Nubatamba24

Gotta call ken schwartz. Used to have his number I'm sure somebody will post it up.

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I wanted one of these for a short while. JasonB told me it was a waste of time because the depth of the scratch pattern made it impractical to transition from this stone to another less coarse stone. Unless you did a LOT of work on the next less coarse stone to remove the scratches from the N24.

Ken seems enthusiastic about the N24. My knowledge is limited to talking with Ken, watching his videos, and reading what Jason has to say. Which means I have no real experience at all. For what it's worth.

Brian.
 
Yea Jason is full of great information. I searched and seen some post where it seemed like he had some negative things to say about it but I can't help but want to try one of these out... I have a couple knives I want to reprofile and I have a hf belt sander but I think I could do a lot better by hand.. atleast to even some things out..I am going to buy one probably soon but I just can't find anywhere else to get them and was wondering if they even sold them anymore.. even if I don't do anything sharpening wise with it it seems like it would be a good stone to lap my coarse stones with
 
This stone works good for lapping, it basically is a beast that wears super slow and releases abrasive under very high pressures. It is NOT intended for anything related to sharpening, the only thing I use it for is changing a knife's basic shape to something else entirely. Changing blade or handle profiles namely, but edge geometry can be done (within certain limits).

It absolutely requires very small contact areas when grinding steel in order to refresh the surface and fracture to keep the stone cutting, wider contact areas will just let the stone wear smooth and stop cutting... then you won't be able to lap it with any other stones I'm aware of. Flattening is also very difficult, Ive found it extremely important to 'use' the high spots on the ends to wear them back in line with the center.

You can use it to change edge geometry by grinding a shoulder down, works great for this too but again once the bevel contact area grows it stops cutting... then you need to transition to a different stone like 120 grit to finish. Also works great for tip repairs or grinding out chips by drawing the edge straight into the stone like you are trying to cut it.
 
I haven't spoken to Ken in over a year and I haven't been following him on any of the various forums, youtube, etc. So I have no idea what his business or personal status is. I just did some searching where I used to see him post and found this post that has his contact info at the bottom.

http://www.chefknivestogoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=270

Let us know what you find out. The Nubatama stones are gone from the only place I used to know that carried them online (other than direct from Ken, whom you had to contact via email or phone). Best wishes to Ken and good luck to you.

Brian.
 
Just to address rapid stock removal: I don't have lots of experience with this, but a 1x42 belt sander is supposed to be "the standard". The WSKO does a decent job with really coarse belts (60 grit ceramic), but it's slow by comparison to a real sander (I've been told).

By hand, I've never used anything faster than the DMT XXC. The Atoma 140 is supposed to be similar but "better" because of it's dot pattern and (supposedly) superior diamond bonding process. I have no experience with the Atoma myself.

I've been told from time to time that various water stones cut just as fast or faster than the XXC. I don't believe it based on my small experience. The Nubatama 150 doesn't cut as fast as the XXC and it's supposed to be a beast. It does cut and cuts most steel pretty well. But not like the diamond plates do.

Perhaps the best combination of speed of removal and low cost is something I've read about here: Buying large sanding belts, like 4" wide by whatever length you can find, and turning them into a long sanding strip by cutting them open. Then gluing or tacking them to a wooden or glass or stone base. The combination of the really coarse grits available, and the EXTREMELY large surface area are supposed to make short work of bigstock removal projects. Again, I haven't tried this myself; just read about it here.

Good luck.

Brian.
 
I had the 60 grit.

It had a very hard binder and seemed to just make deep scratches when it did decide to work. Most knives would just glide across the surface and on thinner blades like those of a kitchen knife it would often just "chip" the edge and make more damage to repair with a more reasonable coarse stone.

The 60 grit was also a very poor lapping stone... there is a reason stones like this have not caught-on for lapping other stones.
 
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