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Sharpening with DMT aligner kit and sandpaper

C

ChrisLee

Joined
May 26, 2013
Messages
202
Can sharpening mediums be mixed? Sharpen first with diamond then finishing with sandpaper. Is anyone doing this? I can get my Elmax ZT0562 shaving sharp with my DMT aligner kit. I have all the grits for the aligner kit except the white ceramic. I can get a mirror polish finish using 2500 grit sandpaper but the edge loses it sharpness quick the cleaner and nicer the polished edge looks.
 
Sure, they can be 'mixed' but why bother?

DMT Aligner EEF stone is 3 micron (4800~8000 depending on source).


If you're doing the full progression with DMT thru EEF then using 2500 sandpaper and making it duller, I suspect you're rounding off the edge.

Are you pushing or pulling or both over the sandpaper? How secure is the sandpaper? If you're using a push stroke and the sandpaper is not firmly secured, then it's most likely flexing and curving over the edge.
 
What I have been doing is cutting a strip of sandpaper to match the DMT stone holder shape and taping it in place. This helps me maintain the same angle. Also I have only been moving in one direction. No back and forth movements with the paper. Once I get a nice mirror finish the blade just doesn't feel sharp any more. But if after I use the sandpaper I switch back to the extra extra fine DMT diamond board and go over it again a few times, the edge goes right back to sharp. It is extremely sharp at this point. I'm happy with how sharp the blade is but it would be very cool to keep the mirror polished edge. Maybe the difference of the thickness of the board vs the thickness of the sandpaper is enough to throw the angle off. I will try to make a spacer for the sandpaper and see what happens.
 
Elmax has too high vanadium carbide content to be worked with non-daimond or CBN at that level of finish. A piece of 1 micron or .5 micron diamond lapping film will be a better choice. Even 3 micron film will produce a brighter finish than the DMT EEF.

Or you could polish it with the wet/dry and then apply a microbevel with the EEF and keep the shine everywhere but along the edge.
 
ChrisLee said:
What I have been doing is cutting a strip of sandpaper to match the DMT stone holder shape and taping it in place. This helps me maintain the same angle. Also I have only been moving in one direction. No back and forth movements with the paper. Once I get a nice mirror finish the blade just doesn't feel sharp any more. But if after I use the sandpaper I switch back to the extra extra fine DMT diamond board and go over it again a few times, the edge goes right back to sharp. It is extremely sharp at this point. I'm happy with how sharp the blade is but it would be very cool to keep the mirror polished edge. Maybe the difference of the thickness of the board vs the thickness of the sandpaper is enough to throw the angle off. I will try to make a spacer for the sandpaper and see what happens.
Click to expand...

Sandpaper works much, much better if it's fully affixed to the hard backing. Taping the paper in place at just the ends/sides will still allow the central portions to lift & move a little bit under pressure from the blade, and that'll allow the paper to conform/roll around the apex during the stroke, which tends to round over the apex a bit. If really wanting to use sandpaper in this fashion, it'd work better to use some temporary adhesive on the back of it (or take advantage of PSA sandpaper, which already has 'pressure-senstitive adhesive' on the backing) to actually stick it on the hone, so it can't lift away at all. The obvious downside in doing it this way, is the possibility of adhesive being left on the surface of your diamond hones, requiring some cleaning afterward. That's not necessarily difficult though, as the adhesive could still be removed with alcohol or mineral spirits (Goo-Gone as well).

Since you're using the Aligner, you could still get a pretty high polish using the higher-grit diamond hones up through EEF. As you've noticed, the edge will finish much crisper and sharper as well. Taken even further, affixing a single thickness of plain paper on your finest hone (EEF) and using diamond paste on the paper to strop your edge, will leave a very high polish. DMT's 3µ Dia-Paste really excels at bringing up a high polish very quickly following the EF/EEF hones, and it could be refined further with 1µ Dia-Paste, if desired.


David
 
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I have used paper wrapped tightly and sometimes taped in the back of the DMT Aligner stones with and without compound. It does move a little bit but there is generally very little play. But it does work pretty well from my experience.

I never used anything with PSA or an adhesive so I can't comment on that but I can tell you another option for cleaning off the stones of swarf and general cleaning of adhesives is a cheap ultrasonic cleaner with dawn. That will make life easy for cleaning up these stones and keeping them nice and pretty, plus I can't lie it's kind of fun watching it in action sometimes.
 
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