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Cut a piece of 100 grit sandpaper the size of the stone you will ultimately use to back off the iron when honing. Wet the stone, lay the paper on the stone, flatten the iron on that. Flood the stone with water, or wash it in the sink to remove any stray grit from the sandpaper. Back will be flat as the stone. No more, no less.
Works the same on oilstones, but dribble a little oil on the stone and spread it evenly over the entire face of the stone to suck the sandpaper down to it.
Last edited by Charlie Stanford; 02-20-2013 at 10:49 AM.
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If the expendables are too expensive then maybe that's telling you something? At what point does the work on the bench have primacy?Originally Posted by David Weaver
Guest
Seriously Charles, when someone asks a question on here and people answer them, it's really not at all necessary to try to divert every thread into whether or not you agree with what they're doing. Especially when it seems to be the abundance of the items are those which you have no experience with.
Most of the forum is too polite in dealing with that kind of behavior, obviously, because it continues and instead of saying anything, people cease to post questions. It would be fantastic if any discussion could exist without you cutting it off, diverting it or trolling the posters and insulting people.
Guest
That's a fair point but I'm not the only person that has discouraged Metod in this thread.
Member
Having read the entire thread to whatever's been posted as of 3:45 EST, February 20th, I have a different view on preparing and using those five nicely sized places of cast iron.
There are three questions, rather than two.
1) Stanley Covington was the first to answer, and as far as I'm concerned, he nailed it—without fleshing it out, however. You don't need a machine shop. You can scrape your plates to consistent flatness. I'll explain as we go on.
2) Your chances of success are high.
3) Start with 1µ diamond paste and then see where you wish to go from there. You can always scrape another plate for sub-micron (˝µ or Ľµ) diamond.
Your second reply, from Chris Fournier, advised you to buy a granite surface plate, which I second, but not for the purpose so suggested; rather to enable you to undertake Covington's suggestion.
Bring your plates—or rather, one plate to start—into flat with fairly coarse filing or other abrasive work until it's ready to be hand scraped, which is to say, scraped with a machinist's hand scraper. It's a simple tool, most likely homemade from an old flat file or other similarly shaped and sized piece of tool steel, which removes through scraping action successive high points until the surface of your plate has reached a uniform flatness.
The surface plate allows you to gauge your progress by transferring a thin coating of oil paint from its surface to your cast iron plate. Iteratively scraping away these higher areas made visible by the oil paint brings your plate into flatness approaching that of the granite surface plate itself.
Is this a process you'd like to perform? Only you can say whether it interests you or whether you feel you have the temperment for this sort of thing. Many don't. But it's a time-honored and viable option, and a useful one, inasmuch as I've used scraping to flatten nearly ever iron-soled plane I own, have matched the mating surfaces of frog to plane body casting, trued ways of machine and woodworking stationary tools, and so on.
Again, I'm not suggesting this is for you, but it worked for me, and my tools show it. In my experience, it's amazingly rapid, allows quick feedback of progress and achieves the best possible results. It's also engaging and fun—at least for me.
By the way, I have to disagree with those suggesting mild steel or any other steel, such as the LV plates, for diamond. They don't begin to approach cast iron for suitability with diamond.
Although I bought my iron plates as rectangles and discs from industrial suppliers (McMaster Carr still offers them at reasonable cost), your plates should be entirely fine and not overly out of flatness—even at 1/16" inch—than some pieces I've flattened by hand tool methods, filing and scraping, to exceptional flatness for diamond laps—something I've done since the early 1990s.
By the way, you really may need only one of your five plates to get satisfactory results if you confine it to 1µ diamond paste and follow David Weaver's sound advice to hollow grind, on to a diamond stone (I strongly prefer Eze-Lap polycrystalline 600-grit diamond), then jump to 1µ diamond paste on cast iron, and lastly and optionally, hard strop with real—dark, dark green, pure—chromium oxide, not one of those aluminum oxide bars with only enough chromium oxide to color them pastel green as now sold by some major woodworking suppliers.
