Yipes! Synthetic coarse stone has a valley!

Chang

Chang

Joined
Oct 9, 1998
Messages
1,767
I seem to have been overusing my synthetic coarse hone on my Smith Precision kit (like a GATCO, with less angles). It had a huge valley in it. I thought coarse stones didn't wear out like that? I'm thinking about buying a Lanksy or Gatco (probably Lansky, easier to get replacement parts). Do the hones ever wear out on these? And how well do the diamond ones work? Do they wear out at all? I don't want to pay $70 for a diamond kit that will become useless after using it a few times...

-Chang the Asian Janitorial Apparatus
 
The stone is not useless, just flatten on an abrasive surface. You can use really coarse sandpaper, sand on glass, or just concrete / pavement. And yes, all such stones wear out like that eventually. The finer grits take longer.

-Cliff
 
Well I used a 8x2x1" synthetic stone to flatten the hone out. Now my big synthetic stone has a valley in it... So diamond wears out as well? Do they work any better? What would justify making it cost so much more?

Also, question about the GATCO, the hones don't seem to have the abrasive material stick out, so wouldn't it become useless quicker?

-Chang the Asian Janitorial Apparatus
 
Diamond hones wear out slowly becoming finer, the do not hollow out. As for using another hone, you should only use one that is of similar size thus they will flatten each other. A smaller hone will hollow out a larger one as you found out. However I would not use a stone to flatten another as it wastes the hone. Just use one of the methods I described in the above.

-Cliff
 
Be careful with diamond hones.
Monocristalline diamonds are SOOOO hard, they (almost) cannot wear, BUT: they are just implanted in a metal layer (usually nickel), so they may be ripped out when using too much pressure to speed up honing.
Polycristalline diamonds (cheaper) do wear, they break off parts and become finer and finer in grit size. Good or bad, depending on use.
So: do not use much pressure when using diamond hones. If cared for, they will live "forever". Happy sharpening
smile.gif


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D.T. UTZINGER
 
Diamond hones justify their costs by cutting faster, not lasting longer.

I would simply discard a badly worn coarse stone and by another one. You can get cheap ones for $5-10 and better ones for $10-$30. Your coarse hone doesn't need to be fancy.
 
I use diamond stones to flatten waterstones. I have also used sandpaper to flatten waterstones. I used a DMT to fix the cornor of one my Sharpmaker stones.

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Roger Blake
 
Jeff, his stone is part of a set and thus costs significantly more to replace. Besides being able to restore very worn hones, lapping stones keeps them in optimal performance as they are flat, clean and sharp. It is something that you should get into the habit of doing on all your hones. If you coarse stone is anyway hollowed, when you move up to your fine hone it will take much longer to finish the edge than it should.

-Cliff
 
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