Diamond paste/LV honing plates/leather

[David Ragan]

a couple of months ago, while pondering my sharpening routine, was reading a thread here that advocated diamond paste.

I got me some.

Today, went to Tandy here in Atl, and got some *thin* smooth leather (thicker not better-dubs edges...the unused really thick nice leather hones w diamond paste on them are unused still)

Unused? Yes, because of what I since read about the horrors of all those particles of hardest substance on earth running around loose in my shop, wreaking havoc on everything, including eyeballs.

What I have now is
-some 0.25u and 05u diamond paste in oil,
-some LV honing plates,
-some thin smooth leather
-a desire to do a freehand hone at bench on something instead of full breakdown sharpening
-a vague feeling of buyers remorse and stupidity

Yes, 0.5u is way overkill for 'honing', some probably will laugh-but "its only a hobby, right?"

Why do the FWW podcast guys slam diamond paste?

Your going to say-have at your experiment, and get back to us?

[Bill McNiel]

David - Only thing you can do now; read more threads on sharpening, watch a bunch of UTube videos, buy more stuff, post some photos (preferably unrelated to sharpening), call someone else's sharpening routine "ridiculous" and obliquely reference a number of "experts".....or.....just do what works for you and let us know how much you are enjoying woodworking.

PS-I really do feel your pain.

[Patrick Chase]

OK, I'll bite. I use diamond paste on steel plates almost exclusively for flattening, and for routine sharpening of difficult steels.

I think that the downsides are vastly overblown. Yes, you have to be careful about cross-contamination, but that same caution applies to any medium that sheds grit like, say, waterstones. Yes, you don't want to get your hands covered in paste and then rub your eyes, but you wouldn't want to do that with the finishes we use, either. If you do get diamonds in your eyes you just flush them with water. It's not the end of the world, and not anywhere near as bad as some of the aforementioned finishes.

As with any honing system the key is practice and refinement. Almost any medium can work if you commit to it for long enough to figure out the ins and outs. Loose diamonds are by far the fastest and most "steel-independent" of all, but they're relatively demanding in the other respects that you called out. Everything is a tradeoff.

FWIW I think that the Veritas plates are a little coarse for use with 0.5 um and finer diamonds. I lapped the initial "ridged" finish out of the ones I used with fine pastes (though I now use cast iron laps for the most part).

[David Ragan]

Bill, have done all that except call another's anything ridiculous.

(I have found some folk's attitude on SMC rather juvenile and ridiculous.)

Great points about already in place contamination prevention.

I eyeballed those ridges on the LV plates and wondered. Now for the lapping of those.

This topic was destined to be a dead end; Thanks much for the encouragement (sincerely).

[Jim Koepke]

When my 8000 grit Norton water stone and a bit of green paste for stropping can get a type 6 #4 plane (it looks like a dog chewed on it) to take a shaving in a range of 2 - 3/10,000" going for sharper than that seems to be just for bragging rights. Of course there is a part of me that wants to get a finer stone and pursue those bragging rights. Then the wife comes in and wonders about my sanity.

jtk

[Borden Bleich]

Lol I use 4000 grit water stones; have to get me a 8000 water stone after reading this.

[Patrick Chase]

When my 8000 grit Norton water stone and a bit of green paste for stropping can get a type 6 #4 plane (it looks like a dog chewed on it) to take a shaving in a range of 2 - 3/10,000" going for sharper than that seems to be just for bragging rights. Of course there is a part of me that wants to get a finer stone and pursue those bragging rights. Then the wife comes in and wonders about my sanity.

jtk

It isn't a matter of sharper. You can get adequately sharp results with almost any halfway-reasonable system. Diamonds buy you speed and compatibility with super-hard steels.

For example I have a set of Japanese steels with HAP-40 (basically PM M4 HSS) irons. Most waterstones, including Norton, are excruciatingly slow on those, and many waterstones can't hone them at all. By contrast diamond lapping films and pastes blast through them like butter. Ditto if you ever mess with anything like CPM-3V.

I also almost exclusively use diamond pastes almost for flattening, for two reasons:

1. My cast iron (and formerly mild steel) lapping plates go out of flat very very slowly, so I can get extremely flat/uniform results without resorting to frequent stone flattening.
2. They're insanely fast, as in several times faster at any given grit than anything else I've tried. Flattening tends to be a time-consuming chore, so this is one case where the extra speed is very welcome.

[David Ragan]

FWIW I think that the Veritas plates are a little coarse for use with 0.5 um and finer diamonds. I lapped the initial "ridged" finish out of the ones I used with fine pastes (though I now use cast iron laps for the most part).

Patrick, how would a bloke carry out such a flattening operation w a basic set up such as I have?

You need two things:
1) a surface to lap upon, that is significantly larger than the object being lapped, and
2) a particle that will abrade, but not imbed in the lapped surface.

True?

[David Ragan]

I'm overthinking it; a fine waterstone should lap the LV Steel Honing Plate, say a 4K Norton, or 5K Shapton Pro.

Tomorrow, perhaps.

[Chris Parks]

-a vague feeling of buyers remorse and stupidity

Wanna buy some really good condition sharpening gear I will never use again? It is a part of the learning process we all go through.

[Patrick Chase]

I'm overthinking it; a fine waterstone should lap the LV Steel Honing Plate, say a 4K Norton, or 5K Shapton Pro.

Tomorrow, perhaps.

As you say just about anything will lap it. It's 1018 steel, about 77 on the Rockwell B scale (which is off the bottom of the C scale).

I use a cheap granite surface plate with SiC grit to maintain my plates, with laminating film on the granite plate to provide a soft surface to hold the grit. For 220# and above I use this film, below that I use the more expensive but thicker stuff that LV sells. I lubricate with white mineral oil for coarse grits, and odorless mineral spirits for fine ones.

[David Ragan]

As you say just about anything will lap it. It's 1018 steel, about 77 on the Rockwell B scale (which is off the bottom of the C scale).

I use a cheap granite surface plate with SiC grit to maintain my plates, with laminating film on the granite plate to provide a soft surface to hold the grit. For 220# and above I use this film, below that I use the more expensive but thicker stuff that LV sells. I lubricate with white mineral oil for coarse grits, and odorless mineral spirits for fine ones.

........