The Baryonyx American "Mutt" stone; The stone you can't afford not to have.

DeadboxHero

DeadboxHero

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Mar 22, 2014
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Can't afford not to have?! Seriously though, for $7.49 this is the most affordable fast cutting coarse stone you can buy on the market.


If you need to reprofile or repair the edge, this is the stone you need.

I had to check this stone out, anyone who does alot of sharpening will tell you that the fastest wearing stones are the coarse stones and those are the most important stones when you're sharpening other peoples knives because they are so dull and damaged. Since coarse stones are such an important mainstay in the sharpening arsenal, we are always looking for stones with features that contradict each other such as good feedback, slow wearing, fast cutting, no loading, fast soaking, good water retention, etc.

In reality you can't have all these features but the mutt stone has some very interesting properties

Before we get into the details about the stone, first I want to talk about the company, Baryonyx or "Fortytwoblades" here on bladeforums.

I really appreciate "fortytwoblades" for taking the time and investment to bring this stone to the market. I really enjoy his web shop and have bought several things such as a rinaldi axe that I really enjoy; there are alot of unique items and brands that can only be bought on his webstore and very affordable too.

After watching several of his youtube videos it became very obvious this guy knows what he is doing, he is a "user" and has expert tool technique and sharpening to back up his extensive knowledge. I have huge respect for people that can back up their knowledge and that are super passionate about tools and abrasives. He really dares to think "outside the box" and is able to put food on the table for his family so kudos.:thumbup::thumbup::D

Should be exciting to see the other stones he might have up his sleeves in the pipeline for release.


now back to the stone,

Its rather genius since its made from recycled waste from other stones, that means we get a great blend of aluminum oxide, silicon carbide even diamond abrasive, all random no exact amounts.


here's is a picture of the "mutt" stone with a "arctic fox" pocket stone on top.


I've used and test this stone on a wide varety of steels from white #2 to CPM s110v

This stone eats it all

its a fast cutter, soaks fast, and doesn't load, creates no mud, decent water retention, almost no dishing and has ok to low feedback

That's impressive, at first I was blown away. How could this cheap stone perform so good?

Of course nothing is ever free, I noticed that because it doesnt release the grit, the abrasive grains go dull and need to be dressed to expose fresh grit.


It seems the sintered bond is too hard, but its far more complex, from talking to "fortytwoblades" He informed me about the limits of bonding such a crazy cacophony of different abrasive grain types and that they need a harder bond for it to fuse the different grains.

He also gave me a tip to use heavy pressure to force the stone to release the grit and maintain the cutting, I normally use light pressure, if you have used the imanashi latte 400, nubatama, or the gessin soaking stones you know what I am talking about ( love the feedback and cutting speed of those fancy vitrified waterstones, but man those stones wear and dish fast)

I noticed an improvement in cutting when I beared down with alot of force. Once I exposed fresh grit, I could ease off the pressure, if the feedback felt slick or glazed then it was time to increase the pressure but you can get through a knife or two with the fresh grain exposed depending on the task and knife.

Nothing I know of can effectivly flatten this stone, may SiC powder, an Atoma 140 would work but you don't want to kill your $100 diamond stone on a $7 stone:D

So its key to use most of the stone with your knife and lap it with the blade, but its a very slow dishing stone which is very unusal for a coarse stone.


I think another great benefit to this stone is that it can flatten almost any stone.

(The only stone that made this stone muddy was the vitrified diamond stone, which is a total beast that will never reach the mainstream market since its so expensive haha)

This stone actually works better then the SiC stone flatteners and is way more affordable then a atoma.

the bond is so strong you don't have to worry about grit contamination on finer grit stones.


As for actual sharpening and leaving this stone as the final edge its just too coarse for a quality final cutting edge,the biggest problem is its very difficult to remove the burr this stone makes, this stone creates a very fierce burr that is too burly to remove with this stone and a leather strop, as for deburring on this stone with alternating light passes, forget about it. its so coarse it just keeps making burr.

but that not the role of this stone so its fine, its really made to "hog off" material and can double as a stone flattener.


so for $7.49 you just need to buy one. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best stone ever?! Not even close. Will everyone love it instantly? hahaha no, but you will find a use for it in your kit. Just skip your morning coffee and get one:D

here is a quick recap of this stone,

-medium/fast
-slow dish
-not able to flatten (expect maybe SiC powder and elbow grease:D)
-does not load
-fast soak
-moderate feedback
- decent water retention but needs a splash to keep going
-need to be dressed or use heavy pressure occasionally when needed
-can be used to flatten other stones
-can be used with oil or water, but seems to work great with water
-can not deburr on stone
-works best repair, reprofiling and stone flattening
Lastly,
is this my favorite coarse stone? Nah, I really like the latte 400, faster cutting, best feedback, great finish and softer burr but it dishes wayyy fast, so I use my "mutt" stone to flatten it hahahaha
 
hmm, most intriguing! I'll just take a stroll over to that website and see what's afoot
 
Thanks for the review. It's hard to predict how a stone behaves, you really have to try it.

