I have a set of Hapstone Premium CBN stones and want to get some opinions. I've used them dry, with oil and with water and the don't seem to have much feedback. How do you users go about sharpening with them? Soapy water? Oil? Dry? Do these just not have much feedback? I'm used to diamond stones.
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Hapstone Premium CBN stones
- Thread starter StevenC
- Start date
- Joined
- May 11, 2023
- Messages
- 49
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Hapstone Premium CBN stones. You're right, CBN stones generally offer less feedback compared to diamond stones due to their different abrasive structure – more cutting edges with less individual sharpness.
While you can use CBN stones dry, with oil, or with water, we recommend using them with oil for the best results. Oil provides better lubrication and helps to prevent the stones from clogging, which can reduce their effectiveness and create a less responsive feel.
If you're looking for increased aggression from your CBN stones, you can lap them on a SiC (silicon carbide) powder. This will expose fresh abrasive particles and enhance their cutting ability.
Remember, CBN stones excel at refining edges and producing a keen, polished finish. They might not provide the same aggressive feedback as diamond stones, but they are incredibly effective at creating sharp and durable edges.
Feel free to experiment with different lubricants and techniques to find what works best for you. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Mario
Hapstone
While you can use CBN stones dry, with oil, or with water, we recommend using them with oil for the best results. Oil provides better lubrication and helps to prevent the stones from clogging, which can reduce their effectiveness and create a less responsive feel.
If you're looking for increased aggression from your CBN stones, you can lap them on a SiC (silicon carbide) powder. This will expose fresh abrasive particles and enhance their cutting ability.
Remember, CBN stones excel at refining edges and producing a keen, polished finish. They might not provide the same aggressive feedback as diamond stones, but they are incredibly effective at creating sharp and durable edges.
Feel free to experiment with different lubricants and techniques to find what works best for you. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Mario
Hapstone
If your stones have the silver surface on them then they are quite mild due to the manufacturing process. Most of the abrasive is even or nearly even with the surface of the stone leading to less feedback and less aggression. This does however make them better polishing stones.
As Mario from Hapstone stated, you can lap them for more aggression and feedback. The downside is they don't polish quite as well since they make deeper scratches so you need to do more work on the finer grits if you want a mirror polish. You could try lapping your coarse stone(s) and seeing if you like the results or not.
Here are some pics from when I lapped mine.
80 grit stone lapped and the rest not
Part way through lapping, there were some low spots on the edge
80 grit before and after lapping. Notice that you only see small specks of abrasive before and after there is a significant amount more abrasive showing and it is all larger after lapping. It cuts faster and gives more feedback but leaves deeper scratches. It doesn't bother me since I go for working edges on my knives instead of mirror
150 grit before and after
Really close up shots of the 2k stone before and after
- Joined
- May 11, 2023
- Messages
- 49
A light mineral oil would work fine, you're not going to see any difference in how well the oil works other than its viscosity. You want one light enough to wash the swarf away vs collecting it. Oil does work better as a cutting lubricant but with super abrasives used manually the difference between oil and water isn't worth the mess, IMO. The only problem with water and dish soap is evaporation as you want to keep your stones wet while using them to prevent loading. The more dish soap you add the longer they stay wet.
Oddly enough, as a "diehard" soapy water user, I found using oil to be less messy than when I use water. I was testing some of Hapstones water based "Magic Oil". The oil stayed on the stone and the edge of the blade (unless all edge leading strokes) and my hands were pretty clean. When I use soapy water it tends to run down the blade, drip off, my fingers get black from swarf from flipping the blade and supporting the tip and from applying more water to the stone. Performance wise they were pretty much the same, kept the stone from getting loaded but the oil did not drip everywhere dropping swarf laden droplets everywhere.
Pricewise soapy water is significantly cheaper.