Sharpening Station Question

[Rob Luter]

For some time now I've been sharpening with abrasive film on glass mounted on MDF blocks (see below). In general, this works really well. That said, it's pretty slow and it's easy to damage the film. I have a number of A2 chisels and plane irons and they're pretty tough. I was thinking about a couple diamond plates from DMT to try and speed things up a bit (photo from the LN site). Any Creekers have experience with these? I like the large 11 x 3 format as I have some wide plane irons to deal with. I'm wondering what kind of life expectancy I'd see?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Life expectancy- years and years. I've had mine for 6? 7? A while. They are a good choice, although I am a waterstone guy. Go with the finest grit first because you may find with Diamond stones that you don't have to start as coarse.

[ken hatch]

The DMT plates at one time tended to have some "rogue" diamonds that would leave deep scratches even in their finest stones. I haven't used DMT plates for several years for that and other reasons. That problem may have been fixed. Most of my day to day sharpening is on natural stones either water or oil but when I need to fix a new iron I will use Atoma diamond plates which work very well in the course grits but I don't think they make finer than 1200 grit stones. Any of the diamond plates will work for a long time if cared for but over time will also become slower and smoother.

ken

[Robert Hartmann]

The best advice I received as a new sharpener was to contact Stu Tierney at Tools From Japan. He has a wealth a knowledge and will make the best recommendation for what you want (not the most expensive, the best). He is not a fan of diamond stones only if that is where you are going. I pulled this from an email exchange I had with him: "Problem with diamonds is they leave scratches that are sharp bottomed and can cause problems if those scratches aren't completely removed". I'm sure at this point with my "expertise" I wouldn't notice, but others might. I could tell you what he recommended for me, but it probably wouldn't apply to what you want.

[Robert Engel]

I switched to diamond plates a couple years ago and have never regretted it, especially for flattening backs.

I have DMT both the Duo Sharp 4X10 mesh plates up to 1250 and one DiaSharp 2X8 4000 grit.
After using it, prefer the DiaSharp over the mesh plates.

Seems the grit on the DiaSharp is coarser than the same grit on a water stone but that is just subjective experience. I do think the bigger landscape of the larger stones is better.

I would use water stones 8K grit for final honing.

BTW just an observation, but I keep my grinding machines in a separate part of the shop to avoid any metal dust all over the sharpening stones.

[Mike Holbrook]

I bought a DMT DiaFlat, big plate some years ago. I use it for heavy work, flattening etc. I followed David Weaver and Derek's lead a couple years back and bought much less expensive EZE-LAP 2x6" plates, available on Amazon. One is a 600 the other is a double sided 400/1200. An advantage of the smaller plate is the entire surface tends to get used about the same amount. Angling the bevel and moving it up & down handles any extra width.

[Patrick Chase]

I bought a DMT DiaFlat, big plate some years ago. I use it for heavy work, flattening etc. I followed David Weaver and Derek's lead a couple years back and bought much less expensive EZE-LAP 2x6" plates, available on Amazon. One is a 600 the other is a double sided 400/1200. An advantage of the smaller plate is the entire surface tends to get used about the same amount. Angling the bevel and moving it up & down handles any extra width.

The only thing to be aware of with the EZE-Laps is that they use a mix of mono- and polycrystalline diamonds. The poly diamonds are effectively much softer, but they fail by sharding and expose fresh but shallower cutting points. The upshot is that grits with polycrystalline diamonds become finer (effectively higher grit) as they wear.

[Mike Cherry]

I have a course, fine, and X -fine EZE lap diamond plate setup. I finish on an 8000 Naniwa Snow White water stone followed by a strop. I have been considering an xx-fine DMT diamond stone recently as I am slipping down the woodcarving slope and I'm not sure how curved tools will work out on my finishing stone.

Anyways, I enjoy the fact that I don't have to worry about the flatness of the diamond stones and they don't have to be dressed.

[Phil Mueller]

I went from sandpaper on glass to water stones and now 4 DMT plate setup with strop finish. Much more convenient and much less mess and fuss. I got the 8x3...seems plenty for all my irons and chisels.