So this stone won't flatten well with a standard Japanese flattening stone?
 
Forget about it lol, but its not that big of a deal since it dishes slow. Just lap the stone with your knife hahaha, use all of the stone.
Also use it to flatten your other stones :D
 
Thanks for the review, and I'd like to compliment your insight on it as it lines up with my own experiences in using it. I actually have two that I use regularly--one for actual blade work and the other as a "sacrificial" stone for dressing or knocking sharp edges off of other stones. On the next run we have done of them we'll try to see if we can soften the bond strength just a hair, but as we've already discussed before, it's a bit tricky with the bond requirements for them. You can dress and flatten the stone with one of these, as they're around a 36-grit diamond wheel dressing tool, but significant flattening work will take quite a while.

70m5003s1.jpg


You can find the above variety of diamond wheel dresser for around $8 if you look. Given the nature of the work these stones are used for, though, I wouldn't worry too much about getting them perfectly level so much as just occasionally taking down the high points a bit.
 
I didn't have much luck with the mutt but I may have to bring it back out for more use. I have been blown away by the Artic Fox combo stones though... I could really use one in an 8x3 size ... hint hint.
 
Darn. $50 to ship $20 of sharpening stones. That's what I get for living on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic.
 
Jason B. said:
I didn't have much luck with the mutt but I may have to bring it back out for more use. I have been blown away by the Artic Fox combo stones though... I could really use one in an 8x3 size ... hint hint.
Click to expand...

An 8" bench stone is on the to-do list. :D With the American Mutt, the chief thing you need is to really lay on the pressure. It's a stone for putting your body weight into. You may end up liking the upcoming Manticore stones, which will be an ultra-coarse 60 grit in an 80/20 ratio of of homogenized black and green silicon carbide.

Dangerously said:
Darn. $50 to ship $20 of sharpening stones. That's what I get for living on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic.
Click to expand...

Depending on the total weight we may be able to ship via First Class International, which is cheaper. It's just subject to dimensional and weight limitations that the site can't check against automatically, so we have to manually quote it by email. :)
 
Jason B. said:
I didn't have much luck with the mutt but I may have to bring it back out for more use. I have been blown away by the Artic Fox combo stones though... I could really use one in an 8x3 size ... hint hint.
Click to expand...

YES just the white stone by itself too!
 
It's actually a pale blue, but we'll definitely be coming out with bench stones in the Arctic Fox series. Dual grit to start, but we'll eventually build the line out to include single grit ones.
 
Just adding to the wish list here.....also would love to see 8"x3" Arctic Fox and 8"x3" Ruby Scythe, and excited about the Manticore, too. I like the "Mutt"....yep....pressure is needed...and plenty of it.
 
I have this stone also, I can't say I am too impressed with it at this point. It releases virtually no abrasive, which means it just wears smooth. This is accelerated when using with water, but still seems to happen with oil... as I would like the stone to stay sharp when using oil at the very least.

The grit in the stone itself seemed rather dull to begin with, as I read this was 'recycled' abrasive... not sure how to make this any better in that regard. As it sits now about the only use I can think of where these qualities would be desirable is grinding the edge perpendicular into the stone to change blade shape.

I have used my Nubatama 24 Grit to do this sort of work and while it worked very quickly as force was ramped up significantly despite stronger bond, I could see the American Mutt remaining much flatter and still working relatively quick. I think the bond strength alone limits this stone to only using very high force on extremely small contact areas.

Generally the stronger the bond the more likely you are to run into problems with glazing, so it's generally better to err on the side of weaker bond for general use. If this was my only stone I would likely feel that I wasted my money entirely on it, but I have more than a few stones so it's just another choice for me depending on the niche grinding I need to get done.
 
Maggot Brain said:
I have this stone also, I can't say I am too impressed with it at this point. It releases virtually no abrasive, which means it just wears smooth. This is accelerated when using with water, but still seems to happen with oil... as I would like the stone to stay sharp when using oil at the very least.

The grit in the stone itself seemed rather dull to begin with, as I read this was 'recycled' abrasive... not sure how to make this any better in that regard. As it sits now about the only use I can think of where these qualities would be desirable is grinding the edge perpendicular into the stone to change blade shape.

