New Spyderco Double Stuff 2 is out

It’s kind of hard for me to believe this stone would not be perfect for field use or your regular edc.

I carry my edc everyday and it only needs touched up every couple weeks. Some of you must do heavy cutting all day every day. Most of my blades are s30v and will keep an edge a good long time only needing the occasional touch up on the fine pocket stone to shaving sharp once again.

I just don’t know what you would be cutting on a daily basis that you couldn’t at the very least bring it back with the cbn 400 grit side and finish it off with the fine?

Not trying to be argumentative or anything but this seems like an excellent product. If you really dull your knife it can be brought back to sharp with the cbn alone and then razor sharp with the fine ceramic and a few strops on your blue jeans or the leather pouch it comes with all in the field. It's seems crazy to me someone couldn't find this portable of a package useful in the field.

I think you just have to understand it's intended purpose.
 
Last edited:
I’m fairly certain the posters who responded in this thread understand its intended usage. Just that there are better options out there for some of us :)
 
NRGbasser said:
It’s kind of hard for me to believe this stone would not be perfect for field use or your regular edc.

I carry my edc everyday and it only needs touched up every couple weeks. Some of you must do heavy cutting all day every day. Most of my blades are s30v and will keep an edge a good long time only needing the occasional touch up on the fine pocket stone to shaving sharp once again.

I just don’t know what you would be cutting on a daily basis that you couldn’t at the very least bring it back with the cbn 400 grit side and finish it off with the fine?

Not trying to be argumentative or anything but this seems like an excellent product. If you really dull your knife it can be brought back to sharp with the cbn alone and then razor sharp with the fine ceramic and a few strops on your blue jeans or the leather pouch it comes with all in the field. It's seems crazy to me someone couldn't find this portable of a package useful in the field.

I think you just have to understand it's intended purpose.
Click to expand...

My issue with it is I'd likely seldom, if ever, NEED the Fine side anyway. I'd be spending full-price money for basically half of the hone. The degree of polish afforded on the Fine side is essentially not useful in knives I use everyday; nor is such a finish very durable anyway. And hair-popping sharpness can be had on something much less polished, anywhere from ~320 - 1200 grit, in edges that are more useful for a wider range of tasks. That's why I would've hoped to see something no higher than a medium ceramic (around ~1200 in finish) on the flip side, if using a ceramic at all. In truth, I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about the secondary grit being a finer CBN, rather than a ceramic in the first place.

I already have a bunch of white ceramics in the same 'Fine' finish ballpark, including two of the original DoubleStuff hones, and almost never use any of them. I have a Fine Spyderco bench hone, and haven't used it at all, except in just fiddling with it to see what it could do. It's not like I don't know what it's intended use is; it's just I don't ever see a need for it in the first place, in my uses. And, if I am inclined to polish an edge to that degree, I'd still prefer other means to do it, without the issues of loading & burring that sintered ceramics inherently bring every time.


David
 
Last edited:
I'm all about the Spyderco fine ceramic, deburrs and hones like a champ.
I just use light pressure and alternating passes.
The brown Alumina is not as good. It clogs faster, it loads way to fast for making bevels or repairs.
At least with a CBN plate on one side it will cut faster, load less and be a more effective stone for more then just a touch up.

The CBN and fine ceramic will make a nice aggressive edge with a little precision to it as well. "Polished toothy edge"
 
I've started using a few drops of mineral oil on the brown ceramics, which renders the loading issues essentially moot. Any ceramic will load very fast when used dry, or even with water, if it evaporates very quickly on the hone.

Even with the mineral oil though, I still find that ceramics generate some big, thin burrs much too efficiently; but, they don't remove them very efficiently. I keep revisiting it (even as recent as yesterday), to see if my perception has changed, but it hasn't. I want to like using them, as there's a nice bite to an edge coming off a cleanly-cutting (i.e., not loaded) medium ceramic. But, I'm always somewhat disappointed with the necessary extra work required to clean up burrs after using them.


