Smith's Stones?

J

Jamesh Bond

Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
1,760
While i am a die hard DMT fan, and truly advocate "You get what you pay for," sometimes there can be exceptions.

Ive ignored Smith's for years, regarding them as low quality. Another factor is the nonexistent presence of their use in the high end knife community. I associate them with the cheap redneck who grinds his Gerber or Winchester to a crude edge that will separate a piece of yarn in twelve sawing strokes so he can hack up a deer or struggle to scrape a point onto a stick after using his full body weight to cut a pat of butter for the morning toast. (Yeah, i fully admit a huge prejudice toward that kind of mentality).

I know they will WORK, but do they work well? Last long? Quality edge? Worth the money saved?

FWIW, I like my edges hair popping sharp and at least able to slice printer paper. I stop on Spyderco Fine, then plain leather. Dont need to whittle hair tho.

What say you?
 
I use a Smith's ceramic 1000 grit stone as my finishing stone most of the time. Very satisfied with how it works. It does need to be backed one a piece of wood of something. I'm not a hair popping guy, but the Smith's sharpens my blades (including D20) to where they will cut when and where I want them to with little or no effort. I'd recommend the ceramic 1000, but don't know about the others. My supplier has them for only $4 for a 6 inch x 2 inch stone. Can't really go wrong for that price.
Rich
 
I'm finding out that most any diamond hone will at least remove steel quickly and leave wicked-toothy edges on most any blade. The only question may be with long-term durability & consistency of performance (that's what you're paying for, in more expensive hones like DMT).

I picked up some VERY 'inexpensive' diamond hones at Harbor Freight a week ago. The one big plus I see with them is, they're brutally aggressive at removing steel (came in a 3-pack for $10, with 180-, 260- and 360-grit). For heavy/dirty grinding jobs hogging off lots of steel fast, they'll be useful. The obvious downside with them is they're not flat at all, with a ~1/8" thin plastic 'base' under a ~1/32" thin nickel-coated steel plate; all of which is curved or 'dished'. I'll likely remount the plates to hardwood or something flatter and more sturdy, at some point. BUT, having said all that, I used the 'Fine' (360) hone to very quickly reset the edge on a cheap paring knife of mine (it gets the 'lab rat' duty for all of my new hone purchases).

A lot depends on how you plan to use diamond hones. I think the better brands will excel at the finer end of the grit scale especially (Fine/EF/EEF), for refining/polishing tasks. Better brands will likely be more tightly-graded for consistent grit size, which translates to fewer imperfections at the refining end of things. At the coarser end, it doesn't matter as much if the grit rating isn't as tightly controlled, as they'll all likely work at hogging off lots of metal quickly, and will all leave extremely coarse scratch patterns behind.

I haven't heard much negative commentary about Smith's more recent diamond products in particular, so I sort of assume they'll at least be as good as what you're paying for, and maybe better. The key to making any diamond hone work well, is in using very, very light & controlled pressure. At coarser grits, it'll make the hone last longer, and at finer grits, it'll both greatly improve refinement AND extend the life of the hone. At the very least, using heavy pressure will only clog a coarse diamond hone very quickly, then it slows down dramatically; so heavy pressure is NEVER, EVER a good thing on a diamond hone, no matter the quality.


David
 
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The longevity of Smith's diamonds was my main concern. I too was attracted to the HF stones. But most of the sets i inspected were warped and had burrs sticking up out of the holes. Not worth risking an expensive blade over biting the bullet for quality.

Rich, i was unaware of the ceramics. Ill look into it. Thx.

I have seen a crockstick/sharpmaker type device they make thats pretty inexpensive. Wondered how it compared to the SM.
 
Jamesh Bond said:
The longevity of Smith's diamonds was my main concern. I too was attracted to the HF stones. But most of the sets i inspected were warped and had burrs sticking up out of the holes. Not worth risking an expensive blade over biting the bullet for quality.

Rich, i was unaware of the ceramics. Ill look into it. Thx.

I have seen a crockstick/sharpmaker type device they make thats pretty inexpensive. Wondered how it compared to the SM.
Click to expand...

I have 6-8 sets of ceramic V-crock sharpeners, collected over a span of 20+ years. The biggest variable in performance always seems to be the set angle at which they're built to work. If taking the time to measure it, most of them are on the 'wide' side, with inclusive angles over 40°. As for the ceramic rods, they've all seemed to work fairly well; price doesn't seem to impact performance most of the time. I DO have one old set (a SMITH'S, BTW) on which I discovered the 'ceramic' was just a very thin coating over a STEEL rod. I figured this out after noticing the brown ceramic sloughing off as dust, exposing bare steel underneath. It escapes me as to why they designed and constructed such a thing in the first place; they would've done just as good to spend the $$ on a solid ceramic, as opposed to machining & milling the steel rods and coating them. That set is likely ~20+ years old; I'd hope SMITH'S eventually came to their senses and scrapped that idea in favor of a more common-sense design.