[Don Dorn]

I used to use water stones/jig but after seeing the Paul Sellelrs approach, I decided to try it. No regrets - switching to free hand and just a water spritz on all three along with the strop, gives me better results than I've ever had, and quicker. Everyone has a different approach but this works for me. To avoid contamination between the stones and grinder sitting beside it, I just cover the stones with a wooden box sized for them.

Some argue the diamond stones are not flat enough but I haven't found that, and many use such stones to flatten their water stones so I'm not sure I've ever understood that point of view.

[Lenore Epstein]

I always feel like a freak when reading positive testimony about DMT stones because my one experience with an extra coarse dia-flat was awful. My experience clearly isn't the norm, but I felt obliged to share because if nothing else, I might learn what I did wrong so that I won't do it again.

Anyway, my extra-coarse Dia-Flat left very deep scratches and a very uneven scratch pattern. I saw lots of Amazon reviews I saying that extra-coarse Dia-Flats have to be 'broken in,' so I flattened the backs of three or four cheap Marples chisels. From the first few strokes the scratches got more consistent and finer, but by the time I was done it was a fine/medium-fine stone which took at least as long to remove material as my Shapton 1000. I don't know if it wasn't meant to flatten backs, or if I used excessive pressure trying to "break in" the stone (though I'm hardly a big burly person), or if I just got a lemon, but it happened so fast that I can't imagine the Dia-Flat would have lasted much longer even if I'd just used it to set bevels or remove chips.

Later I picked up a 400 grit Atoma and a 150 grit iWood from the afore-mentioned Stu at Tools From Japan for flattening waterstones. Each was flat and true to its stated grit out of the box, and neither one shows any wear even though I've impulsively grabbed one or the other to re-set bevels several times. With shipping the Atoma cost just a bit more than a similar DMT on Amazon and the iWood was cheaper than the DMT, but the iWood stone is nice enough that I'd get more of them if I were switching from waterstones to diamonds.

Anyhow, the upside of diamond stones is that they're tidier than waterstones, don't need to be flattened, and it's easier to go from sheet abrasives to diamond plates than dealing with the learning curve for waterstones, but I was won over by how popular waterstones are. At first I made a spectacular mess and got really mediocre results, but these days it takes 10-20 seconds to flatten my waterstones (because I do it often), and as my technique gets better and more efficient I use less water and make less mess (especially since making a shallow box to contain the slurry) with constantly improving results, so I'm not switching anytime soon.

[Patrick Chase]

I always feel like a freak when reading positive testimony about DMT stones because my one experience with an extra coarse dia-flat was awful. My experience clearly isn't the norm, but I felt obliged to share because if nothing else, I might learn what I did wrong so that I won't do it again.

Anyway, my extra-coarse Dia-Flat left very deep scratches and a very uneven scratch pattern. I saw lots of Amazon reviews I saying that extra-coarse Dia-Flats have to be 'broken in,' so I flattened the backs of three or four cheap Marples chisels. From the first few strokes the scratches got more consistent and finer, but by the time I was done it was a fine/medium-fine stone which took at least as long to remove material as my Shapton 1000. I don't know if it wasn't meant to flatten backs, or if I used excessive pressure trying to "break in" the stone (though I'm hardly a big burly person), or if I just got a lemon, but it happened so fast that I can't imagine the Dia-Flat would have lasted much longer even if I'd just used it to set bevels or remove chips.

Later I picked up a 400 grit Atoma and a 150 grit iWood from the afore-mentioned Stu at Tools From Japan for flattening waterstones. Each was flat and true to its stated grit out of the box, and neither one shows any wear even though I've impulsively grabbed one or the other to re-set bevels several times. With shipping the Atoma cost just a bit more than a similar DMT on Amazon and the iWood was cheaper than the DMT, but the iWood stone is nice enough that I'd get more of them if I were switching from waterstones to diamonds.

