Life expectancy of diamond hones

[Ralf]

After having my blue DMT Diafold for quite a while now it seems it has worn out. It's so smooth, I can't even use it as a nail file anymore. Over the years I sharpened several stainless,A2 and Stellite blades with it. I tried not to apply too much pressure and used water as a lubricant as recommended by DMT.

My questions now, is that wear normal and how long do these hones usually last?

 

[rage]

hey Ralf, i have owned a red fine grit 4in. diafold diamond sharpener from DMT for about 2yrs. now. What i can tell you is that it is worn out, yet it makes a razor type shaving edge, when i first used it my blades became meat-cutters, a really saw type edge. For me, i prefer the meat cutting edge, as for most of my blades are relied on as combat knives, this edge i feel is superior. Im going to purchase a new stone this week.

 

[Cougar Allen]

They get finer and finer with use. If you're careful to use the whole stone that'll happen uniformly and when it gets too fine to cut fast get a new one the same grit and use that one for coarse grinding and the old one for finishing. Eventually you can accumulate a whole collection of different grades even though they were all the same when new....

Natural stones and vitrified stones don't do that because they have a (deliberately) weak bond between the grit particles so the particles are always coming off to expose new coarse grit.

Sandpaper does get finer with use, though. When I used to do lapidary work I only bought one grit of waterproof sanding disks after my initial purchase. First I bought 220, 400, and 600 grit disks but I never bought a replacement 400 or 600, nothing but 220. I used four sanding steps -- I used the same prepolish (finest) disk for a couple of years. It continued to get finer but it was always finer than the polish stage and the finer it got the easier it was to polish after using it. (I polished almost all gemstones with Raybrite A on a rock felt buff, if anyone cares ... I'm afraid I'm getting off topic....)

-Cougar Allen :{)