Cleaning diamond from Kanaban?

Re: Cleaning diamond from Kanaban?

Barney Markunas

I think you are asking for trouble. Short of resurfacing your kanaban, you’ll have stray coarse diamonds imbedded. They will give you deep scratches that will that the fine diamonds will not polish out.

agree

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I don't know anything about kanabans but if they are similar to cast iron the whole reason cast iron works as an abrasive is because the diamond particles embed into the cast iron, essentially permanently. That to be abraded moves and the embedded diamonds do not move.

Re: agree

David Weaver

Same concept. A plate with coarse diamonds remains a plate for coarse diamonds.

Re: Thanks!!

john jesseph

Thanks, I appreciate it!

I assumed so, but thought I’d check first. I have a Kanaban in my purge box. I’d use it with fine diamond if I could, otherwise of no use to me.

Like a lot of people, I’ve tried lots of sharpening media over the years. Always a work in progress.

Re: Thanks!!

Jack Dover

Just FYI a kanban's primary purpose is to flatten things that are badly out of true. It's just happens that it polishes too, since carborundum powder breaks down to a finer grit. If you're going to use it for intended purposes than diamond paste is fine, it just it's always going to be coarse, as people in this thread have already mentioned. If you're looking for a plate for diamond paste, glass could be a better choice.

Good points.

john jesseph

Now that you mention it, I got it and some carborundum powders from Harrelson Stanley long ago when he first started selling shapton stones. Somewhere along the line I put coarse grit diamond paste on it, which retrospectively was not ideal. The plate was cheap, and I have other flattening media, so I will dispose of the kanaban.

Glass is a poor choice

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

What makes the optimum abrasive, an abrasive particle that stays in place while the tool moves past it. Diamond does not embed in glass; it does well in cast iron. It is for this reason that cast iron has been used for centuries for grinding facets on diamond gems. Because the diamond does not move across the iron, the iron plate is not significantly abraded.

Re: Cleaning diamond from Kanaban?

David Weaver

option - you can grind the surface off of a kanaban (if you're not militant about flatness) by just pulling the kanaban over the idler of a belt sander with a cheap very coarse belt.

but....it will also leave the coarse surface, which will function as tooth on the edge of whatever you're sharpening.

It's not impossible to clean one of these up if you want to use it, but it's not going to go directly from coarse work to mirror surface.

Re: Glass is a poor choice

William Duffield

…continuing Bill's advise:

Any diamond that comes loose from the glass substrate is going to scratch the glass (think about a glass cutter). Eventually, you may put enough stress on the glass plate that the scratches cause the glass to break. That depend s on how thick your glass plate is.

Carbon dissolves in ferrum (the iron plate). Also, the iron plate is softer than glass. The se two properties allow thd diamond to embed more deeply in the iron plate and then adhere more strongly to it. Bill, is that a correct assumption?

Re: too much work!! 

Probably...

David Weaver

..about 10 minutes. There's an art to using the idler on the end of a belt sander to grind things, though it does require that the idler doesn't have a pillow shape. If it's peaked in the middle, it should be straight lines down on either side.

I spent about 20 minutes yesterday grinding a pillow shape off of an Arkansas stone. It was significantly bowed out on both sides. You can do it well enough that the resulting surface can be hand lapped to finish in about ten minutes.