Where are the boron carbide (B4C) stones?

@Diemaker I cannot think of a delicate way to put this: if the material cost is low why do the diamond matrix stones cost so much more than alumina ones? If it is volume alone and they are clearly superior why aren't they being mass produced?
 
Good post, Ocelot. :thumbsup:

Personally, my Matrix stones are reserved for my "better" knives with fairly high carbide content. (I have some Venev stones to be used in similar fashion.)

The softer stainless and carbon steels will continue to be worked with a combination of Norton, Edge Pro, and Shapton Glass alox and SiC stones, (oil or water), as well as Spyderco ceramic .

Plated diamond will be used as well when called for.

I reserve the right to experiment, of course. That's half the fun...(and frustration). :cool:
 
Mr.Wizard said:
@Diemaker I cannot think of a delicate way to put this: if the material cost is low why do the diamond matrix stones cost so much more than alumina ones? If it is volume alone and they are clearly superior why aren't they being mass produced?
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Yeah, it can be a touchy subject. The short answer is the process is pretty involved with some procedures that are hard to speed up. If the volume increases by 5 fold then I may be able to realize some efficiency by scaling the production up, but not by much, 20 fold perhaps would be a tipping point. Big fear we have is since they last virtually forever we will get to the point the market is saturated and sales will drop off.
 
@Diemaker I don't begrudge you your profit, especially on a unique product. If they really last many times longer than the stock stones they are well worth the price for those who process a lot of knives, even without the other performance benefits. I am not part of that market just academically curious. I hope they are a success for you for years to come.

I was wondering why common stones (that wear out at a normal rate) are not being made with boron carbide for benefits on high hardness, high carbide steels. It may be that BC just doesn't provide the marginal improvement the paper figures suggest.
 
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Mr.Wizard said:
@Diemaker I don't begrudge you your profit, especially on a unique product. If they really last many times longer than the stock stones they are well worth the price for those who process at lot of knives, even without the other performance benefits. I am not part of that market just academically curious. I hope they are a success for you for years to come.

I was wondering why common stones (that wear out at a normal rate) are not being made with boron carbide for benefits on high hardness, high carbide steels. It may be that BC just doesn't provide the marginal improvement the paper figures suggest.
Click to expand...

Mostly, while boron carbide is much less expensive than diamond or CBN, it's still a good deal more expensive than aluminum oxide or silicon carbide. So for most purposes, industrially, jumping to plated diamond or CBN over bonded boron carbide makes sense. And it hasn't been until pretty recently that high-vanadium steels have been becoming more common in pocket knives. It's still only really needed for pretty fine stones used in the final stages of polishing and apexing, anyhow, since up to about 400 grit in more pedestrian stones still work pretty effectively on high-vanadium steels due to the small size of the carbides.
 
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