Ultra fine ceramic stone produces sharper edge than 6000 grit water stone

[Mike Holbrook]

Interesting to me that in the YouTube video the guy rubs the Spyderco with his "coarse" DMT for a while, yet I did not see any change to the Spyderco. The DMT was the type made with clusters of diamond, set I believe in plastic. I see no evidence of which stone was cutting which or which had the flatter surface at the start.

Some of us sharpen: CTS-204P, ELMAX, S35VN, VG-10, CPM S30V...not to mention the many custom proprietary "powder" steels being made these days. Maybe if Stewie was too he might find the need for a "harder" stone.

How long have "we" been flattening stones anyway? I may be dating myself but, I believe I remember Stanley at Shapton writing the first article I remember reading on the topic of flattening Shapton sharpening stones and it does not seem that long ago. I am guessing that 100 years ago people got blades pretty sharp without flattening their stones every time they used them.

When I was a kid, with no sharpening stones, my cousin and I would grind sand into old "punk" wood and sharpen our old carbon knives & tools pretty sharp with our home made "hones". Oddly I do not remember how we flattened them.

Seems to me it is all relative.

[Rich Riddle]

George,

You stirred up a controversy.

[george wilson]

I think it is just wasteful to spend big bucks on water stones that will be frequently flattened until they are too thin,or break,needing replacement. Unless I drop my ceramics on concrete,they will serve forever with just the initial flattening. And,they don't cost an awful lot compared to some stones.

Maybe,since I am not a water stone user,I have a wrong impression of how long they will last,and how often they need flattening. I do know that some of the water stones can cost a fortune,though. And,if I get my tools razor sharp on my white ceramic stones,what more can I wish for in a wood working stone?

Rich: It always happens!!! Soon Prashun will be locking this thread!!

[Brian Holcombe]

I made knives as a kid and ended up using BG-42, D2 and ATS-34....which is why I prefer plain high carbon steel now. lol. IIRC BG-42 was harder to deal with than D2 both basically requiring ceramic abrasives to work them.

[Stewie Simpson]

Some of us sharpen: CTS-204P, ELMAX, S35VN, VG-10, CPM S30V...

Mike; there all knife steels.

[Mike Holbrook]

Which we are increasingly seeing in woodworking tools Stewie. PM-V11 is a harbinger. Knives are the most basic of tools and often lead the way. The chair tools I have that are made in Sweden are forged from "ball bearing" steel and other "special" steels. US, Japanese, Sweedish, Austrian... companies are making more and more small batches of custom metals to compete. Before long we may not know what is in many of the steels we use.

[Mike Holbrook]

I hear you Brian, as you know, I like simpler "Japanese" steels too. Yet we are starting to see chisels and other "woodworking" tools come out of Japan made of "proprietary" metals. I am not saying these steels are necessarily better, Stanley would have me flayed with a double forged Japanese paring chisel.

I'm not sure what kind of metal the Wood Owl drill bits are that I have been using lately, nor is Wood Owl likely to advertise it. I do know it stands up to the heat of drilling and abrasion orders of magnitude better than my old bits.

I am saying change is inevitable and we will have to adjust to custom metals.

[Stewie Simpson]

Sounds like traditional W1 and 01 tool steel will be a thing of the past, as will natural honing stones.

That's what happens when hand tool manufacturers target the demands of a lowly skilled user.

All in the name of progress. That's sad to hear.

[Patrick Chase]

The ceramic stones do sharpen the most unyielding of tool steel alloys,like very hard D2,as have mentioned before. Arkansas stones will not sharpen D2.

D2's main alloyant is Chromium, and Chromium carbides are fairly soft as such go. Its carbides are the same hardness as those in A2, but much larger. For the record I don't think that SiO4 abrasives (Arks, JNats) can truly sharpen A2 or D2 either, but many other media can.

D2 is buttery soft compared to high-Vanadium alloys like CPM-10V. Vanadium carbide is physically harder than any known alumina ceramic, so the Spyderco plates are an inherently (and unquestionably) lost cause against the "most unyielding" of tool steels. Only diamond and CBN need apply.

[Patrick Chase]

I made knives as a kid and ended up using BG-42, D2 and ATS-34....which is why I prefer plain high carbon steel now. lol. IIRC BG-42 was harder to deal with than D2 both basically requiring ceramic abrasives to work them.

BG42 has higher Cr content that D2 (~= bigger carbides) as well as a good amount of Molybdenum and a bit of Vanadium. Molybdenum Carbide is a bit harder than Chromium Carbide, while Vanadium Carbide is brutally hard. The only reason ceramic works on that is because the V content is low (~1%) so the fact that those carbides are being chipped out rather than honed doesn't cause severe edge dulling.

[Derek Cohen]

I had a CPM-10V chisel, but even with diamond I could not get a really sharp edge. CPM-3V and M4 do very well on Spyderco.

I also recently was given a D2 blade for my #605 jack by Chris Vesper (no, he is not selling them - he came upon some old stock made about 10 years ago). This also honed up well. The ideal blade for a jack?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mike Holbrook]

I don't think anyone here thinks "older" steels, forged steel, natural stones...are going away. I certainly hope not as they obviously have much to offer.