There are good online resources for learning the art of hand scraping, but the now-defunct Lindsay Books published a small booklet that can still be had from another vendor — Learning the Lost Art of Hand Scraping
http://www.youroldtimebookstore.com/product-p/23225.htm
And to repeat Covington's link to a rather complete survey of the literature, online and otherwise, read Hand Scraping For Precision Surfaces:
http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifi...ing/index.html
Again, not saying this is where you wish to go, but it's another option and choice is a good thing.
Last edited by David Barnett; 02-20-2013 at 6:42 PM.
Member
At around one dollar per gram, diamond paste's about the cheapest sharpening medium going. Cheaper than abrasive papers and films—that's for sure. 5 grams used this way should last years and years—more than I have left, I'm betting.
The article on Garrett Hack said he used 4µ but the ubiquitous 3µ (nominally 8000 grit) would work just as well or better.
If you're paying more for diamond than, say, $5.95 for 5 grams of paste, you're throwing money away. You can even find 10 gram syringes on eBay for 50˘ per gram—with free shipping.
—Friends don't let friends buy diamond paste from woodworking suppliers—
Guest
I may just try some to see what all the hoopla is about.
Contributor
Hi David
You would have more experience than most with diamond (paste and loose) making jewellery. I am interested to read your comment here since I have been told by others that the concentration of diamond in paste varies. How does one determine who is a reliable seller, and what a "decent" concentration should be?
For example, a local seller is charging double your recommended price, but I would still rather go with their product if it is better. The cost difference is negligible compared to the frustration from finding the charged lap you are using does not cut as you expect.
Link (to my local seller as a example of what is offered by a non-eBay seller): http://www.cutandslice.com.au/prod745.htm
Secondly, any advice on charging a lap? (I gave my method earlier - always open to improvement).
Regards from Perth
Derek
Guest
Well, I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Couldn't be. As long as price differentials exist there will always be a bit of nagging doubt.
We'll have to have a thorough exposition of the stereochemistry of diamond polishing pastes before it's safe to make a purchase. We don't dare leave an angstrom or two on the table.
Back under my novaculite rock I go.
Last edited by Charlie Stanford; 02-21-2013 at 5:25 AM.
Member
Vary they do indeed, Derek.
Woodworking suppliers generally don't usually tell concentrations, which should be stated in percent of total weight. Worse, vendors of diamond compound vary in disclosing information about diamond concentrations in their product—some being rather more candid than others. To illustrate this, allow me to quote from my previous post on another forum:
A rather simplistic but serviceable approach is taken by Reentel International, manufacturer of high concentration paste aimed at lapidary polishing and pre-polishing, with 20% diamond by weight. Therefore, a 5 gram syringe of any grit will contain 5 carats of diamond and 4 grams, or 20 carats, of vehicle. I consider this a very high concentration for honing and metallographic applications. One can, of course, use it, but lower concentrations may ease the application over laps sized for woodworking tools. Perhaps 3 carats diamond to 22 grams compound would do every bit as well. Even less would probably be fine.
Reentel International says:
"Our diamond paste provides and excellent medium for polishing and pre-polishing all stones. We use high quality powders mixed in a silicon compound to form a paste. Depending on your usage these paste will serve you well and provide that polished shine that you demand. IMPORTANT - We use a high percentage of diamond powder in our compound (20%). Don't be fooled by others with extremely low prices, they will certainly have a very low concentration of powder so you'll end up paying for more for less."
This is as simple as you'll get. Other manufacturers are less informative and up front in their designations. Companies may offer several concentrations, such as Dianamic Abrasive Products:
"Compounds, Paste and Slurries are available in light, medium, heavy, extra heavy and super heavy concentrations. The concentrations by carat weight are the highest available on the market."
Unfortunately, they don't offer what these carat weights actually are.
