Favorite stone for setting bevels and minor repair?

T

Toothy Wolf

Joined
Feb 5, 2021
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I’ve been using either a 400 Chosera or a 500 Shapton Glass. Both are great in my opinion. Fast, smooth and don’t dish out quickly. Been tossing around the idea of trying out something a little coarser, just for the sake of speed.
 
If you want all three of those qualities, it's hard to think of a better stone than exactly what you have. Coarser stones will dish faster. They're not nearly so smooth. OK, they're fast.

Maybe an incremental step to the SG320? I have the 220, but it's much less smooth than the 500. I think I've read that that the SG320 preserves the smooth feel of the 500 and above. It's not much of a step, granted, but it might be a nice incremental bump in speed, while preserving all the things you like about what you have.
 
Im relatively new to aquiring bench stones, honestly I've gotten by most of my life with flat files, a dmt coarse/fine paddle, and a set of lansky crock sticks in the little turn box. The American mutt from Baryonyx is a pretty fast cutting stone, so is the manticore, but I find I like the "feel" of the action on the mutt a little more. It just seems smoother. Plus it only goes for the princely sum of about 8 bucks before shipping, so even if it turns out you don't like it you're not out a big chunk of change.
 
+1 for the American Mutt. I have it and the Manticore (and the Arctic Fox) from Baryonyx, and they are all excellent, fast, and very slow to dish. The Manticore is far-and-away the fastest, but it is not what I would call smooth, and care need be taken not to do more than intended with how aggressive it is. The Mutt does not feel rough (after you break in the as-molded surface, which was pretty gritty), removes steel very quickly with pressure, and the speed/finish can be adjusted with pressure/water/wear fairly easily. It can do lot of work without needing to be lapped or flattened.
 
Wild Willie said:
The American mutt from Baryonyx is a pretty fast cutting stone, so is the manticore, but I find I like the "feel" of the action on the mutt a little more. It just seems smoother.
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"Smooth" isn't an attribute I look for in a stone I use to quickly hog off metal.
 
MtnHawk1 said:
"Smooth" isn't an attribute I look for in a stone I use to quickly hog off metal.
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On the other hand, less cleanup required...all things being equal. There's a balance there somewhere that is probably close to ideal.
 
MtnHawk1 said:
"Smooth" isn't an attribute I look for in a stone I use to quickly hog off metal.
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Probably improper phrasing on my part, but after just a couple of minutes there's a noticable pile of swarf. I don't know the edge junkie term for it. All I know is it works.
 
Blues said:
On the other hand, less cleanup required...all things being equal. There's a balance there somewhere that is probably close to ideal.
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Good point, but the amount of swarf I clean off doesn't matter much to me, especially since I only use water as a lubricant. If I have to to clean off a small amount of swarf it's worth it to clean up a little more for faster metal removal. But that's just me. :)
 
MtnHawk1 said:
Good point, but the amount of swarf I clean off doesn't matter much to me, especially since I only use water as a lubricant. If I have to to clean off a small amount of swarf it's worth it to clean up a little more for faster metal removal. But that's just me. :)
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I didn't mean the swarf, my friend. I should have expressed myself better. I meant cleaning up any deeper grooves / fissures in the bevel / edge, from the more aggressive stone. Depending upon what kind of edge the sharpener is going for...coarser or less coarse.

Those take some additional time / work to refine.
 
The DMT XXC is quite fast. It is, so far, my favorite coarse bench stone.
The scratches it leaves are fairly deep, but the DMT C seems to erase them pretty quickly. A waterstone at 220 to 400 would probably do the same job at converting the scratch pattern over. But I have not tried it.
Of course the DMT will never dish, does not require soaking, and does not produce swarf. All more or less positive qualities.

Brian.
 
A 400- 500 grit stone is not coarse enough to quickly reset or reprofile a bevel. I'm with mthawk. I don't care how a coarse stone sheds grit or how smooth it is. I want it to remove metal. My next grit stone will be smooth. DM
 
Blues, ahh, I see! :)

I didn't even think about that aspect of it.

bgentry, I was disappointed that the XXC, as well as other stones around 120 grit, didn't remove metal as fast as I thought they would . But I often use 120 for sharpening, so the money was still well-spent. I agree with you about the positive aspects of diamonds and usually finish with the DMT C.

Patience when removing knife metal isn't one of my strong points. Although I like diamond plates, I can hog off metal freehand the fastest using coarse, low grit, SiC, where I can use considerably more pressure than diamonds. The Manticore is the best I've found, and is the only stone I now use for this purpose.
 
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I use a coarse diamond plate for my repair/reprofile jobs, though you need to be careful not to use too much pressure on them. As others here have said, a SiC stone would be a better choice if you want to be able to put a bit of weight on your strokes and get the job done quickly.
 
MtnHawk1 said:
Blues, ahh, I see! :)

I didn't even think about that aspect of it.

bgentry, I was disappointed with the XXC, as well as other stones around 120 grit, didn't remove metal as fast as I thought they would . But I often use 120 for sharpening, so the money was still well-spent. I agree with you about the positive aspects of diamonds and usually finish with the DMT C.

Patience when removing knife metal isn't one of my strong points. Although I like diamond plates, I've found, over time, that I can hog off metal freehand the fastest using coarse, low grit, SiC, where I can use considerably more pressure than diamonds. The Manticore is the best I've found, and is the only stone I now use for this purpose.
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Yes, that's what I experienced too. The diamond plate loaded up quickly and clogged. I was using water. Thus, it needed cleaning often. And if you used pressure, the grit sheared off.
Thus, my SiC x coarse is the workhorse of rebeveling.
It is possible some sharpeners are not removing the amount of metal we are talking about. Or don't deal with the abused knives I see. DM
 
David Martin said:
It is possible some sharpeners are not removing the amount of metal we are talking about. Or don't deal with the abused knives I see. DM
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Yeah, when a knife is good friends with the stones and hangs out with them a lot, the smooth, polite stones are probably the perfect place to start. But wen you pick up a blade and ask it when was the last time it was sharpened, and it responds, "what is sharpening?"... time to introduce it to the Manticore (or similar stone).
 
David Martin said:
Yes, that's what I experienced too. The diamond plate loaded up quickly and clogged. I was using water. Thus, it needed cleaning often. And if you used pressure, the grit sheared off.
Thus, my SiC x coarse is the workhorse of rebeveling.
It is possible some sharpeners are not removing the amount of metal we are talking about. Or don't deal with the abused knives I see. DM
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All good points and well said! :thumbsup:
 
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