Agreed. Even with it all figured out, waterstones are still kind of a PITA. When I can get away with it, I use diamond plates and spyderco’s ceramic to reduce the wetting, flattening, and drying. But there are just some steels you really need waterstones.
I’m interested to see what steels these stones are the best for.
Yes those Spyderco ceramic stones and diamond plates seem simple don't they?
On the contrary, peel back the layers and you'll reveal a deep complexity. You need to use light pressure on the diamond to prevent tear out. It's counter intuitive because pressure is thought to increase the speed but heavy hands make the edge more ragged since the abrasive grains are fully exposed and allowed to cut DEEPER which also rips out the expensive diamond grains that are much much harder then the bond that holds them on the plate.
So you have to remember the grains are fully exposed so you don't need pressure to cut, you need movement. Faster cutting comes from faster movements to increase stoke volume. Very different the a regular stone, and the finish is always coarser the the rating.
Your Spyderco ceramic, simple huh? No flatting? No dishing?
Well that leads to problems, they cut slower, and are prone to huge loading problems.
They need to be cleaned to cut effectively. All that graphite, pencil lead looking stuff is actually metal filings clogging up the abrasives, this slows down the stone and reduces the feedback making them feel slick. This also reduces the quality of the edge since its burnishing more then cutting but most people don't notice.
The brown stones are especially sensitive with loading since they are to remove more steel. They won't produce the same quality of edge if they are clogged up. A light single drop of mineral oil helps but there is no avoiding cleaning.
"Bar keepers friend" is a house hold abrasive cleaning product and it is the most effective means of cleaning out the stones.
I have to stop and clean each time I switch sides on the knife if I want the best results.
Very slow and inconvenient, should only be used for touch ups and honing.
So now you understand why all this information in this review on the CBN stones sounds like a PITA, if you want the best performance you have to take it to that level of detail.
It turns out everything is a PITA.
Especially if your reading the level of detail I provide because I care about the performance.
Most people don't care. But they do when they are not getting the edges they want and can't figure out why hahaha
They fail to care for there tools
We're talking loaded, clogged up stones, dull abrasives that need dressing or bonding that needs to be reduced, not using the proper or apropriate lubricant, stones so dished they look like a tech deck half pipe etc
Haha just like knife steels there is no ultimate stone, they all have these details and trade offs
The use of these CBN stones are no secret.
These stones are used as heavy firepower for people that need to sharpen very hard, very high alloy steels that can be used with heavy pressure without tear out issues and also leave a superior finish without dishing.
If you're just a VG10, 420HC guy they aren't going to be as much of a performance gain because they don't cut soft steels with incredible speeds
If you factor in that they don't dish out like normal stones. That might be worth something especially to edge pro guys.
I'll get some pictures up later
Shawn