Some companies have interestingly complex explanations. NDP, or NanoDiamond Products, says:
"Concentration refers to the amount of diamond in the paste. Unlike other NDP products the concentration of diamond in NDP pastes is not stated as a meaningful value. This is due to the significant difference in surface area of nanodiamond and micron diamond and also the different compositions of paste available. Therefore pastes are ordered by diamond weight or carats without stipulating the concentration."
At best, most manufacturers just state light, medium, heavy—if even that—without further explanation.
Instead of concentrations, most woodworking suppliers extol the exceptional virtues of their range of diamond products—their wonderful precisely-graded monocrystalline diamond (I prefer polycrystalline, as you probably know), their equally especial vehicle—animal, vegetable, mineral oil or water—and so on. Is it all buncombe and bumfodder? Not entirely. Does it justify the unusually high prices woodworking supply vendors often charge? We'll explore this soon.
I fully appreciate your viewpoint and am sympathetic to it. One should be able to trust and rely on one's vendor to offer products in a range that fairly facilitates this strategy, one I've often adopted for both convenience and assurance of quality.
It seems fair to say there is no clear and consistent industry standard for disclosing diamond concentrations incorporated into compounds and other products, and that one would do best to rely on in-house tested results before committing to use. Obviously, this is neither feasible nor does it make sense for casual users of small amounts, so one hopes it will be a good strategy to rely on trusted manufacturers and vendors—as I've said, I have no problem with this—but while this may reassures buyers with an expectation of quality, they may nevertheless be paying handsomely—I'll come to that directly—for that.
One might also assume a cost savings in bundling that higher-priced diamond paste with other items to save on shipping—hoping to make it cost-effective and more convenient. Again, each must decide for himself if this an effective strategy—if the convenience and assurance is worth the premium.
Much of the diamond compound—paste—offered to woodworkers is brand relabeled by the manufacturer and then sold at prices higher than what products sell for to the lapidary trade—products often higher in diamond concentration. Without going into too much detail, let me say that lapidaries, for example gem faceters and carvers such as myself, require a range of diamond concentrations.
There can be too much diamond for some faceting and polishing operations and too little for carving gemstones. For this reason, I mix my own compounds with graded loose diamond for carving, but prefer to purchase ready-mixed diamond compound in stick form for polishing some faceted stones.
Because of this, and because I favor diamond for shapening/honing, I'm quite experienced in the broad range of diamond concentrations and have not yet found a diamond paste with too low a concentration for sharpening hand tools.
Now I'm not saying that charging a virgin lap with diamond for the first and subsequent early chargings will benefit from low diamond concentrations, but I've just not found pastes that fell short of sufficiency. I'm also not saying that some compounds aren't better than others—they can be—but this not so much in concentration as in crystal shape and consistency, size grading consistency, number of outliers, friability and so on.
To cut myself short—I could go on for much longer—I feel it is generally a false savings to buy name-brand diamond paste in syringes from woodworking suppliers, and so I recommend buying from suppliers to lapidaries who have become established, have been around for awhile, and who offer diamond compound for half or less of woodworking suppliers.
These would include Daniel Lopacki, whose family continues to run a reliable business providing polishes and compounds at reasonable and competitive prices. http://www.lopacki.com/
Also, Dave Clayton, although his eBay store is currently without listed items—hardly surprising to anyone in the gem trade as February is Tuscon, the largest month-long annual international gem show anywhere. His website is http://jadecarver.com, where he lists 5-gram syringes of diamond paste in grits 120, 220, 325, 600, 1200, 3000, 4000, 8000, 20000, and 50000 for $4.00 each. His eBay store is http://stores.ebay.com/Diamond-Tools...ational?_rdc=1.
As both of these persons started as carvers before they became diamond products dealers, you can be assured they sell products that are at least as highly concentrated and appropriately graded as sharpening tool steel demands.
I said I'd get back to cost—an individual's cost-benefit tolerance. I simply cannot bring myself to recommend (much less buy) a measly 2 grams of DMT's Dia-Paste™ for 825% of what Dave Clayton's paste costs, or 700% of Dave's price for 5 grams of water-based 45µ (325 grit) paste that another woodworking supplier sells for $27.95. That's edging well beyond a convenience purchase—at least for me.
