How To Freehand with diamond stones?

MTHall720

MTHall720

Joined
Sep 21, 2010
Messages
2,957
I have been working with two good sized DMT diamond stones. I have course, fine, extra fine. Although I can make my blades sharper it is a time consuming process. Does anyone have experience with a certain technique that can shorten the process?

Thanks in advance for all thoughts on this.
 
OK let me say this about that.
I'm no stranger to hand sharpening or diamond plates.
IMG_3430.jpg
Mostly for my hand tool woodworking edges though.

Then I got this Manix in S110V
IMG_3891.jpg
I didn't try to reprofile it or thin it. All I wanted was to bring the edge from the factory state of remotely sharp sort-of-not-really to very sharp and scary (the latter being my minimum acceptable)(polished and insanely hair whittling being my norm).

Now having failed to be impressed with the edge retention from Shapton Glass stones on the S110V I finally realized that diamonds are the way to go when it comes to sharp and good edge retention with S110V.

At the same time I am reading that the way to hand sharpen to the level of sharpness I wanted with diamond on the S110V is to use an extremely light touch. Done properly even edges off the coarse stones can be shaving and somewhat hair whittling.
So I started in with the little Aligner stones in the upper left of the first photo.
Nah dude, nah.
No matter how light I went, no matter which direction I went with the stones (edge leading, edge trailing, both, or with the line of the edge) there was just a very poor level of sharpening effect and no where near any kind of shave sharp with the coarse stones. Results were similarly dismal even after working through the range of grits. All the while maintaining the factory sharpening angle keep in mind. I'm just trying to make the edge useful right ?

Not until I put the stones in the Aligner or better yet double back taped the aligner stones to the Edge Pro Apex did I get the level of sharp I call adequate and from there up to polished and hair whittling by the time I finished with the 8,000 grit Aligner stone.

Any questions ?
:cool: ;) :cool:
IMG_3674.jpg
IMG_3334.jpg
 
Last edited:
MTHall720 said:
I have been working with two good sized DMT diamond stones. I have course, fine, extra fine. Although I can make my blades sharper it is a time consuming process. Does anyone have experience with a certain technique that can shorten the process?

Thanks in advance for all thoughts on this.
Click to expand...

Come off the coarse and microbevel on the EF.

Aside from that it takes a good bit of practice to reliably overgrind the previous and do it clean and fast. Practice will considerably shorten your working time but only if you are actively working at going faster and have sound mechanics.
 
I have the largest diamond plates like Wow shows in x coarse and coarse. Using the x coarse then coarse will speed things up. By the time I
finish on these 2 I take it to the fine. And on that I'm merely working at removing the burr. So, I don't spend much time on the finer stones.
Spending time on the more coarse stones will set you up to spend less time on the finer stones. Which is where you'll see a time savings. DM
 
Wowbagger said:
He means a sharpening jig.
:)
I'm kidding. :p
Click to expand...

I am a bit more cosmetically clean with a jig, but overall the amount of deviation is a lot less than I'd expected when I started comparing the two. And without the jig is almost always a good bit quicker...but not at first.

I began doing some work for $ and realized unless I was going to give it away I had to get a lot faster than my leisurely personal pace. And to get faster you need solid control and you have to actively practice going faster if that's part of the goal.

This video isn't the most recent and is all an evolution, but still very representative. Coarse stone dull to treetopping in about 10 minutes is possible, sometimes faster sometimes not.

 
MTHall720 said:
I have been working with two good sized DMT diamond stones. I have course, fine, extra fine. Although I can make my blades sharper it is a time consuming process. Does anyone have experience with a certain technique that can shorten the process?

Thanks in advance for all thoughts on this.
Click to expand...

I don't know which technique you're currently using, but a back & forth 'scrubbing' motion, while setting bevels, makes a BIG difference in working speed. This, as compared to a one-direction-only approach, i.e., making an edge-leading pass, lifting and replacing the blade, pass again, etc. I'm talking about cutting the working time down to maybe 1/3rd of the time taken with the uni-directional approach.

Keeping the hone lubricated to minimize clogging and to fine-tune the feedback also helps in streamlining the process, making it more comfortable & easy. That can translate to faster working speeds, with some requisite practice to get the feel for it all. I prefer mineral oil for this, as water dries too fast on the hones in the dry environment where I live. But, if your working environment isn't so dry, then water or dish soap + water might work well for you also. Keeping the pressure moderately and comfortably light during the heavy grinding stages also helps maintain control and will allow you to keep a fairly brisk pace of work, within controllable limits. If your fingers or hands are getting sore or excessively tired in the grinding stages, chances are the pressure should be lightened up quite a bit. A diamond hone will not grind any faster with heavy pressure, so there's literally no reason to lean into it, and the finished results will be better off in not doing so.

Once an edge has been fully apexed on a diamond hone, the finishing passes shouldn't take much longer than maybe ~ 5 minutes or so (per grit stage), to clean up any burrs and further refine the edge.
 
Wowbagger said:
OK let me say this about that.
I'm no stranger to hand sharpening or diamond plates.
View attachment 889555
Mostly for my hand tool woodworking edges though.

Then I got this Manix in S110V
View attachment 889557
I didn't try to reprofile it or thin it. All I wanted was to bring the edge from the factory state of remotely sharp sort-of-not-really to very sharp and scary (the latter being my minimum acceptable)(polished and insanely hair whittling being my norm).

Now having failed to be impressed with the edge retention from Shapton Glass stones on the S110V I finally realized that diamonds are the way to go when it comes to sharp and good edge retention with S110V.

At the same time I am reading that the way to hand sharpen to the level of sharpness I wanted with diamond on the S110V is to use an extremely light touch. Done properly even edges off the coarse stones can be shaving and somewhat hair whittling.
So I started in with the little Aligner stones in the upper left of the first photo.
Nah dude, nah.
No matter how light I went, no matter which direction I went with the stones (edge leading, edge trailing, both, or with the line of the edge) there was just a very poor level of sharpening effect and no where near any kind of shave sharp with the coarse stones. Results were similarly dismal even after working through the range of grits. All the while maintaining the factory sharpening angle keep in mind. I'm just trying to make the edge useful right ?

Not until I put the stones in the Aligner or better yet double back taped the aligner stones to the Edge Pro Apex did I get the level of sharp I call adequate and from there up to polished and hair whittling by the time I finished with the 8,000 grit Aligner stone.

Any questions ?
:cool: ;) :cool:
View attachment 889565
View attachment 889566
Click to expand...
Thanks very much for the detailed information. I think I do need some type of guide to help me.
 
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