Thread: Veritas Steel Honing Plate

I've used mine doubed sided but suffered contamination because I wasnt using any kind of stone holder, just flat on that foam/rubber drawer liner stuff.

Thanks Sam - it seems my fingernail and straightedge don't lie!

I'll look around for a stone holder that fits as the first option. As long as neither face ever sits flat on a surface there shouldn't be any contamination.

Can I ask what grits of diamond paste you were using with yours? I intend to use the plate just for final honing of the microbevel, but curious to know if the steel plate/diamond paste combo works for more aggressive material removal too.

Cheers.

I bought 10 syringes with 5 grits from ebay maybe 6-8 years ago. Got 800, 2000, 4000, 8000 and 15000 equivalent grits and use either a norton double sided oilstone or hollow grinding then generally the 2000 and 8000 grits. The 800 was fairly aggresive and the 15000 made a noticeable difference over 8000.

*I say all this without much knowledge of other methods and only sharpen when I need to.

I believe FF as done quite of bit of research.

I hollow grind on a CBN wheel, so only have to form the microbevel with a combination of Shapton stones and diamond paste on steel plates. I'll see how I go with the 8000/14000 diamond pastes - any more diamond paste steps will require me to buy a second Veritas plate.....

Cheers

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I hollow grind on a CBN wheel, so only have to form the microbevel with a combination of Shapton stones and diamond paste on steel plates. I'll see how I go with the 8000/14000 diamond pastes - any more diamond paste steps will require me to buy a second Veritas plate.....

Cheers

Early days yet but I am experimenting with brake disc rotors from cars as cast iron plates for diamond paste or silicon carbide powder. I got some large ones for free and gave them to my son to machine to revive the surface. Brett (FF) will get one for a bit of a play as well as he has more experience with diamond than me and Fletty who has the second one will play with some Silicon Powder before Brett gets it. There are a million unusable brake discs out there for the taking and like mine they can be had for free. If after some use you want to clean the surface just give it a lick in a brake lathe. I might give a flywheel from a car a try as well, the same deal would apply, machine the surface and they can be had for free or very cheap.

If it’s an old brake disc, make sure you’ve cleaned the asbestos off first!

Originally Posted by hiroller

If it’s an old brake disc, make sure you’ve cleaned the asbestos off first!

No asbestos these days, when I say old they were pulled from a Holden only a few years old.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Early days yet but I am experimenting with brake disc rotors from cars as cast iron plates for diamond paste or silicon carbide powder. I got some large ones for free and gave them to my son to machine to revive the surface. Brett (FF) will get one for a bit of a play as well as he has more experience with diamond than me and Fletty who has the second one will play with some Silicon Powder before Brett gets it. There are a million unusable brake discs out there for the taking and like mine they can be had for free. If after some use you want to clean the surface just give it a lick in a brake lathe. I might give a flywheel from a car a try as well, the same deal would apply, machine the surface and they can be had for free or very cheap.

Nice timing Criss
Just what I need look forward to the boys results.

Cheers Matt

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Nice timing Criss
Just what I need look forward to the boys results.

Cheers Matt

Ive had several attempts to use it but I can’t keep the grit on it and every time I touch it with a blade, it throws me off! Maybe I should take it off the car?

You should at least come to a standstill.

Originally Posted by fletty

Ive had several attempts to use it but I can’t keep the grit on it and every time I touch it with a blade, it throws me off! Maybe I should take it off the car?

If you take it off the vehicle, and put it on a brake disk lathe you won’t have the suspension to contend with.
Maybe even organise the lathe to run horizontal
If that helps [emoji6].

How about removing a rear wheel, putting some diamond paste on the rotor and spinning it up in gear, that should work, a rotary variable speed diamond plate and not a VFD in sight to change speed. If you flipped the car on its side it would be horizontal as well.

I Have been having a bit of a play with Silicone Carbide powder kindly donated by Brett and it definitely works but the whole thing needs a bit of thinking about I reckon. Brett gave me two grades, 120 & 400 and later on he gave me all the different grits he had which I am sure are not necessary. I put the 120 on the plate and mixed it to a stiff paste described by Fletty as about the consistency of peanut butter. I first used water to do this but realised that rust was going to be a problem so I switched to a thin two stroke oil as it was convenient and no other reason. Fletty had mentioned the process was finished when the powder turned white but I don't think I got quite that far but I did get a wire edge on the back though.

What happens and diamond paste would be the same is the powder starts to break down in grit size and you can hear it happening, if anyone has hand lapped engine valves they would be familiar with the sound. The question then is do you keep going or use a finer powder when the wire edge is formed. In a normal situation that is what would occur of course but I have my doubts. The reason for the question is what did the powder break down to? If the next powder is more coarse than what the previous powder broke down too you are in effect starting again. I tried both the 120 & 400 followed by stropping on a piece of MDF with the green compound and could not detect much difference at all between the two end results. my feeling is that starting with 120 and pushing it far enough the powder will break down to such a fine grit that nothing else apart from honing is needed. The chisel was hollow ground and a mini bevel formed by by hand, no jigs were used at all. I have been thinking if the powder was premixed then it would be a better way to go.

The real draw back to using this method is that it is a very dirty process as the powder is black and if you do not wear gloves then your hands would need a good wash if you got it on them before handling wood again. It is a very quick process though and bloody cheap to boot. I have brought up the qualification of how sharp is sharp in another thread recently so I am going to do a few more chisels and let others comment on what they think of the result.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

....and bloody cheap to boot.

Yairs, well you get that with salvaged cast iron (surfaced by son at work) and donated grits.....

How do they get (say) 400 grit Silicon Carbide? Grind 240 grit a bit more. So I think that it just gets finer and finer the more it is used until it isn't useful any more (dunno what grit that would be by then though). Presumably when it changes colour something has happened to it?

One advantage I can see if this method over Diamond paste is that you don't don't (necessarily) have to change the grit because it is self-destructing-regulating. However, black hands and stuff are definitely not my go....dia paste does go black but everything is retained within a very small space.