I know, I know—tool dealer needs a new pair of bespoke G.J. Cleverley Russian-reindeer-hide shoes. Just sayin'.
By the way, while Rubyvale's price for high-concentration diamond does seem high at first glance, I've not used it and can only say that as it's intended and endorsed by carvers, it should compare favorably to Clayton's and may well run higher in concentration than his or even my own.
That said, mine, which is extremely high in some grits, still costs far less to make than you'd think and I'd intuit it would come in easily for less than half and quite possibly a third of Rubyvale's price—so if their compound is as concentrated as mine, and considering it's both water and oil soluble, I can't say their price is out of line, given they're making it for profit.
However, if it's anything so concentrated as mine, that's way too concentrated for most sharpening and I'd likely cut it by at least half once a lap is fully charged. I'd be inclined to try it, at any rate, Derek. Seems a fair enough price and might be a terrific find.
As for quality? There's plenty I could say to that issue, too, but I've no doubt said enough for now.
I do, but it'll have to wait, for which I sincerely apologize.
David
Last edited by David Barnett; 02-21-2013 at 6:18 AM.
Member
Oh, I set it up in my reply to Derek for an all out donnybrook over the monocrystalline vs. polycrystalline debate, with both camps honing their respective powder-steel edged weapons before the slaughter.
By the way, Charlie, I again included 'buncombe' in the aforementioned reply just for you.
Last edited by David Barnett; 02-21-2013 at 5:53 AM.
Member
Now that's what I'm talking bout!!!! What great information. Now David, please do tell us more about what you have to say about monocrytaline vs polycrystaline as well as the quality of different diamond products/pastes. Also, could you give us a similar treatise on CrOx, AlOx, Iron Ox, and other micro abrasives.
Very interesting stuff!
Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...
Guest
I also prefer the polycrystalline diamonds. I'd rather have smaller sharp diamonds than larger diamond that are dullish and still leave some deep grooves.
Early on after getting a DMT and wearing it to very slow cutting (and wearing it pretty much completely past there), i couldn't find one on sale and bought a cheap chinese copy of the iwood plate (there were only really two options at the time, ezelap and DMT, iwood and atoma weren't widely available). As it got broken in, it got finer quickly but instead of settling into a dullish slow feel the DMT plates do, it has a finer but still sharp feel and is nicer to use.
As to the expensive pastes, woodworking suppliers are notoriously bad places to get anything related to diamond abrasives. One wonders why a given paste would cost more per carat than pure diamond powder.
I can't speak to david's methodology for putting diamond paste on a plate, but with dry diamonds, just sticking your dry finger in a bag and getting the very tiniest pinch and then sprinkling that around a plate like you're salting already prepared food works well. Taking out any more than that is a waste.
Contributor
Thanks for the detail David.
Yes, mono vs poly. We went through this a while back. DMT (mono) suck. Ezylap (poly) just go on and on.
Don't keep us waiting too long on charging a lap!
Regards from Perth
Derek
Last edited by Derek Cohen; 02-21-2013 at 8:41 AM.
Guest
One of my favorite words of all time and the only thing better than the word itself is its etymology (if it even makes sense that they could be separated).
You are a true renaissance man. Any discussion dealing with lapidary supplies and their use in woodworking sails over my head by a very large and safe margin and only serves to accentuate my decrepitude. I did get in one light blow for Team Curmudgeon though, we of dull-edged notoriety.
I followed your link to the $5 syringes of paste on EBay. I'm assuming these are drinkable now and not for cellaring (i.e. they'll work and I don't need to do much shopping). A weak moment might overcome me and I spend a few quid. I understand a syringe of this stuff should last quite sometime. If Garrett Hack uses it, it can't be all bad. Maybe I could find out who his tailor is too.
Cheers.
Last edited by Charlie Stanford; 02-21-2013 at 9:16 AM.
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