David
 
Last edited:
I only ever do less than a dozen strokes per side (usually less than a half dozen, even) using sintered ceramic and only use the weight of the blade. Doing so goes a long way to preventing a burr from forming. If you still get a burr under that method of use I'd be wondering if your surface needs refreshing with a fine diamond stone just to take the surface layer off and expose sharp grit.
 
Key is all about very light pressure to minimize/eliminate burr formation.
I clean my Spyderco fine with Comet or BKF then lightly run a DMT over the surface to restore cutting ability.
This insures the stone will cut cleanly and not just roll over another burr.

Regards,
FK
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I only ever do less than a dozen strokes per side (usually less than a half dozen, even) using sintered ceramic and only use the weight of the blade. Doing so goes a long way to preventing a burr from forming. If you still get a burr under that method of use I'd be wondering if your surface needs refreshing with a fine diamond stone just to take the surface layer off and expose sharp grit.
Click to expand...

I agree, less strokes and lighter pressure make some difference; but the inherent tendency for burring is still there. In my comments regarding the medium ceramic in particular, I was speaking in the context of trying to rely on such ceramics to set or reset edge bevels, as (unfortunately) the medium ceramic rods in typical V-crock sets are presented as the standard option for doing so, unless the set also includes something like diamond/cbn as a bevel-setting stage. This is why I tend to lean towards a fine/ef, or maybe even eef diamond as a finishing/refining step in the first place, instead of a ceramic of any kind, as there's much less tendency to form burrs, even if/when pressure is a little bit heavier. And when some burrs do show up off a diamond hone, they're still generally a lot more fragile and easier to clean up than the burrs formed on a ceramic. I usually strip these burrs away with just some stropping on bare leather, or on my jeans after the finishing touches on a diamond hone. And sometimes the burrs will just strip away in the first cut or two into the edge of a piece of paper.

Timely mention of using a diamond hone to recondition the ceramic. Yesterday, I'd done this with a Fallkniven DC4 that I'd previously lapped months ago, to a finish a little finer, as it turned out, than I preferred. It originally finished to something approximating Spyderco's Fine ceramic; a decent polisher, but not as fast-cutting as I'd prefer. So, yesterday I gave the same hone a new lapping on a coarser diamond hone from Harbor Freight, just to see how it'd change the ceramic's grinding characteristic, part of which was to see how/if it'd change the burring tendencies as well. The diamond was 180-grit (as rated on it's original packaging), and I used some mineral oil to lube the process. Lapped it just enough to produce a uniform & full-coverage swirl pattern of new scratches on the ceramic; that took maybe 10 minutes or so. I then used that hone, with some mineral oil again, to reset the edge on a simple, inexpensive stainless kitchen knife (Farberware santoku). It did a nice job setting the new edge, cutting the steel aggressively and leaving a satin finish on the bevels. But, as is always the case with ceramics, there was some sizeable burring left on the edge, seen in how the edge was snagging and altering the direction of cut in phonebook paper afterward. I removed some of that burr with lighter edge-leading strokes on the same hone; but some of the remnants remained, which I then stropped off using some white rouge on denim. If I had otherwise reset the edge on a diamond hone of a similar grit rating (something approximating DMT's 1200), I'd not have needed to take that last stropping step with the denim & white rouge, to get rid of the remaining burrs.


David
 
Interesting that many of us continue to use sintered ceramics of the type that Spyderco offers. To be sure, there is certainly a time and place for them. I just do not figure to ever include them in a progression as I cannot justify their use under any condition short of them being the only stones available.
 
Last edited:
adamlau said:
Interesting that many of us continue to use sintered ceramics of the type that Spyderco offers. To be sure, there is certainly a time and place for them. I just do not figure to ever include them in progression as I cannot justify their use under any condition short of them being the only stones available.
Click to expand...

