Haidu silicone carbide stones

[turul97]

I recently received a set of Haidu SiC whetstones in HCC-size (100x35x10mm), which are great to carry in the field, but probably too small for regular home-use or on larger blades. For the latter the HCB medium (170x60x20mm) or HCA large (230x65x20mm) are much better. The grits that I tried were (FEPA/JiS rating): F180 (JiS 180), F600 (JiS 1200) , F1000H (JiS 2600) and F1200H (JiS 4000). I was especially interested in edge re-profiling and then putting a sharp edge on high carbon and harder steels. I am not so much into scary-sharp edges except on skinning blades, so a good utility sharp edge works well for me. I tested it on two blades, one was a Tramontina serated steak knife (Sandvik 12C27 steel) and a Buck Cabela's Alaskan Guide 110 folder with S30V blade (Paul Bos heat treatment). My goal was to remove the seration on the Tramontina and see how quickly that happens (without hurrying, just at my normal pace) with these stones, and put a roughly 30 degree primary edge on the Buck. After soaking the stones for about an hour for the first time (they kept bubbling, uniform, constant stream of bubbles) I got down to work.
It took me no more than 16minutes with the F180 stone to make the serations completely disappear. To re-profile the much harder steel S30V took about 15 minutes, but I removed less material there, see the pictures. When working with the F180 stone (but also with the others to some degree) it produced a nice gray sludge (see the pic) and then the stone has gotten into an aggressive mode, practically eating away the steel. Then I continued with the F600 which also did a quick job on finalizing the secondary edge (on the Tramontina) and establishing the primary edge on both knives. You could stop here for an aggressively biting utility edge. I did show the knives both the F1000H (hard) and the F1200H stones after that for this test, and I was able to put on them a razor sharp edge. According to Murray Carter, ceramics have the problem of loading up with metal particles, and I was looking for that. To my surprise they don't do it as much on these stones as I was expecting them to do so. The rough stones have no loading, I noticed some loading only on the F1000H and somewhat less on the F1200H. However, using the rough stone F180 I could easily remove the loading and the stones kept cutting. I normally use a King medium (1000) stone, and in comparison, the F1000H Haidu stone retains more metal, but much less than I expected. Some pictures below. For another review on these stones see http://jendeindustries.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/review-haidu-ceramic-sharpening-stones/ . I really like these stones, they are great for quick repairs as well not just maintenance sharpening. They seem to come at a medium-price point (http://www.haidu.hu/index_gb.html). Some of the images are here: http://imgur.com/a/2dc3u

 

[Magnaminous_G]

EDIT: Just to let you know, this seems like spam, given that it's your first post ever on the forum, and it's a product review without even so much as a "Hi! New member here!" On top of that, your entire "review" of this product seems entirely based on the jendeindustries website review you linked, almost verbatim.

 

[turul97]

Hello, and thanks for responding. It is true that I have only joined, but this is not a spam. I started hunting about three years ago, which is when I started paying attention to knives, most of the time finding that I can hardly go through one deer without loosing cutting ability in my existing knives. I have been partial to Finnish knives for field dressing and quartering (Ahti hunter, Kellam puukko), whereas just in the woods I have been sticking to a home-made 52100 bushcraft knife. But sharpening was and still is an issue. I then bought a Buck 110 S30V folder and found that the sharpening sticks I was using were just useless on this steel. I asked a friend of mine if he knew of any fast cutting stones that won't break the bank and he told me about these. The pictures you see are mine, with my knives being sharpened. The other review wasn't talking about loading with metallic particles, which should be of concern if you use ceramics. I have also sharpened my Higonokami with these, but that was less interesting because blue-steel sharpens easily. I actually plan to sharpen a zdp189 blade with these, once I get to it.

 

[Magnaminous_G]

Okay, sorry for jumping the gun. Now that you've mentioned twice how great this product is and how many people recommend it, I'm super interested. Tell me more about this fantastic product that seems to be a great value.

 

[rustyknife]

I am using the sharpening rod from Haidu. It is quite long (18-19") and works fine without soaking in water, but I use it wet - it gives more fine edge. I have 2 small "field" stones too, but I do not use them - they are too small 1*3 (I think).

 

[turul97]

Thanks M! The rougher grits in these stones are fast cutting, the finer grits seemed to cut just as well as a King stone of similar grit, but you'd have to occasionally run across the face of the 1000 stone with the cleaning stone F180. If you look closely on the face of these stones you'd see that the pores are not as uniform in size as for a Japanese stone, so they don't look as homogeneous, but I could not tell whether this affects their performance, they seemed to work fine. I have not used them for long enough to say how well they keep their flatness. I could not notice any irregularity myself. But then I am also careful to use the full face as much as possible and rotate the stone once in a while . The small stones (the ones I have) are good for small folders or blades, but saying that they are good for field carry is a bit iffy, because these are whetstones, so you need to have access to plenty of water (fine if you do). My buddy told me that these stones are good for ceramic knives as well, but I can't comment on that as I don't use ceramic knives. I have been thinking on infusing one side of the blade with tungsten carbide particles at least on one of my bush-craft knives to see how that holds up over time. It supposed to be self-sharpening with use and more aggressively cutting. This would reduce the time I spend with stones. It definitely seems to do the job on titanium blades: http://blog.kuiu.com/2011/10/21/worlds-lightest-knives/ .

 

[Jason B.]

Thanks M! The rougher grits in these stones are fast cutting, the finer grits seemed to cut just as well as a King stone of similar grit, but you'd have to occasionally run across the face of the 1000 stone with the cleaning stone F180. If you look closely on the face of these stones you'd see that the pores are not as uniform in size as for a Japanese stone, so they don't look as homogeneous, but I could not tell whether this affects their performance, they seemed to work fine. I have not used them for long enough to say how well they keep their flatness. I could not notice any irregularity myself. But then I am also careful to use the full face as much as possible and rotate the stone once in a while . The small stones (the ones I have) are good for small folders or blades, but saying that they are good for field carry is a bit iffy, because these are whetstones, so you need to have access to plenty of water (fine if you do). My buddy told me that these stones are good for ceramic knives as well, but I can't comment on that as I don't use ceramic knives. I have been thinking on infusing one side of the blade with tungsten carbide particles at least on one of my bush-craft knives to see how that holds up over time. It supposed to be self-sharpening with use and more aggressively cutting. This would reduce the time I spend with stones. It definitely seems to do the job on titanium blades: http://blog.kuiu.com/2011/10/21/worlds-lightest-knives/ .

So what I gather is,

The coarse is about as fast as most coarse waterstones and the finer grits are about as fast as a king stone? That's not very impressive considering king stones are very slow and a Norton Sic stone sounds like it would work much better despite being a oil stone.

Loading seems to be a issue for everything past the 180 also so I'm really not seeing why these would be preferred over a stone with a solid rep. To me the low price is not worth the headache.

 

[turul97]

So what I gather is,

The coarse is about as fast as most coarse waterstones and the finer grits are about as fast as a king stone? That's not very impressive considering king stones are very slow and a Norton Sic stone sounds like it would work much better despite being a oil stone.

Loading seems to be a issue for everything past the 180 also so I'm really not seeing why these would be preferred over a stone with a solid rep. To me the low price is not worth the headache.

I don't use finer grits to remove material but to finish the primary edge or polish, so speed in case of finer grits is not an issue for me. When changing the secondary edge angle or removing serrations or repairing chips, then I want an aggressive stone. I have not tried Norton's with oil yet so I can't do a comparison, but I was impressed with these. The loading was not a headache, more of a coloration that I removed with the F180 occasionally.