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Thread: Whetstone selection
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22nd September 2021, 05:45 AM #1Intermediate Member
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Whetstone selection
I have just ordered the Tormey T4 Whetstone ‘original’ grinder that has a SP200 whetstone grinding wheel enabling its stone grader accessory to either leave the grit at 200 or be altered to 1000 grit.
As a hobby woodworker I certainly didn’t start off with any intention of forking out this much cash but having conscientiously read virtually all reviews of competitor’s lower priced equipment available in Australia I formed the impression that most were sub standard, in some way or another. Given I am a relative novice to the sharpening area the one thing I didn’t want from the outset was to have overriding setup problems with an inferior machine, so I bit the Tormek bullet, so to speak. I could have used less expensive methods that I’m sure many of you are completely happy with, but as an 83 year old I decided that you only come this way once so I need to grab the chance now or die wondering about the Tormak’s supposed superiority.
Anyways, now I need to get some whetstones to achieve my further quest to go further than just the default 1000 grit. To that end I have ordered a 400 grit Atomi diamond stone that seems to be one of the the recommended ‘go to’ flattening stones online. I think, maybe, I would like to sharpen my chisels & plane blades to 3000 & 5000 grits, subject to your collective views.
The problem is that there are literally a pantheon of alternatives in the wild and I need your kind help to come to a reasonable decision as to how I might best achieve this quest, but in any event I will to listen to your, perhaps dissenting views, which I will necessarily accept with gratitude.
As an aside, I am surprised that most advertisements overwhelmingly only refer to knives rather than woodworking blades with respect to sharpening. That leads me to wonder if there is a recognised difference in the stone types required for each.
Thank You for your help.
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22nd September 2021, 11:23 AM #2GOLD MEMBER
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This is a thread worth reading
The Unicorn method
On the unicorn method for sharpening. You might reconsider how you want to achieve sharp after looking through it.
In saying that, I have noticed a difference in cutting speeds from different stones. I have cerax water stones
Japanese Water Stone - Cerax Combination #1000/#3000 | Japanese Tools Australia
and also use cast iron plates (veritas) + cheap diamond paste from ebay and the diamond paste cuts much faster. Im sure most tool steels will be harder to sharpen then most stainless steel kitchen knifes.
I now only use the cerax water stones for kitchen knives only because cleanup is much faster on knives that will be used on food
The cast iron plates and diamond paste I bought second hand and has served me well using the unicorn method, I only spend 30sec on them before moving to the buffer so mess isnt such an issue.
edit:
Im sure others will add more, but you will prob want to go beyond 5000 grit. many people strop with chrome oxide which is probably at least 20,000 grit, rob cosman finishes on 16000 shapton waterstone. With the unicorn method I go from 14 micron (about 1400 grit) diamond paste to chrome oxide on a buffing wheel. The result is a mirror like finish on the cutting edge and is SHARP. Also I have no skills and this method works for beginners like me
edit2:
So if I was you I would keep the tormek for the primary bevel
get a bench grinder/buffer/polishing wax bar for the unicorn bevel
the question is how you want to achieve the secondary bevel and flatten the backs. you could either:
- get shapton water stones (I assume you want to best seeing as you spent the cash on the tormek)
- or a budget option would be a 1000 grit diamond plate as that will prob be the most used with unicorn method and require least maintenance plus 3 cast iron plates with 7, 3 and 0.5 micron diamond paste. The 3 plates would only be used for flattening backs of planes/chisels and not often used
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22nd September 2021, 11:41 AM #3
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23rd September 2021, 06:34 PM #4Senior Member
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Sorry, trying to understand this. Does this mean you don't use water stones to sharpen to a secondary bevel, and just do that with the unicorn method? I.e., touch up a dulled edge this way? I ask because I use 1000 grit water stone for touching up and polishing with 8000, and in learning about the unicorn method I was going to form the unicorn bevel after that. Does the unicorn method replace the need for that?
