Sharpening stones redux

Re: Sharpening stones redux

steve knight

>I started with king and Norton stones. I would wear out a Norton or king 1000 grit stone in about a month or so. At that time I always wore one corner more then any other. Even flipping the stones around never stopped this.

Then I found out about bester ceramic stones. The 1000 grit lasted about 3 months or so. Both of these needed flattening at almost every sharpening. Then I found out about shapton stones. The first 1000 I got in 6 months I only wore about � for it away. And I only had to flatten it every 5 or more sharpening. Then I got a shapton pro stone and they are even stronger.

I have not cared much for diamond stones. Steel tends to wear the tips off of them fast and then they cut far slower. No professional sharpener will use diamonds to sharpen steel because the diamonds don�t last. It is just something in the combination that does not work. Plus shapton stones are faster then a diamond stone.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>I think easily a full size Norton stone could last 10 years for the ocassional user. I've had my set for 2+ years and the 4000 stone wears the fastest. The King stones I have cut alot slower than Nortons. I bought the big DMT combination stone and it wore so quickly that I returned it.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

GolfSteve in Calgary

>I agree there. My Norton 4000 is half gone with only occasional use over two years.

The Norton 1000 and 4000 stones still seem brand new.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Dar

>John,

Don't discount the possibility of using oilstones. They are so much slower to wear than waterstones. You can get away with a Norton combination bench stone medium/fine which is very reasonably priced. Later on, if you wanted to, you could add a fine Arkansas stone to give that final edge.

Darlene

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Rick Hoppe (Los Angeles)

>John, I have experience with all three types of stones.

Norton stones sharpen faster and stay flat longer than King --they're exponentially better.

Shaptons are better than Norton for the same reasons.

My quality scale:

l----------------------------------l------------l

King.........................Norton......Shapton

I have a set of the DMT Duo-Sharp and they are my favorite way of flattening backs.

I haven't yet, but I intend to experiment soon with the diamond stones to 8000 Shapton for final hone.In theory it should work great.

Typo, Steve?

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>

Re: Sharpening stones redux

John Meikrantz

>Steve,

Would you agree with the other sharpening folks that only two stones are really needed, i.e. a 1000 and 8000? Maybe use drywall screens or Alumian Zirconia sheets for the really rough stuff?

John

the cost and convenience issue

Bill Tindall, E. TN

>Klingspor sells everything needed for abrasive sheet sharpening. The cost per foot for alumina-zirconium, the most expensive alternative, is about $0.30 per foot for 2 3/4" wide pressure adhesive backed roll. Our club sells at cost a set of abrasives from Klingspor 5' of each 80 grit through 2000, skipping every other grit size(I think about 10 grit sizes), for $15. If you don't make huge jumps in grit sizes the sheets last a long time. If you make big leaps in grit sizes or try to use silicon carbide for the coarse grits, sheets don't last very long and this approach could be expensive.

I can call Klingspor in the AM and an order is at my shop the next day.

But for rock bottom cost it would be diamond on cast iron or maybe another substrate. The reason diamond wins on cost is that huge jumps in grit size are possible while maintaining speed of metal removal.

Re: the cost and convenience issue

John Meikrantz

>Bill,

I have read your paper on sharpening with abrasive sheets, and learned quite a bit from it. Would you still advocate abrasive sheets vs. Shaptons (only using two stones, i.e. 1000 and 8000)? I have used the abrasive sheet method for a while with decent results, but supply issues and maintenance always seemed to eliminate the convenience side.

I have looked at ordering abrasives online, but the online operation of Klingspor's (woodworkingshop.com) doesn't list the abrasive rolls that you are referring to, and in their "scary sharp" section, they only have 6" wide rolls up to 1200, which I assume is a P grit paper. On the main Klingspor site, they don't have a very good description of thier products at all. The only other online sources that I've found require a pretty large investment in sandpaper, more than I would use in a lifetime, and then at the cost of buying some waterstones.

Maybe I should continue to stick with the abrasive sheet concept, but find a decent supplier? I know that supergrit has a good selection of sheet materials for reasonable prices, and small required order quantities.

The other thing that I have noticed is the few micron graded sheets that I have gotten from LV seem to last a lot longer than the 3M SC wet/dry papers, even when skipping a fair range of grit size, i.e. 15 mic to 5 mic to .5 mic.