David
 
That may apply to the old crock sticks, but the ceramic 1000 stone is definitely not over steel. It is all ceramic, but as I said above, it has hollows in the bottom, so needs to be mounted on a slap of wood or something, but no reason it can't be used as is. Here's what I'm talking about:

http://www2.knifecenter.com/item/AC...arch-as-you-type&utm_campaign=smith's ceramic

(I think KC is a BF sponsor?, if not I'm sure the mod will delete the link)
Rich
 
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This got me thinking.

I believe Spyderco gets their ceramic through another company ( the name escapes me ATM). I wonder if other knife companies contract through the same source.

If this is true, then why spend money on a name when youre getting the same product.

3 bucks for Smiths and 20 for Spyderco.

Anyone know?
 
Jamesh Bond said:
This got me thinking.

I believe Spyderco gets their ceramic through another company ( the name escapes me ATM). I wonder if other knife companies contract through the same source.

If this is true, then why spend money on a name when youre getting the same product.

3 bucks for Smiths and 20 for Spyderco.

Anyone know?
Click to expand...

There are likely dozens (maybe hundreds) of companies producing ceramic grit worldwide; if you search the web for 'ceramic grit' or 'aluminum oxide grit abrasives', you'll find all kinds. You'll also see that most of them offer many different 'recipes' to meet specific user criteria for grit size, hardness, toughness, friability, particle shape, etc. When considering all that, it's unlikely that two different makers of ceramic hones will be using exactly the same abrasive media to make their hones/rods. Also have to account for each hone/stone maker's 'recipe' for sintering or binding that grit to make the actual stones/hones/rods, when they get the raw material in the first place. Too many variables at play, for separate manufacturers to come up with exactly the same product.

Having said all that, I haven't seen many ceramics from (at least) decent & reputable companies that wouldn't be good enough to produce sharp/hair-popping results when used in skilled hands. Most of the issues I've seen with poor ceramics have been related to surface-finishing of the stones/rods, leaving bumps or burrs or divots that can damage an edge in the process of honing. And those issues really don't have anything to do with the quality of the ceramic grit itself, but only with sloppy QC in production of the hones. With a company like Spyderco, you're paying for the uniqueness of their setup (for the Sharpmaker's triangular rods and it's unique base), as well as the best-documented instructions on DVD and in book form, and also for good/great customer support in dealing with QC issues with minimal hassle (same as with a company like DMT). Spyderco's surface-finish, in particular, is of their own specification, and it's what makes each of their grit ratings unique from each other (Spyderco uses the same exact grit media for M, F & UF ceramics; only their surface finish and binders is what makes each perform differently).


David
 
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I am using one of their cheap Arkansas stones. It didn't come flat but neither did my Spyderco Ceramics. I have gotten good results off of both.
 
I used to have a cheapo pocket diamond stone from them that lasted and lasted. I also have one of their medium arkansas stones and it works great. There's really nothing wrong with their products except they lack variety.
 
I have owned several of their diamond plates for a number of years and they perform very well. I believe they are not as well bonded overall as the DMT plating, but if one uses a reasonably light touch it shouldn't be an issue. I did ruin a coarse one lapping other hard stones (not waterstones), but in all reality it isn't meant for that and I can imagine ruining a DMT coarse just as easily.

Because they use polycrystaline instead of mono crystaline diamond, they seem to cut a bit more refined than their DMT counterparts.

The one thing I really like about them is the thicker gauge steel they use for their interrupted surface products. I have has issues with my DMT EF due to the surface having distortions around the holes great enough to leave visible effects on the ground surface.

However, unless there is a notable price difference I would stick to DMT.
 
I have a number of medium and hard Smith's Arkansas stones. They're fine from a functional perspective. No nice wooden box or anything. But they get the job done.

One is a medium bench stone mounted on a plastic base, with a holder for a smaller fine stone underneath. I've had this thing for 15 or 20 years, and they still sell an identical unit. The plastic base isn't great, but it works. You can see where there are imperfections on the surface of the stone that is glued to the base. So they are using imperfect stones and hiding the imperfections. Although being on the bottom, the imperfections don't effect the function.
 
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