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23rd September 2021, 09:55 PM #5GOLD MEMBER
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- Primary hollow bevel on grinder
- Microbevel on cast iron plate with diamond paste (14 micron)
- Unicorn bevel with grinder/buffer/chrome oxide wax
So at the moment I am doing microbevel on this plate:
Veritas Steel Honing Plate | Carbatec
with this paste:
12Pcs Diamond Polishing Lapping Paste Compound Syringes 0.5-40 Micrometer 5 K8C8 191466997659 | eBay
So you could do that, or get water/oil stone, or diamond sharpening stones/plates. I plan on switching cheap diamond plates from aliexpress as cleanup will be a bit easier. You still need to get a full set, to flatten/polish the back of chisels/blades but when sharpening the actual bevel of your tools you really use the 'medium' grit. DW could probably weigh in more on what grit rangers 'medium' is but I use 14micron which is approx 1400grit but will be switching to a 1500 diamond plate.
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24th September 2021, 04:26 AM #6GOLD MEMBER
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According to Lee Valley and 3M Products,
1200 grit has a nominal particle size of 6.5 microns
1500 grit has a nominal particle size of 3 microns
2000 grit has a nominal Particle size of1 micron.
Based on my observation of the two pages of scanning electron microscope pictures in Leonard Lee's book,
There's very little to be gained in sharpening beyond a 1500 grit abrasive. I find this to be true.
What matters equally is the preservation of an appropriate bevel angle for the tool and the task.
The final step for all of my wood carving tools is half a dozen wipes with CrOx/AlOx.
That seems to really put the "carving sharp" edge on everything.
In this scenario, the CrOx is about 0.5 micron and the AlOx is about 0.25 micron, nominal particle sizes.
I've given up on all stones and diamond plates.
3M fine automotive finishing sandpapers (dry) stuck down with dabs of masking tape are very effective.
I have 600, 800, 1,000, 1200, and 1,500 grits as needed.
The strops are office filing cards or cereal box card stock with CrOx/AlOx scribbled on them.
For the various adzes, I hone with a tennis ball.
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24th September 2021, 06:31 PM #7GOLD MEMBER
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If all you want is to finely hone your chisels and plane irons to 3~5k grits, then your T4 already has all you need. It comes with the leather honing wheel and a tube of honing paste. First you charge the new leather wheel with some mineral or machine oil. Once its fully saturated, then you can charge it with honing paste, sparingly all the way around the wheel. place the chisel on the top of the wheel so that the wheel is coming from behind the cutting edge (equivalent to a pulling stroke). There are videos on
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26th September 2021, 11:20 AM #8Intermediate Member
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26th September 2021, 11:23 AM #9Intermediate Member
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26th September 2021, 06:51 PM #10GOLD MEMBER
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28th September 2021, 12:28 PM #11Intermediate Member
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28th September 2021, 09:24 PM #12GOLD MEMBER
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After grinding at 1000 grits, the resultant surface is full of "scratches" created by the abrasives from the 1000 grits wheel, some of these scratches are quite deep. While both provide honing at around 4~5K grits, SJ-200 is a water stone and is much faster in removing material and is therefore able of removing these scratches totally, resulting in a mirror-like finish. The leather honing wheel together with the paste can only remove light scratches and is very slow at removing material, so we generally target the removal at the very edge. The result is still 4000 grits but more resemble a serrated edge, while the Japanese stone gives a cleaner edge. It's not as good, but you don't have to pay for an expensive wheel. I personally use the SJ stone as my final honing and I don't use the leather wheel. But it's there for you at no extra cost. You might find that quite adequate. it's certainly worth a try and imitates what's shown in the above video.
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30th September 2021, 06:42 AM #13GOLD MEMBER
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The knife market is considerably larger than the woodworking market, and it's filled with people who are easier to sway because woodworkers constantly make tools dull and need to resharpen them. Much of the knife market is made of enthusiasts who don't dull much but rather fascinate themselves with sharpening and certain aesthetic looks.
