water stones?????

sunny_2_75

sunny_2_75

Joined
Nov 23, 2009
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71
I am a wood worker by hobbie and am getting ready to start making knives. I have read about using diamond stones and oil stones to sharpen. However I havnt come across anything that suggest a water stone. I use these for Plan and chisle blades up tp 8000 grit. A mirrored polished edege with the wire edge removed. Dont know if you could get anything sharper! Do knife makers go through this process? is it important to use such a fine grit for knives. Are water stones recommended? Just learning as much as I can before I start this process. Any help would be nice.
 
I'm not a knife maker myself, just a user, but I use Japanese waterstones and a norton stone almost exclusively to sharpen my knives (and chisels, and plane irons...:D)

They work beautifully! It's just about impossible to use them on recurve blades, though.

Like I said, I'm no knife maker, but I hope that helps!
 
There is a raging debate on how refined an edge should be on a knife. I do not have or use waterstones, but I am curious. :) I use various other abrasive media.
 
I have water stones up to 12000 grit Shapton. In my experience some steels will support a very fine edge and some won't. With any stainless you are wasting your time over 3000 grit. The edge loses any "grab" and does not cut very well. 01 and A2 are fine up to 6000 grit. W-1, 1095 and white steel are the only materials I have had good results with taking higher than 6000. This has been my experience anyway.

The 12000 Shapton on HRC 63 W-1 will scare small children and the elderly.

-Nick
 
Rossi, glad another knife maker chimed in here . I'd say your waisting your time at sharping stainless at much lower than the 3000 grit . But that thinkings not in vogue here, so, I'll not confuse the issue w/ facts . Yes, some knife makers use fine stones . I do but only up to 1000 grit on rare occasion 1800 . I don't care for water stones . But in knife making other items are far more important like the heat treat and grind (blade profile) . This will help it cut much better .DM
 
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How high you finish can depend on the steel, that said I've never had a problem with any steel in the 8k-10k range but in general carbon steels tend to do better with the higher finishes 15k-100k. Not that they cut better but they are capable of taking these high finishes without loosing cutting performance.

Waterstones work good with most steels but if you have a lot of knives with CPM steels you would probably be better off investing in diamond hones or shapton glass stones. Some waterstones do a poor job of sharpening these steels.

IMHO, if you don't want to strop a 10k or 12k stone would be a good last step for about every steel.
 
tnt-user said:
All I know is they go up to 30,000 grit:eek:. That's over $400 dollars though.
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Yep, and its grit and major abrasive (chromium oxide) can be replicated with a $7 stick of buffing compound and a post-it note on a hard, flat surface.
 
David Martin said:
Rossi, glad another knife maker chimed in here . I'd say your waisting your time at sharping stainless at much lower than the 3000 grit . But that thinkings not in vogue here, so, I'll not confuse the issue w/ facts . Yes, some knife makers use fine stones . I do but only up to 1000 grit on rare occasion 1800 . I don't care for water stones . But in knife making other items are far more important like the heat treat and grind (blade profile) . This will help it cut much better .DM
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Hi David,

Thanks for the comments. I should of been more clear. The grits I was referring to related exclusively to waterstones. Most of the time I use my DMT plates and Spyderco Ceramic stones to avoid the waterstone mess. I do like to kick it old school every once and a while.

Off topic, I am with you about sharpening stainless. I like 600 grit diamond and a light strop on nearly all of my stainless knives. VG-10 I feel I can push a bit further.

Cheers,

Nick
 
Except for Scandinavian-style flat honed blades people don't lay their knife blades flat on a hone the way that you lap a wood chisel or plane blade. They tend to hone a narrow strip of material adjacent to the apex of the edge. For that reason the soft surface of a waterstone requires some adjustment to honing methods to avoid gouging into the stone as you hone.

With a diamond or hard oil stone I often apply hard pressure and stroke back and forth while roughing down a really dull blade. If you do that at an elevated honing angle (rather than flat on the stone surface) on a waterstone it can gouge off a lot of surface and leave a slight rounding at the apex of your edge. If you ease up slightly and you don't super-elevate your honing angle too much it still works efficiently. If you create a somewhat wide honed bevel (say over 1/16 inch) you can back off pressure slightly and proceed with fairly normal honing strokes. Historically circular strokes or edge-forward strokes are primary for knife honing. You can do that on a waterstone at this point if you match your previous honing angle well.

As you reach the later stages in honing on a waterstone you start needing to use edge-trailing strop style honing strokes. You don't want to gouge your one micron width edge into your hone surface. Generally knife sharpeners try and finish off by putting a slight elevated honing angle micro bevel on their edge or a curved (aka convex) treatment to the apex of their edge. This can increase strength and lets you focus attention on grooming the edge apex. With a waterstone an edge-forwards stroke can easily bite into the surface and get damaged; hence edge-trailing is a better way to go. Some soft or coarse-grained stainless steels are easier to deburr if you use a few light edge-forwards higher-angle deburring strokes near the end of your honing process. That isn't compatible with waterstones. When I use waterstones I do that step with a few strokes on a well worn ultra-fine diamond hone then I finish with sort of stropping on my 6,000 grit waterstone. For really bad stainless I have to finish on diamonds. It is the only thing that cuts the large hard carbides in it cleanly.
 
I think we are being a little general in this thread. Stainless covers a wide range of steels, with carbon content at least from 0.4 to 3.3 percent in knife blades, and chromium from 12.5 to 20 percent, plus any other alloying. Carbon is often used to refer to steels that are not. 10xx steels are carbon steels, D2, A2, M4, L6, 52100, etc are not, they are low or high alloy tool steels with much more than carbon affecting the matrix. Carbide size and volume are going to vary wildly with such broad categorizations, along with working hardnesses.

Also, waterstones are a broad category. There are natural and synthetic waterstones. The abrasive may be quartz, garnet, ceramic, diamond, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, or other. The synthetics may be bonded by resin, clay, magnesia, or other. Some require soaking, some only a splash of water on the surface. Some break down quickly, others wear very slowly.

And then what grit scale is being used? JIS old or new, CAMI, FEPA, mesh?

That isn't even touching condition of the steel when sharpened (heat treat quality) and what Jeff is talking about -angles, intended use, technique etc.

My rule of thumb is that every thumb has it's own unique fingerprint.
 
Rossi Knives said:
Hi David,

Thanks for the comments. I should of been more clear. The grits I was referring to related exclusively to waterstones. Most of the time I use my DMT plates and Spyderco Ceramic stones to avoid the waterstone mess. I do like to kick it old school every once and a while.

Off topic, I am with you about sharpening stainless. I like 600 grit diamond and a light strop on nearly all of my stainless knives. VG-10 I feel I can push a bit further.

Cheers,

Nick
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I'm with you ! :thumbup::thumbup: I can use either one, diamond or AO at the same grit you state its a good middle ground edge . DM
 
There isn't any magic to waterstones. I've always been of the opinion that grits is grits. The real advantage of waterstones is speed. Nothing cuts faster other than, perhaps, new diamond hones that haven't been worn down yet. Along with this speed comes some maintenance because waterstones cut fast by wearing down fast themselves. They need to be flattened regularly to get the best edges.

I haven't used anything but waterstones for years because I really appreciate the speed with which they cut.

Edge polish is a matter both of preference and application. Sushi chefs, as an example, want the products they cut to be shiny and smooth. Having a high polish on the edge is the only way this can be accomplished. Putting a high polish on a machete edge would probably do more harm than good to its overall performance.
 
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