wet stone diamond stone oil stone

zebra potcher · Oct 30, 2012

I know there are Diamond, Ceramic, and Carbide stones. I dont know sharpening stones made by any other material. But besides the finer grit what would be the advantage of buying a stone other than diamond? Diamond wont need any maintenance and they will never wear out (according to DMT). If you buy a ceramic wet or oil stone they wear down and you need to true them with diamond stones. The diamond stones used to true the ceramic stones could be used to sharpen the knife in the first place. The finest diamond stones I have found are 8000 mesh by DMT (I am guessing mesh and grit have the same meaning)so the only reason I could think of to buy any other stone is for the higher grit like 10k or 20k.

Komitadjie · Oct 30, 2012

My personal choice is "both."

I use a DMT extra-coarse plate to do all my profiling work and to flatten my waterstones, then use Boride and Chosera waterstones to remove the diamond's scratches and do the sharpening itself. Check out the grit chart stickied at the top for more or less how they compare together, grit-size-wise. Also, beware that grit SIZE is only one of a very large number of factors that change how the stone cuts and finishes.

David Martin · Oct 31, 2012

ZP, I can easily wear out a diamond stone by lapping a Arkansas stone. One is not near as hard as the other?? A diamond stones sharpening layer is very thin whereas a SiC stones layer can be an inch. Boron and India are some others. Then the natural grits. Just hang out here and read more. DM

tiguy7 · Oct 31, 2012

I wear out diamond stones all the time. They aren't completely dead, but they sure are slow.
Don't use diamond stones to level a greasy oilstone. The oil sticks to diamonds like glue.
The diamond particles, which are co-deposited with Nickel in an agitated plating bath on to a steel plate, are easily dislodged in the sharpening process. You can reduce the applied pressure when sharpening to increase "stone" life, but then it takes all day to produce an edge.

David Martin · Oct 31, 2012

A good summary ^ on diamond stones. I did use them more, now, I sharpen or rebevel on my Norton SiC or India stones and give the blade a few final passes on a coarse diamond. Thus, it saves the stone and the edge feels as it just came off a diamond grit. DM

Komitadjie · Nov 1, 2012

Kind of odd, I've been using this same set of DMTs for several years now, and mine still cut just fine. If you use excessive pressure, you'll kill them fast, though!

Have to use light pressure, and an appropriate grit. Don't try to reprofile with the Medium plate just by pressing hard. That'll just kill the plate. If you want one that lasts even longer than the DMT, Atoma makes even better ones. Properly used, a DMT is good for many years.

Obsessed with Edges · Nov 1, 2012

Komitadjie said:
Kind of odd, I've been using this same set of DMTs for several years now, and mine still cut just fine. If you use excessive pressure, you'll kill them fast, though!

Have to use light pressure, and an appropriate grit. Don't try to reprofile with the Medium plate just by pressing hard. That'll just kill the plate. If you want one that lasts even longer than the DMT, Atoma makes even better ones. Properly used, a DMT is good for many years.

^This. On all points mentioned.

I did wear down one C/F Dia-Fold a few years ago. Used it to flatten a small ceramic hone. Leaned into it way too hard in doing so, and visibly removed a good bit of diamond from the substrate. But since then, I've used diamond hones on a couple more ceramics, and took greater care in the process. Much lighter pressure, and keep the hone wet. I put the diamond hone on top of a piece of wet/dry sandpaper, in the bottom of a casserole dish (sandpaper kept the hone from sliding around), and covered by water. Doing it this way left no noticeable additional wear on the diamond hone. I haven't had any more worries since then, about shortening the useful life of the hones. Light pressure makes the biggest difference, and also translates into more refined edges on blades; it's just good sharpening technique.

I've also noticed that some steels will clog a diamond hone pretty fast; it's much more noticeable on coarser hones. This makes them 'slow' and might give the impression the diamond is coming off. Heavy pressure just seems to clog them faster, so there's no speed advantage in leaning into it anyway. Some Bar Keepers Friend powder & water does a nice job cleaning those up again, by eating up the swarf (literally dissolves the iron in the swarf).

Edit:
BTW, the Dia-Fold I thought I ruined, actually still works. There is less diamond on it than before, but I've found this hone still works just fine for touch-up tasks. In some respects, it even leaves a more uniform finish on an edge. So it's still not 'dead' yet, in spite of how hard I tried to kill it.

Jason B. · Nov 1, 2012

To say diamond hones wear out quickly is simply false. Like anything if you abuse it then it will become damaged.

I've had the same set of DMT stones for 5+ years and the only one that could use replacement is the XXC hone because I constantly use it to lap waterstones. Even worn out it still cuts faster than some of my coarsest waterstones. All while using light pressure to prevent further damage.