Is the Shapton Glass better than diamond plates for low vanadium steels like 3v,cruwear,xhp?

I have used diamonds on 3v and I remember it being one of the easiest steels to work with. I was expecting to put a lot more work in - but it was pretty easy overall.
 
If you have the diamond plates they will work great. I dont have any experience with the those stones unfortunately.

They should work fine though, For less than 3% vanadium content. These are lower carbide steels.
But my vote is diamond. I use Z-Wear a lot, and the way it takes an edge with diamond stones is impressive. (Zwear =Cruwear)
 
The volume of extremely hard carbides is very low and the hardness on most knives available in those steels is on the lower side.

Depends on what your objective is. If it's a smoother, higher finish for a more push cut bias edge then by all means, use the shaptons. Personally, I felt they tended to burnish the edge in steels like that slightly more.

A resin bonded diamond waterstone is my preference for finishing the edges on steels like this.

I felt the shapton/choseras would give a slightly less crisp of an edge comparatively speaking for 3v, cruwear etc to the resin diamond stones.

If push cutting is the biggest concern than perhaps it's nothing to be concerned about, just a minor detail. Not worth splitting hairs about.


Regardless of stone choice, I would recommend using a 1 um diamond spray on leather to finish the edge for the best results.
 
BBB and Colin gave a great answers. Coincidentally I just sharpened a Cru-wear knife with Shapton glass stones on my EdgePro. Haven't used the EP or the Shaptons for a while and wanted to see how the would work. They cut fine and gave me a great edge quickly. It would have taken more time to get the scratches out for a mirror edge - likely a lot more time.

Matrix diamond stones would have been even faster and removed scratches more quickly. If you don't have diamond stones or Shapton Glass I would get the diamonds and skip the Shaptons if you want to sharpen high carbide steels.
 
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