I have used my Nubatama 24 Grit to do this sort of work and while it worked very quickly as force was ramped up significantly despite stronger bond, I could see the American Mutt remaining much flatter and still working relatively quick. I think the bond strength alone limits this stone to only using very high force on extremely small contact areas.

Generally the stronger the bond the more likely you are to run into problems with glazing, so it's generally better to err on the side of weaker bond for general use. If this was my only stone I would likely feel that I wasted my money entirely on it, but I have more than a few stones so it's just another choice for me depending on the niche grinding I need to get done.
Click to expand...

its $7.49, so I am not to quick to compare it to a higher end Nubutama, I don't think I would use the mutt stone with oil, since its not that the stone has loading issues like the norton india and crystolon but that it has glazing issues since the bond strength is so high, I agree that a sightly softer bond would make the stone perform better and make it more enjoyable but its limited by having random amounts of different abrasive grain types that don't cooperate unless the bond strength is higher. This does help when pressed into a flattening stone role, and think about it, if you were on a tight budget, it would be nice to get a flattening stone and a coarse stone all in one so you can afford a nice medium grit stone and a strop with compound.

also you get very hard abrasive grains like diamond at a rock bottom price, you just need to go heavy on the pressurse when it glazes then you can back off the pressure until it happens again.
 
As a heads up, the American Mutt stones are now available again and have been reformulated to a just slightly softer bond. You can still lean into 'em hard but the wear rate is much more agreeable now. The only change was a 10% reduction in the press rate used in molding. :)
 
They're still a fairly hard bond but I can feel the grit shed at this point with just firm hand pressure rather than using body weight in the stroke like the original run. Still lets you really use firm pressure without dishing out the stone but it won't glaze up readily either.

There's lots of soft coarse stones out there and unless you're using really light pressure it's just wasting grit. At the coarse stage you're really looking to hog off material fast, and pressure helps with that. It was just a little more than ideal with the original formulation. We weren't actually sure that the stones would hold up using less pressure since getting the mix of abrasive types and grades to all "play nice" with each other isn't easy, but it's doing really well with the 90% press. I've been using one of them to sharpen up box cutter blades and it quickly restores super blunted ones to a very aggressive edge that's perfect for cardboard and reinforced kraft paper tape.
 
Afternoon delight... ;)

IMG_0072.jpg


Definitely a difference in the "Mutt" stones... in look/feel. Tried it out, but really didn't spend enough time with it to tell much of a difference. It did seem to break down a bit easier without a lot of pressure... (but maybe I'm "looking for it", it that makes sense). (I could tell the older version had smoothed out some, but still works well). I think over time/use is what will tell. Like it's previous version though... quite the cutter!

IMG_0071.jpg


Also tried the "Arctic Fox" stones. My only comment... the fine side needs to be lapped... comes pretty rough. (No biggie though... most stones need lapping anyways... literally took a few seconds on a DMT-C stone). But has a nice feel after lapping, and does a nice job. I like it! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

(Haven't tried the "Manticore" yet... it feels like a metal muncher).

1st impression... Works well... and good service as always!
 
It was rather handy that the bulk abrasive material used in the new batch lent them a different color--it makes it a lot easier to tell the new from the old! I've been using mine from this batch for touching up razor knives after cutting through fiber-reinforced tape and the like and it's been putting a wonderfully aggressive edge on them despite it being a coarser stone than I usually finish on even when shooting for a coarse scratch pattern. :) The Arctic Fox stones quickly break in, but if you happen to have a lapping plate it just makes the process all the faster.
 
The Mutt is an outstanding stone.
I just got an older Recon 1 with a couple serious chips in the blade an along with the Manticore I ground them out in less than 10 minutes.

I like the Mutt a bit better than the Manticore just because the Manticore can be messy and does release a lot of grit with high pressure.
Both do cut very well though and pretty soon I'll try out the new batch of Mutt's.

Since the Mutt releases no grit I like to use it to flatten and refresh my water stones also.
When the Mutt starts to go out of flat I use silicon carbide on a tile and that trues the stone up very quickly.
 
Yeah the Manticore is definitely more for high-speed aggressive grinding where you're essentially using a manual stone to take the place of power sharpeners and it does well in a lot of contexts where a file doesn't make as much sense, such as when dirt would blunt one or the risk of damaging a file or wearing it out means that having a bonded abrasive makes more sense. The same with viable strokes that are possible and the ability of it to cut with a drawing stroke. Etc. etc. As such, the formulation is deliberately causing a certain amount of grit to shed while remaining overall a relative firm bond. The fracture rate of the green silicon carbide then reduces the contact surface of the stone to increase pressure on the black, which then allows it to fracture and the cycle repeats. :)
 
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