Should I do it? DMT bench stones

C

ctk123

Joined
Feb 1, 2009
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I'm staring at my shopping cart at a popular knife retailer... I have 4 DMT 8" Dia-sharps from course to xxfine in there, for about $190.

I have a SharpMaker and a DMT aligner, and get great results (love the diamonds), but I really want to just learn free-hand.

I can afford it, but have been hesitant to pull the trigger on a large order, is it going to be worth it for me?
 
If you can buy them i would do it, i'm looking at dmt myself but i'm saving up for 6" double sided because i can't afford the 4 8" ones you named
 
I've got a 10" Duosharp in fine/x fine and it's proved effective at putting an edge on everything I've used on it. If you're going for bench stones you might as well go big; I haven't needed anything coarser than what I've got but you could always pick up a pair and get all 4 grits. Steep, but well worth it IMO
 
If you're not sure you want to make the switch and don't know how to freehand sharpen yet, you could elminiate the coarse and xxfine stones from the equation. I find a stone with a grit between 800 and 1200 is a great all-purpose stone - doesn't take off too much material, but provides a decent working edge. You could always learn to sharpen/ get comfortable with a couple of stones around that range first.

If you try it out and get comfortable with it, you can always go back and get the other stones later.

Just an idea for you
:thumbup:
 
Just get XC and EF. That's seriously all you need; XC will do the trick for reprofiling and restoring damaged edges, and EF will do all your touch-ups. EF gets rid of the XC scratches quickly anyway, so everything in between is a waste of money in my opinion.

The only reason I don't recommend the XXC stone is because it has rounded edges. This makes it difficult to sharpen knives like Spydercos that have ricassos. I hope to get mine ground down some day so that it has sharp edges.
 
THG said:
The only reason I don't recommend the XXC stone is because it has rounded edges. This makes it difficult to sharpen knives like Spydercos that have ricassos. I hope to get mine ground down some day so that it has sharp edges.
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I regret buying the XXC. The regular XC seems to cut faster for whatever reason.
 
VERY VERY worth it, If I knew about them years ago I wouldn't have spent so much money on other stones. Having the aligner already make your purchase that much more worth it, it is a great teaching tool for freehand. Get what you can now and finish the set latter.
 
I'm not scared to jump into hand sharpening, I get decent results using the aligner stones free-hand, but they are a bit small. I have a strop with green compound, that I use almost daily to maintain, and will really mostly be doing touch ups, as I like to keep a good edge, and typically touch up every other day or so. (but this is very light, 5-10 mins at most) I was thinking the EEF would be good for this.

Eventually I will have to re-profile, and it sounds like X-Course would be good for that.

So would the step from XC to EEF be too much? maybe I should get a Fine as well?

or really, since I can afford it, would getting all 4 be better?
 
cotdt said:
I regret buying the XXC. The regular XC seems to cut faster for whatever reason.
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I agree. After I got my XXC, I got an XC because of the damned rounded edges. I also realized how much faster XC grinds. I think it's because of the denser packing of the diamonds, and the diamonds seem to be "sharper." The XXC diamonds are definitely bigger, but they don't seem as "sharp," if that makes sense.

ctk123 said:
So would the step from XC to EEF be too much? maybe I should get a Fine as well?

or really, since I can afford it, would getting all 4 be better?
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I'm not sure about EEF, since that's quite a bit finer than EF. But as far as XC to EF, that takes a short amount of time to polish out.
 
knifenut1013 said:
Speed and refinement of scratch pattern.
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How fast are we talking? I used to have an XC and an F, and the difference going from XC to F and XC to EF was unnoticeable to me. That's about 10-15 minutes.

Edit: I see that I'm not covering all bases, here. Now that I think about it, I may not see the same speed in sharpening with harder steels like ZDP-189 and the like. I've only really worked with VG-10 and softer steels in the time I've had my EF stone.
 
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