Anyhow, the upside of diamond stones is that they're tidier than waterstones, don't need to be flattened, and it's easier to go from sheet abrasives to diamond plates than dealing with the learning curve for waterstones, but I was won over by how popular waterstones are. At first I made a spectacular mess and got really mediocre results, but these days it takes 10-20 seconds to flatten my waterstones (because I do it often), and as my technique gets better and more efficient I use less water and make less mess (especially since making a shallow box to contain the slurry) with constantly improving results, so I'm not switching anytime soon.

I've had similar experiences with DMTs - they're reasonably fast but leave horrendous scratch patterns at first. After they wear in they become slow and sometimes still leave deep scratches if you get unlucky and have a rogue diamond that never goes away (note that those SEM shots are from late 2015, and suggest that DMT still hasn't fixed their "rogue diamond" problem). The Atomas are quite a bit better as you say, but not enough to make me use them in place of waterstones - I use them to *flatten* said waterstones.

With that said, I do use diamonds in two forms to sharpen/hone tools:

1. 3M diamond microfinishing film (3M 675L) and diamond lapping film (3M 661X/663X/668X). Both use very uniformly graded diamonds resin-bonded to a polyester backing. Their speed / finish tradeoff is better than any family of waterstones I've ever tried, particularly on very hard steels. What I mean by that is that they deliver higher cutting speed for any desired level of surface finish. LV sells a subset of 668X grits, which is a good starting point, you have to look around for the others.

2. Norton, PSI, and DMT diamond pastes. Like the films the pastes (even DMT's - it makes you wonder why they can't do the same with their plates) are very tightly graded and deliver a similar speed/finish tradeoff. They're cheaper than the films when all is said and done, and can be used directly on ultra-flat substrates for high-precision lapping.

Neither the films and the pastes require break-in. They both deliver optimal cutting performance "out of the gate".

I've also started playing around with the cheapo lapping disks. They're polycrystalline and wear out alarmingly quickly, but the price and convenience is hard to beat for "bulk grinding" work.

I also had the same problem with DMT products for ski tuning (bringing that up because I know you come from a similar background). I finally switched over to a mix of Moonflex and SVST/3M diamond files. The SVST files use a 3M "podded diamond" tape that you can get from jewelry supply houses etc - it isn't quite as uniform as the 3M films, but it's better than DMT.

[Lenore Epstein]

Those LV PSA films were the only things I liked about sheet abrasive sharpening because they worked fast and took so long to get tattered. I've got some 3M diamond polishing films in my cart on PSI's website (one of the few that sells them in small quantities), but I didn't even notice they carry diamond pastes. The cruel reality is that lately I've been approaching a passable polish on my Shapton Pro 8000, so teeny tiny diamonds in any form are a little overkill no matter how much I love making stuff all shiny. But PSI's prices are reasonable enough that adding some of their diamond paste to my cart for lapping experiments might just justify the shipping cost.

I also had the same problem with DMT products for ski tuning (bringing that up because I know you come from a similar background). I finally switched over to a mix of Moonflex and SVST/3M diamond files.

Some guys on a ski tuning forum warned me against those DMTs, so my first diamond files were marginally effective SWIXes that wore so fast that I almost immediately started replacing them with Moonflexes, which I loved enough that I completed my set before I'd heard much about the SVSTs.We're getting a bit far afield here, but how do they compare with Moonflex files?

[Patrick Chase]

I've got some 3M diamond polishing films in my cart on PSI's website (one of the few that sells them in small quantities), but I didn't even notice they carry diamond pastes.

Yeah, PSI buried the pastes/suspensions in the "metallography" section of their not-so-well-laid-out site.

I think that the diamond tape on the Moonflex files is a bit longer lasting and delivers a *slightly* better finish than the 3M tape on the SVST files. It used to be possible to get the 3M tape cheaply from Rio Grande (jewelry supply outfit) but they seem to have stopped carrying it. In the absence of a new low-cost supplier for that I'd recommend sticking with Moonflex. At one point I also had a set of the Swix files with the cute diamond-tape-with-diamonds-on-it. As you say, not so long lasting.

[Rob Luter]

I went from sandpaper on glass to water stones and now 4 DMT plate setup with strop finish. Much more convenient and much less mess and fuss. I got the 8x3...seems plenty for all my irons and chisels.

Which grits did you go with?