Would that be a better direction to continue with the abrasive sheets? Can I "recharge" those mylar sheets with diamond paste when the grit is worn out?

The more I think about it, the more confused I become. Still can't justify the LV powered sharpening system though...

John

Re: the cost and convenience issue

Alan Bierbaum

>"The more I think about it, the more confused I become. Still can't justify the LV powered sharpening system though... "

Why not? That is what I thought; untill I broke down and got one. I sharpened over 20 planes and about 15 chisels and still am using the same sandpaper disks.

Re: Typo, Steve?

steve knight

>nope. I used to wear them out that fast.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

steve knight

>you really need 1000 and a middle stone (depends on what brand) around 2000 or a shapton 500 and the 8000 or you will be workin forever on the 8000 or never really get there at all.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh

>I'd put the 2,000 and/or 5,000 in there. Otherwise, you're asking a lot of the 8,000.

Best, Ted

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh

>Steve, we were typing at the same time. : )

Best, Ted

Re: Sharpening stones redux - Chris Schwarz?

John Meikrantz

>Chris,

According to your latest sharpening article in Woodworking Magazine, you discuss using only two stones, a theme that I have seen echoed by Charlesworth and also Ian Kirby. Can you comment on the comments by Ted and Steve?

John

It depends on what you are doing

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I tend to agree with you Ted,

I use a Shapton 100, non Shapton 200, the Shapton 320, Shapton 1000, Shapton 2000, Shapton 5000, Shapton 8000 and Shapton 12000.

Is this overkill? I sure don't think so if I am sharpening large areas of the back of the blade (and most know, I'm an advocate for flattening the entire back). When there are large surfaces to prepare, large jumps in abrasive size are sure to greatly extend the time to sharpen, and often leads to a surface not really ending up as refined as many would like to believe. Nor are the smaller steps important just for flattening backs. I really apreciate being able to use the intermediate stones when some hideous purpleheart all but literally rips assunder a plane blade edge, or some abrasive laden tropical wood carves grooves into a blade edge, or some very hard oak or maple folds over the edge of a chisel. At such times, I am often removing a fair amount of steel, and may want to refine the primary bevel a fair amount.

However, for just renewing a thin microbevel on an otherwise intact blade edge, then yah, one can usually jump quite far and it won't take long at all to get good results. Even .3 and .5 micron papers can put on a quite adequate fresh microbevel, but as that microbevel widens, it is nice to drop back to some coarser grits before refining again at the finest sizes.

This is just the approach that has worked the best for me. We all have different practices and time considerations that will effect our experience of the most desirable set of sharpening abrasives.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>Having tried both the Shaptons and the Nortons, I prefer the Shaptons. They cut faster and wear slower. I alsmost moved to scary shard because I was growing tired of buying sandpaper to flatten my stones. Flattening stones is time comsuming, as much of a pain as lapping a plane sole, and the stone clogs the sandpaper PDQ. I have finally settled on keeping a tub of water at my sharpening table which I use with a diamond lapping plate and a nylon brush to clear the diamond plate when lapping. I've also found that lapping regularly is way better than letting the stones get to far out of whack. I've never tried the MK? (something) sharpening station because I didn't know about it when I bought my Stones, but I think with the setup I have, it would have cost roughly the same.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

joel

>IT seems intuitivly obvious that if you jump from 1k to 8k you end up doing a little more work on the 8k stone and increasing the wear and tear on the stone - requreing more maintanecne. But if you do as I do and hollow grind, or just not need to do much work on the tool, the wear will be less. also if you regularly flatten stones anyway the added wear won't even be noticed.

I have always suspected that my time on the middle stone wasn't worth the effort and I may give it a test for a little while.

I use a coarse diamond stone for all priliminary work on new tools. the reason is that I have been burned more than once using a coarse stone and finding out too late that the stone wasn't flat. by starting with a diamond stone I know I have a flat reference to begin with that won't go out of flat.

Answers to questions

Bill Tindall, E. TN

>1. Klingspor- answered in new post above

2. I don't have any stone experience so can't compare.

3. Convenience- I use 12 x 12 glass plates. 3-2 3/4" grit strips per plate. 80 on a separate plate for serious material removal(nearly as fast as a grinding wheel for some steel) 100,150,220 on a plate, 320,400, 600 on plate and finally 1000,1500 and 2000 on a 4th plate. The plates live in their plastic bags handy in a drawer.100 through 2000 last a long time. When piles of metal stop forming its time to change grits.