Yes. I used them for a long time with SM, tried again recently, and as Obsessed with Edges Obsessed with Edges said, they DO work. But I found they work best in a VERY specialized role, as a sort of luxury finishing option to refine the apex. However, I rarely need to do that with ordinary knives, it doesn't add that much value to cutting performance or edge durability that I can tell. And as David said, you can get that same result other ways while reducing the risks/hassles of ceramics.

I'm sure folks will keep using them. I totally admit they can work, and there is a kind of delight in using them, the smooth feedback of slicing a blade over a high grit ceramic stone is really hard to beat. But I'm not planning to keep using them, due to the narrow range of tasks in which I found they are really useful. I finally broke down and got a DMT EEF, and it plus my Ptarmigan can handle that finishing role.
 
Never really had much trouble with removing the burr after using a spyderco ceramic. I just raise the angle a bit using alternating strokes with just the weight of the blade and it's gone. Shaving hair and cutting phone book paper is easily achieved.

There's many methods to achieving sharp some just work better for different people. I like the dmts if I have to re profile but that's normally not necessary for my personal knives because I don't let them get dull. I've found with the higher grade steels my blades rarely ever get dull due to the fact I'm not cutting enough material in one sitting to deteriorate the edge to the point of needing a diamond.

To me the beauty of freehand sharpening is its simplicity once you obtain the technique. This small compact stone is a simple, effective, and extremely portable way of obtaining a great edge.
 
Like I observed, It's not bonded, it's coated just like the rods.

hDQshk5.jpg

It has some weight to it too

rm1rEW7.jpg


It's wider too
eJ9u4Hq.jpg


I've got alot of experience with the double stuff, my suade is well worn, I'll have to see if I like the 2.0 more.

tSmM8rd.jpg
 
Nice pics, thanks! Maybe you can do a review when you get a chance so we can hear how it does compared to the old one.

DeadboxHero said:
Like I observed, It's not bonded, it's coated just like the rods.

hDQshk5.jpg

It has some weight to it too

rm1rEW7.jpg


It's wider too
eJ9u4Hq.jpg


I've got alot of experience with the double stuff, my suade is well worn, I'll have to see if I like the 2.0 more.

tSmM8rd.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Heres the short and sweet

So far it's basically a diamond plate on a double stuff for 15 bucks more

Which means less loading, fast cutting.

It's heavier in the pocket.

Nothing notable about CBN over diamond on pocket stone so far.
 
There's really no good reason in my mind to use CBN over diamond for manual stones. The entire reason it's used in industry is for high-temperature grinding of ferrous metals because diamond can leach carbon into steel when used at that kind of speed and pressure, and cause issues as a result. CBN doesn't do that, and so gets used in those circumstances, but it's softer than diamond is and no less expensive from what I've seen. Furthermore, it doesn't even really have a different grain shape that would impact performance characteristics, as its grains are almost identical in shape to those of diamond. But it's fashionable right now for some reason. I think why Spyderco used it originally in their Sharpmaker rods was to differentiate them from the diamond rods, not because the CBN would work differently in its own right.
 
Thanks for the pics DBH. I am also finding not a great difference from CBN to diamond..
The item itself is an improvement over the older DS , since I can reprofile the edge better with the coarse side whereas the brown is not very efficient for that.

I've played around a lot with ceramics. I have the full set of Spyderco benchstones , as well as the DS models. As far as finishing an apex , very light pressure is indeed needed. In my use it would replace stropping on a lot of my knives , except my convex edges.

Couple of other things I'd like to throw in.

