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Lapping ceramic stone to make it coarser?

hiwa

hiwa

Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
2,720
I have some Fallkniven ceramic DC-4 stones that have a very smooth ceramic side. I took a 220 grit diamond stone and lapped it to try to get it to have a more " coarser" surface. I would have thought the diamond grit would of put micro grooves or scratches in the ceramic , but instead polished it smooth even more.

The original DC-4's used to have what I saw as almost saw-cut grooves in them. Some people didn't apparently like this and polished theirs smooth , but in actual use I found it to work better with them. Maybe it removes swarf better ; I'm not sure. The stones I have are older ones , but seemingly doesn't have these striations and is very smooth.

Anyways, I really like this stone for field use , and just want to ramp-up the aggressiveness of the ceramic side. I am just trying to get more of a coarser finish with the ceramic side , as opposed to having it just a smooth , polishing effect.

Is there any way I could do this? :confused:
 
Might take a look at the recent thread below. Lots of discussion on how best to do it, and still seems to be a bit of a gamble with results:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...nk-I-am-going-to-flatten-my-Spyderco-ceramics

Your experience is similar to mine and others', in that a seemingly 'coarse' diamond hone will usually leave a finer-than-expected finish on ceramics. At the very least, it seems an extra (extra) coarse diamond hone might work better; though even that's not guaranteed. Ceramic hones are so very hard, that even a diamond hone will usually have more of a burnishing effect (smoothing), as opposed to cutting deep, clean grooves in them. There've been some who've suggested very careful control of the grinding strokes, in only one linear direction, to help in leaving crisp grind patterns. The usual 'scrubbing' that might be done, to lap or flatten stones, usually seems just to leave them much smoother instead.

BTW, my DC4's ceramic was initially very coarse; more so than any other ceramic I'd used or seen. I've since smoothed mine out a little bit, as the original finish was somewhat 'bumpy' on it. Seems to have been a lot of variation in those, over the last few years.


David
 
Thanks for your reply David. I might go and buy a 120 grit diamond and try that. ( I can use a stone of that grit anyhow for major re-profiling of edges.)

The newer DC4's are a fair bit coarser than the old ones , and I actually like them better but was just wanting to see if I could resurface the old ones. I have a few of both as they are a staple in all my knife kits.:thumbup:
 
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