I might take exception to the implication that "more complicated/manufactured" metals or sharpening stones target less competent workers. Certainly manufactured tools often strive to reach a lower price point, but IMHO there will always be those who will understand "actual" value relates to utility as well as price. I am glad I am not still sharpening my tools only on natural stones, ferreted out of a huge pile of rocks or gambled on at some on line store.

Stewie, shouldn't you be glad some people use the "new, modern Junk"(my words not Stewie's). If everyone went all "natural", I am thinking the demand on the natural steels/stones would exceed the supply quickly.

[Patrick Chase]

I think it is just wasteful to spend big bucks on water stones that will be frequently flattened until they are too thin,or break,needing replacement. Unless I drop my ceramics on concrete,they will serve forever with just the initial flattening. And,they don't cost an awful lot compared to some stones.

Maybe,since I am not a water stone user,I have a wrong impression of how long they will last,and how often they need flattening. I do know that some of the water stones can cost a fortune,though. And,if I get my tools razor sharp on my white ceramic stones,what more can I wish for in a wood working stone?

Rich: It always happens!!! Soon Prashun will be locking this thread!!

You can overspend for just about anything if you work at it hard enough. IMO the $300 stones are mostly for the Bridge City crowd [ducks and covers - let's see if Malcolm comes out to play].

Also your opinion of waterstones seems to have mostly (entirely?) been shaped by the 40-year-old clay-based kind. Modern ceramic and resinoid stones are rather different. Some of the harder ceramic ones in particular aren't that far from your Spydercos in terms of abrasive composition, though they purposely use somewhat weaker binders.

It's pretty difficult to use up a modern ceramic waterstone, unless you have horrible technique such that you wear a groove in the center, and/or you flatten compulsively. IIRC a couple tests have shown hundreds of strokes in a single location per 0.001" of thickness for modern hard 1K stones like Sigma or Shapton. If you distribute your strokes over the stone you'll get a lot more than that, and the net life of the stone will be somewhere in excess of a million strokes. At that point the value of your time spent honing swamps the value of the stone consumed, which means that it's economically rational to prefer the fastest medium rather than the longest-lasting.

[Patrick Chase]

I had a CPM-10V chisel, but even with diamond I could not get a really sharp edge. CPM-3V and M4 do very well on Spyderco.

M4 is mostly Cr and Mo, so no surprise there as both carbides are softer than alumina-ceramic abrasive. It's broadly similar to D2 in difficulty.

3V is more interesting as it has 3% Vanadium, and alumina-ceramic can't possibly sharpen those carbides. I suspect that it works for the same reason blue steel works on a JNat - The combination of low V content and PM processing (in the case of CPM-3V) means that the problematic carbides are small enough that the edge isn't unacceptably degraded when they chip out.

What specific diamond medium did you use on 10V? I've played with the stuff a little for kicks and giggles and found that pastes from reputable suppliers (Norton, DMT, Sandvik, PSI) work pretty well. I expect that the 3M films would also do OK though I didn't try that. I wouldn't be too optimistic about broken-in (i.e. somewhat dulled) plates though.

I also recently was given a D2 blade for my #605 jack by Chris Vesper (no, he is not selling them - he came upon some old stock made about 10 years ago). This also honed up well. The ideal blade for a jack?

You know that PM-V11 has similar composition and wear properties to D2 but with much finer grain structure, right? I don't see any conceivable reason to prefer D2 if you have the option of PM-V11, which you do in this case. PM-M4 (aka HAP-40, the stuff in Stu's PM-HSS chisels) would be interesting to try in a roughing plane, though. Just imagine being able to whale on your scrub blade with a bench or belt grinder with no worries about burning! :-)

[Brian Holcombe]

I hear you Brian, as you know, I like simpler "Japanese" steels too. Yet we are starting to see chisels and other "woodworking" tools come out of Japan made of "proprietary" metals. I am not saying these steels are necessarily better, Stanley would have me flayed with a double forged Japanese paring chisel.

I'm not sure what kind of metal the Wood Owl drill bits are that I have been using lately, nor is Wood Owl likely to advertise it. I do know it stands up to the heat of drilling and abrasion orders of magnitude better than my old bits.

I am saying change is inevitable and we will have to adjust to custom metals.

This is not a new thing by any means, But I suspect it takes it fairly large order to have a proprietary steel made so maybe it's becoming more common with increasing global demand with many smiths. I suspect that is why certain makers use those blends exclusively. Alloy steels are mostly used to make life easier for the smith, not for the end user. I do like one alloy, Togo-kou, somehow it still sharpens easily while retaining a nice edge for a very long time. FWIW I can take a finer cut with white steel 1.

BG42 has higher Cr content that D2 (~= bigger carbides) as well as a good amount of Molybdenum and a bit of Vanadium. Molybdenum Carbide is a bit harder than Chromium Carbide, while Vanadium Carbide is brutally hard. The only reason ceramic works on that is because the V content is low (~1%) so the fact that those carbides are being chipped out rather than honed doesn't cause severe edge dulling.

The stuff was horrible to work annealed and practically impossible once hardened. I used to polish the blade to about 600 grit before the heat treat then hope that nothing scratched it.

BG42 is a VAR steel so that does shrink the carbides if I understand correctly.