4. Silicon carbide wet or dry in coarser grits crushes upon encountering hard tool steel and hence has very short life, as your have discovered. Not recommended for coarse grits. The so called "scary sharp" people had it all wrong in this regard. And it annoys me that they claim credit for something described in FWW years ahead of their time.

5. 3M mylar abrasives are wonderful if you can find a cheap source. I keep 1/3 sheets in a plastic envelope and just clip to a glass plate with big paper clip to use. I use water and others prefer and endure the mess of oil. In 100 sheet quantity it is but $1 a sheet and a clear winner. Would be a good club project to buy 100 sheets of useful sizes and resell to members. I think aluminium oxide should be used in the coarser grits but Joel disagrees. Probably does not matter in finer grits.

The above approach did not work well for the abrasively resistant tool steels(not to be confused with hardness which is a different property altogether). that is why we went to diamonds and they turned out to be cheaper and faster and more convenient for what we are doing.

I don't know about coating diamond on mylar, but it would seem to me to be a poor choice of substrate. I will have more to say about substrates later. I think there could be a very cheap alternative to cast iron. It certainly is NOT wood.

An open invitation

Christopher Schwarz

>John,

I used to use the middle grit(s) for honing secondary bevels. Then I wondered why my King combo stone was #800 and #6,000. I saw David Charlesworth use only two grits. My first woodworking teacher, Lyn Sweet, did it that way.

And so I tried going from #800 straight to the polishing stone.

When I did it the first time I thought I was going to be polishing all day, but it took the same number of strokes to get a perfect secondary bevel, even when viewed under a 30x loupe. So I've been skipping the middle grit for about a year now. My edges are just as durable as before. My sharpening is a few strokes faster. I have one less stone to true. I am back to woodworking a little faster.

I, like Lyn, still use the intermediate grits when flattening the unbeveled faces of the chisels. I do skip the middle grits when preparing the unbeveled face of plane irons, however. That narrow band of polish seems easy for me to get.

If any of you are ever in the Cincinnati area, drop by the office and I'll be thrilled to give you a demo. It takes less than five minutes to refresh an edge using two grits of waterstones and a DMT.

Chris

"By all means listen to the experts. Just don't let it get in the way of your woodworking."

� John Brown

Re: Sharpening stones redux

John Meikrantz

>Joel,

Have you noticed issues with the life of the diamond stones? I keep hearing stories about people that burn throught DMT stones very quickly. I have used the DMT polka dot stones, and never had any problems with them wearing out. They cut like the wind the first few times you use them, and then seem to "settle in" to their normal abrasiveness. Perhaps this causes some confusion among users that expect them to perform differently?

I have no doubt that someone like Steve Knight can burn through any abrasive quickly, but for the average user, are DMT or other diamond stones a good product? Also, I have been looking at the Dia-sharp continuous surface instead of the dots. I wonder how those perform in comparison.

John

Re: An open invitation

steve knight

>5 minutes to refresh? I can start with a brand new blade and finish it in about 3 or 5 mintues (G) I use a makita to do the bulk of the back flattening and remove the scraches from the grinding when I made the blade. that usualy takes a minute or so. the rest is freehand on the shaptons. it may take a couple more minutes if I wanted perfection I admit. but my hands would fall apart if I did that with every blade. touchups are far faster.

Re: Sharpening stones redux

steve knight

>If you want diamond stones go for the Norton stones. They are far flatter then a dmt stone. But once you try a good water stone and see the speed then you wonder about the speed of the diamond stones.

I tried several brands of diamond laps on my Makita. I used a ton of water but I would only get 40 at most blades out of one. The coarser the grit the faster it wore. I had one lap that was designed to wear and expose new diamonds. It never did. The stones get the tips broken/worn off then the rest of them don't get used.

Pros would never used diamonds on steel for the very reason I give. Why spend as much on a diamond stone or more then on a shapton and get less life and less speed?

Re: double bevel

paul womack

>It sounds like the polishing stone can be fast enough without an intermediate stone if you use the European "double bevel" technique as opposed the Japanese single bevel technique.

If you're a "single beveller" I suspect an intermediate stone would be desirable.

BugBear