium Extra Fine.

The EF is 9 microns, 1250 mesh and the EEF is 3 microns, 8000 mesh. The MEF is 6 micron, 4000 mesh.
 
Rey HRH said:
I've picked up a few pointers from you so I'm just trying to be helpful not argumentative. Technically, there's a step in between the EF and the EEF DMT. They call it Medium Extra Fine.

The EF is 9 microns, 1250 mesh and the EEF is 3 microns, 8000 mesh. The MEF is 6 micron, 4000 mesh.
Click to expand...

I've seen some mention of that 6µ hone here on the forum. I've never really seen much of a need for that intermediate step anyway, as the EEF (3µ) is still aggressive enough to nicely clean up scratches from the EF (9µ); this is what I really like about DMT's finer hones, as they still work very aggressively at smaller grit. I could see that some might want that 6µ hone as a finishing point though, if they feel the 3µ is maybe too fine for their needs.


David
 
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