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30th September 2021, 06:56 AM #14GOLD MEMBER
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(I'm the cranky unicorn guy, but I have had just about everything - including a tormek with a gray alumina wheel, black silicon carbide, and I also had the 4000 grit japanese waterstone wheel. The gray alumina wheel is the one to have - the black one fights with the grading stone, which is no surprise given they're the same abrasive, and the 4000 grit japanese wheel isn't really a finely finished edge, but it will be slow like a mid stone. The tormek is a very precise, clean area, no sparks grinder, but it's not great at the final honing).
You have an atoma 400 (a great diamond hone) and really only need a medium stone (a decent 1000 grit stone and a finish stone - something like shapton 1000 pro and 8000 pro). Best bet is to avoid making a huge progression of grits, use the 1000 grit stone to refine what the tormek does on the fresh coarse wheel mode (and don't grade to finer and back and forth, just keep it cutting as keenly as possible), and then lift the tool a bit for the final stone so that the finish stone is working at an angle a couple of degrees higher to bias things in your favor to remove the scratches from prior steps).
Failure to sharpen in my estimation (and experience in getting tools from people to set up or fit properly) is two things - poor geometry - usually an angle that's too steep to allow a plane to function on the bevel side for bevel down planes, and also almost universally, failure to replace all of the coarse scratches at an edge with fine scratches - to the extent the rest of the edge is out of the way in a cut, only a couple of thousandths of an inch of the edge need to have only the finest scratches, thus on the bevel side, increase the angle a little to make sure the stone is working the tip. and when it gets hard to work the tip without increasing angle, grind again to move the increasing "fat part" out of the way.
If you want really really fine, strong polishing compounds like autosol are generally as good as the finest stones, and cheap graded diamond powder is also dandy (1 micron diamond on hardwood is almost magical on edges, and it's cheap).
any combination of things will work if you control angles and get the finest scratches to the edge (no need to brightly finish large amounts of steel that aren't close to the edge)
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30th September 2021, 07:07 AM #15GOLD MEMBER
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It's nice to have a finish on the back of an iron a little finer than 1000 grit with the "unicorn", but not essential. I use a fine india (but it's settled in because I don't scuff it).
grind, hone with the 1k stone and work the back (low 20s bevel angle for this stuff) and then buff. You don't need the finish stone (but it's not bad policy to give the back of whatever you're sharpening 10 seconds on a finish stone. So, if you have one.
* Hone the entire prior unicorn off (let's use 23 degrees for a final straw angle because it works well) with a 1k grit stone
* work the back of the iron or chisel on the finish stone (if you have one, if not, just lightly on the 1k grit stone)
* buff the bevel as per instructions (let's say a couple of seconds on the bevel side pushed into the buff with some firmness - like the amount you'd use to lift/pull a drawer pull)
* run the back of the tool that was just honed lightly over the corner of the wheel without putting any pressure into the wheel
done. Takes about a minute for the uninitiated.
But it's nice for a beginner to understand what they're doing with stones in case they do "too much unicorn" and don't recognize that they're blunting an edge or not completing steps.
(the unicorn finishes an edge in a geometry and finish such that it can't be bettered by hand, though. I've gotten enough back from really solid woodworkers who use an oilstone progression and think they've mastered everything that the edge is a full step sharper and the sharpness is far more persistent due to its durability at the modified apex)
Hopefully, the starter of this thread checks my original suggestion, though. Grind, hone intermediate and kiss the tip of the tool on the finish stone to make sure its' got a good edge. If a buffer is wanted, it can come later (they're cheap). A modification of the above is replacing the two stones with something in the middle, like a 3k grit stone, and learning to strop because there will be a wire edge to deal with. I like a two step process better unless the middle stone is a washita (which isn't a stone for beginners who may be using all manner of tool steels).
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