One of my main carry-only-one sharpeners for a long time has been the folding Blue DMT coarse ( 325 G)
I wore one down to zero after about 5 years , but I found it gave me a great edge on a large number of steels quickly , slightly toothy which I am a fan of , easy to carry and not crazy expensive. I really wish it didn't have the polka-dot pattern though.
I'd rather have 50% more abrasive on my sharpening surface , than spaces to remove swarf ( which honestly in my opinion provides no benefit and probably saves DMT money on diamond dust)

The CBN grit on the DS-2 seems pretty close to my old folding blue DMT. I like the fact there's no butterfly handles/moving parts. I have the ability to restore and polish an edge with one tool , but for major edge damage ( hopefully not!) or working on other things like axes and stuff , a much coarser stone need to be paired with it. ( presently I'm using an extra-coarse diamond plate from the Worksharp Guided System upgrade kit. 1-1/4" by 6" and 1/16" thick) very easy to carry and hogs metal off quickly.)

I'll be up front here and tell you guys I spent a S-load of money on sharpening gear over the last 40 some years. The only guided systems I have ( if you can call them that) are the Sharpmaker and the Worksharp guided pivoting manual one. I'm pretty much a freehander. Even though I have cases of benchstones , I much prefer taking a hand-held sharpening device to a stationary edge than trying to manipulate the knife. The ergonomics ,muscle memory , angle control and feel all work better for me. I'm not trying to move a blade ( which could be any size or weight) but instead a hand-size sharpening device that's lighter, easier to see what your doing to the edge ( edge is facing you , unlike benchstones) and has the benefit of I can always carry it with me.

So far , it has worked well on my EDC rotation of folders and fixed blades in low and high carbide steels.. I am liking this a lot so far and it is basically a coarse/fine stone in one package that's a good size and has the ability to sharpen recurves and serrations if necessary. .
My only concern is how log the CBN surface lasts ( even using light pressure) . When I wore diamond plates out in the past , I glued on or used self-stick 3M silicon-carbide or AO mylar-backed abrasive and kept the tool in use.

If I have major re-profiling to do , I'll still use my 220 DMT or Atoma 140. But on the go and daily use , hand-held portable stones will do 90% of my sharpening duties. There's lots of good ones out there. Just need to experiment.

Long post fellas. Thanks for your patience.

Pete
 
Yup, watched a video where a carpenter was explaining why it's worth an investment for a CBN grinding wheel, less heat transfer to the tool, less chance of burned edges and ruined tempers.

I can't tell anything different with CBN vs diamond on manual stone so far.

The CBN on the double stuff 2 is very coarse and aggressive. Just like a fresh DMT plate. They break in and drop in aggression as the diamond/CBN wears down and pulls out.

The stone itself is actually more functional with the trapezoid shape. You can really get in to the ricasso at the heel of the edge.

Its nice to be able to reprofile and repair edge on the fly.
 
DeadboxHero said:
Yup, watched a video where a carpenter was explaining why it's worth an investment for a CBN grinding wheel, less heat transfer to the tool, less chance of burned edges and ruined tempers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's not what the issue would be vs. diamond. The problem would be carbon migrating from the diamond into the surface of the steel, which would then later be heat treated and that extra carbon would cause problems. As far as burning goes you'd have the same chance of that with CBN or diamond in power-grinding contexts.
 
The angled edges on this stone I tested on some serrated knives I have. ( Henkles 10"bread knife , Gerber Prodigy) and on a couple of recurves. Worked really well and even easier than a tapered rod.
Depending on how you hold things , If you tilt it so that on the bevelled outer edge the cbn leads and the fine ceramic follows , it did a wicked job on recurve edges. :thumbsup:
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Yeah, that's not what the issue would be vs. diamond. The problem would be carbon migrating from the diamond into the surface of the steel, which would then later be heat treated and that extra carbon would cause problems. As far as burning goes you'd have the same chance of that with CBN or diamond in power-grinding contexts.
Click to expand...


Cubic boron nitride is a great thermal conducter.

None of this matters for us knife guys.

Currently, non knife related industrial grinding operation use diamond for cemented carbide non ferrous Alloys and ceramics.

CBN is used for steel.

Makes me wonder why there is no CBN abrasive belts for a 2x72 but who knows maybe too expensive per belt.

But yeah less heat is transferred to the tool when grinding steel with CBN.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top