What is your opinion on Spyderco bencstones?

H

huugh

Joined
Jul 16, 2005
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1,772
Well, title says it all.

Worth the price? Alternatives you would pick over? Direct experience with them?
 
I've been using them since 1990 and have since abandoned all my other stones. I found the Spyderco's are cleaner to use and even after all these years are still flat and true. For me they are worth the price.

My setup includes medium, fine and ultra-fine stones. I then follow with a wood block mounted leather strop and diamond paste. If I'm working a convex edge I use a silicone rubber strop (about 70 durometer) mounted on a wood block and silicon carbide (wet & dry) sanding sheets...then the ultra-fine Spyderco for a tiny micro bevel, followed by a very light leather and diamond paste strop to final polish. I just finished a Bark River blade with this method and was amazed at how effortlessly it cuts.
 
I love my ultra fine spyderco ceramic, but I think my kyocera crock stick does better for a quick sharpen. Plus it works well on recurves.
 
I think they are great hones. I do think you will also need a much coarser hone than the Spyderco hones offered. DMT or for the money a cheap black silica carbide hone found at most hardware stores will do you right.
 
Db nailed it. A coarse stone (I like the DMT blue) + Spyderco ceramics and you've pretty much got it covered. I have others, but that's because I like to play...
 
The Spyderco ceramics are very good stones. You just have to use something like a Magic eraser or rust eraser to keep them from loading up (or just plain comet and a scouring pad, but I prefer the other options I mentioned), but they put on real nice edges. As Sodak (and apparently db) said you want a coarser DMT stone for shaping and coarser slicing edges, and the Spydercos will put on a nice finishing edge. I recently got into using Shapton Glasstones, and I feel that they cut faster and cleaner than the Spydercos, but they cost a lot more and are more of a pain to maintain. For quick and clean results the Spyderco benchstones are a good bargain that give very good results.

Mike
 
gunmike1 said:
I recently got into using Shapton Glasstones, and I feel that they cut faster and cleaner than the Spydercos, but they cost a lot more and are more of a pain to maintain.
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Have you noticed a difference in edge retention with similar sharpness based on the abrasive type? Any experiments with water or another lubricant on the Spyderco stones?

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
Have you noticed a difference in edge retention with similar sharpness based on the abrasive type? Any experiments with water or another lubricant on the Spyderco stones?

-Cliff
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The Shapton 1000 seems to put on an edge like the Spyderco medium, and the edge retention seems very similar. The Shapton 2000 seems somewhere between the Spyderco fine and ultrafine, but closer to the fine, edge retention seems similar to the fine. The Shapton 8000 puts a bit finer edge on than the Ultra Fine, though not much finer and they seem to have pretty similar edge retention in informal EDC testing. In fact sometimes it seems like the Spyderco Ultra Fine seems to actually give me a better push cutting edge than the Shapton 8000 on certain knives, maybe I am just used to the proper pressure to use on that stone with those knives (like my Manix for instance). I would say grit for grit the edge retention would be hard to tell apart, assuming you preperly deburr the knives.

I got the Shaptons because I was having a hard time not getting burring on my ZDP knives with the Spyderco stones, but I never did try them with water yet. That would seem a logical thing to do to see if it would slow the loading up of the stone and keep the ceramics cutting cleaner. With the Spydercos on my ZDP 189 it would seem like when I used enough pressure to abrade the steel it would raise a burr, or I wouldn't use enough pressure and I wouldn't get it as sharp as I thought it should get. The waterstones seem to cut cleaner with less force and less burring, but again they cost much more and require more maintanance.

Mike
 
I have seen some reference that at a similar sharpness/finish, you can expect different edge retention because the abrasive will form the edge differenently on a micro level. I can understand the arguement but wonder if this is actually relevant compared to the more macro effect above that scale. Just looking for some actual facts. It is something I mean to look at myself eventually, diamond vs ceramic vs waterstone, at similar push/slicing sharpness is the edge stability/retention also the same.

Thanks for the info.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
I have seen some reference that at a similar sharpness/finish, you can expect different edge retention because the abrasive will form the edge differenently on a micro level. I can understand the arguement but wonder if this is actually relevant compared to the more macro effect above that scale. Just looking for some actual facts. It is something I mean to look at myself eventually, diamond vs ceramic vs waterstone, at similar push/slicing sharpness is the edge stability/retention also the same.

Thanks for the info.

-Cliff
Click to expand...

Now that you have brought it up I will try to be more critical of my cutting with the different abrasive finishes. As with most here most of my cutting is just a box here, a rope there, plastic packaging here, zip ties, ect., and I haven't tried anything any more formal or controlled to compare the different edge retention from the different abrasive types. It is an interesting concept, though I doubt I'm precise enough to notice any difference.

Mike
 
That would be the other thing which I think in general would make this not significant. How close are the abrasive finishes going to be, I think the "grit" is going to make more of a difference. But consider for example a sharp diamond cutting carbides and a soft AO abrasive smearing them out. There is a possibility there of a difference it seems.

-Cliff
 
I use the UF alot and have found that Windex or Simple Green (better) do a great job of floating the metal and preventing stone loading and glazing. Funtionally/subjectively speaking, I've found this stone seems to improve edge retention marginally better over others I've used including the F and DMT's ceramic (edge geometry and steel being the same). Haven't had any issues with chipping or poor edge stability. Regardless, I prefer its performance over others I've used. I don't care for waterstones so can't comment on their comparitive performance.

Just my $.02.

NJ
 
So far, my Norton waterstones (220/1000 and 4000/8000) gouge way too easily for my uses. The have been relegated for my straight razors where technique isn't nearly so much an issue. I tend to lift up the tip as I sharpen, and end up putting a gouge in the waterstones. I'm going to try the Glasstones and see if that doesn't solve it. The spyderco ceramics don't gouge for me, and I like them for knives. For my razors, I really prefer wider stones.
 
I'm not sure about the Glasstones, but the Shapton Pro 1000 I have is harder than the Norton 4000/8000 I have. It isn't as hard as a Spyderco bench hone but I've had no problems with any gouging.
 
Great finishing hones. I think the medium is great for a general purpose finished edge, the fine and ultrafine if you want to optimize push cutting over agressiveness. One tip, don't use a solvent to clean the stone and put it back into the plastic case until it's THOROUGHLY dried off. I cleaned my medium stone with some gunscrubber (1,1,1 trichlor) and toweled it off so it was dry to the touch, when I got back to it the next day the plastic from the case was all over the stone surface and some of it is still soaked into the pores, makes for a slow cutting stone.
 
My Shapton Glasstones haven't gouged once, even putting microbevels on my ZDP Caly Jr, which loves to whittle off a layer of my Norton stone when I get sloppy. The Shaptons are hard, cut good, and are slow to dish.

Cliff, you make a good point about the AO stones vs. diamonds on high/coarse carbide steels. In my experience the Glasstones, Spydercos, & DMT's cut those types of steels just fine (except fot the burring the Spydercos were giving me with ZDP, but that was probably more me than the stones), and AO polishing tapes finish off the edges to mirrors pretty easily after that. Maybe the AO in lighter force at finer grits works better than the coarser grit AO stones on these steels because the coarser DMT's, Glasstones, or Spyderco stones have already cut the carbides to form a fine edge that is easy to refine at the point where I use the lapping films?

Mike
 
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