New EP Diamond Matrix Stones - How Soft Of Steel Do They Work With?

[Justin Boggs]

I am the proud owner of some brand spanking new, still virgin, Edge Pro Diamond Matrix stones. I hear that they are great for "hard" steel and not so great for "soft" steel.

What is the definition of hard steel here? Are we talking 60-63 super steel category only, or does decent German steel such as Wustoff qualify?

 

[brando555]

They really do well with harder steels especially the finer grits.
Got a really nice polish on my Rex 45 Para 3 with the 2300 and 4000.
Although from my experience they handle typical production steels like s30v, s35vn, 204p just fine, which are usually somewhere around 58-60 hrc.

Read through Diemaker's posts on this thread, he shares some pretty useful info.

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/edge-pro-matrix-resin-bond-diamond-stones.1590536/

 

[Diemaker]

I have a few Henckels knives that they work fine on, the Chicago knives I have are about as soft as you would want to go.

Edit - A friends Cuisinart knives were too soft. I just couldnst 't get a decent finish even using all of the higher grits to see if one of them would work, nada. The same stones but with boron carbide instead of diamond did work though so it is the diamond that is the problem. If the steel is too soft it seems the diamonds will push the metal around instead of form a chip that can be removed. Diamonds tend to leave deeper scratches than other abrasives and the softer the steel the more pronounced this is.

 

[Justin Boggs]

Thank you both. I have 250, 600, and 1100 grit stones (I think I got the progression correct, they aren’t sitting in front of me). After reading the thread where the pass around was introduced, and Diemaker’s comment above, I think I’m pretty comfortable using these on all my knives except maybe my old Schlieper carbon steel scimeter, which sharpens delightfully on my alox stones anyway. I think I’ll start with my Kramer/Henkel first though.