Thread: Coarse Wet stones - Which to buy?

I have had good success with the Norton 220 grit waterstone. I use my coarse diamond plate regulary to keep the stone flat.
Cheers

Hi Tools4me,
Have you given the D/Plate a good wash in hot Soapy Water & dry it off.
Can't say I've heard of a D/P going off or not working anymore.
I daresay you use a little Kero or 3 in1 oil. Makes a difference.
Just trying to help.

Originally Posted by issatree

Hi Tools4me,
Have you given the D/Plate a good wash in hot Soapy Water & dry it off.
Can't say I've heard of a D/P going off or not working anymore.
I daresay you use a little Kero or 3 in1 oil. Makes a difference.
Just trying to help.

I haven't tried washing it with soap. But I do keep it pretty clean. I have 3 diamond plates with the 220 grit getting pretty heavily used rehabing old tools. Perhpas it just feels smother to me?

Diamond plates don't last that long, esp. if with rehabbing you're lapping thoroughly.

Some members have had good results with Sigma #120; I use a Shapton of the same grit and it's OK. Then I move to a Sigma #400 or Sigma Power Select II #220. The latter is good for hard steels.

See Tools from Japan

Of course you need a method of flattening these ceramic whetstones; coarse silicon carbide grains on plate glass is cheap 'n cheerful.

For lapping the backs of really deformed tools, I've had great success with the Sigma #120, aka "The Black Beast".

It works much faster than my extra-course DMT, silicon carbide on glass, or diamond paste on MDF. To my (limited) knowledge, it works faster than ANYTHING not involving electrons. It makes a brand new diamond stone look painfully slow. Plus, it's way, way cheaper and will wear you out long before you wear it out.

It's also excellent as a grinder. Although it's a good deal slower than an electric grinder (for comparison, I've found it's about the same speed as my hand-cranked grinder) it allows you to use a honing guide to get a really nice, even bevel that saves lots of time on the stones. I've never managed to get a similarly nice grind from a machine, although I'm working on that.

On the downside, when lapping backs it can leave some pretty nasty scratches, that will take a while to remove. It is super-course after all. It also takes a bit of fiddling to flatten (it comes with some silicon carbide grit, which you sprinkle on glass) and you need to use a good deal of pressure, but I think this is the same for most really hard low-grit ceramic stones.

If you don't want something that extreme, I'd highly recommend the Sigma #400, also from Stu. It's a little pricey, but it stays very flat, works very fast (about the same as my extra course diamond stone used to) and leaves an astonishingly nice finish for the grit level, which makes lapping much easier. It needs to be flattened in the same way.

Why don't you drop Stu a line?