modifying sharpening stones?

[JD Spydo]

This is a question that started with me about 4 months ago when a guy here on BF said that the took the medium stones on a Spyderco 204 Sharpmaker and rubbed the corners together to more or less take the glaze off of the stone to give it better abrasive properties.

Well I did that and it did make the corners of the 204 Sharpmaker tri angle stones abrade considerably better. Well here is what I am driving at>> I got an extra Spyderco 302 MEDIUM grade sharpening stone in a recent trade I did and I took a diamond grinding stone wheel dresser and ran it up and down the stone length ways and after doing that a couple of dozen times it did make the stone cut/abrade just a bit better.

2 Questions I have about that>> #1> Is there a better way to rough up or modify a flat benchstone other than the way I did it or did I do it right to begin with. #2> Is roughing up the surface of a ceramic stone not good for it and/or is there a better way to achieve what I am trying to do.>>>> the reason is that I think the MEDIUM Spyderco Benchstones should abrade a little more aggressively. And I find 3M and Norton diamond stones which I also own to be a bit too aggressive at times and I find the ceramic to be more controllable and do a more uniform job of edge grinding. OK I'm all ears

 

[Dog of War]

I've used diamond plates to flatten the flats on Spyderco triangle rods as well as clean up the corners, and find no problem in it. Tried using SiC and it's just too slow .... noticeably slower on the medium ceramic, and no effect I could detect on the fine white ceramic after quite a bit of work.

After quite a bit of use the mediums still seem to have better and more uniform "bite" than when they were new. I'm not sure why this would be, because my understanding is that ceramic stones need to have the surfaces ground after firing anyway; I question if Spyderco does that on their Sharpmaker rods, but on their benchstones and files I would think they'd have to.

Anyway, yeah, I think what you're doing - which is what I do also - is fine, JD.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Ideally I would suppose you could cut tracks into it and make it a sort of ceramic metal file which would cut more aggressively. The only concern with abrading the surface would be if the composition isn't uniform and just a very shallow top layer is actually suitable abrasive. I don't think this is the case however.

-Cliff