Thread: Diamond paste sharpening

Derek, I had caught that posting. Between that and some information cedarslayer posted over on woodnet I decided to pick up some paste to play around with. I am debating on substrates at the moment. I can get mild steel off ebay or mcmaster carr since I am stateside, but I have my doubts about them staying flat for any amount of time. Wood and leather substrates are also up for consideration. I think the finer grits, sub 5u, are going to be a good match for a wood substrate so I don't dub edges or make too much of a mess.

At this point I am heavily into experimenting. Each method has pros/cons. I think I am of a similar mindset to yourself, just looking for the best shortcut in sharpening. One of these days I am going to lay everything out and post my shameful collection of sharpening media

Several entries mentioned they were going to try various metal substrates including old saw blades. Have any of you tried it yet?

Derek,
Could you supply some details about your strop?
Where did you get the leather?
Is it glued to MDF and what type of glue?
Do you use Veritas green rouge on it?
Is it hard or supple?

Cheers, Jack

Jack

It is from Tools for Working Wood ...

http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/M...Category_Code=

I used 3M contact glue to attch it to hardwood.

Details of honing are here:

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...mondpaste.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks Derek.

For the guys who have tried this, did you find a metal substrate better than ply? Any one know how well beech would work, its quite cheap at the local hardwood place.

My package of pastes has just arrived from honkers but i'll have to wait till the weekend to try it out.

We'll i've had a chance to try them and for honing and polishing the cut on the end of my finger where i was wiping the 0.5 paste from the chisel blade seems to suggest it works great, confirmed that by easily cutting the end grain on some pine.

But it never seems to get a (noticeable) wire edge on the back with the 14 micron with my 1k waterstone this appears very quickly especially on the microbevel. Is this normal?

G'day steveo,

Regarding metal substrates, I found an aluminium plate to work very well with the finer grits ( <10 micron) which is all I really use now. The steel that I'd tried seems to do some damage to the edge if you weren't really careful, the aluminium far less so.

As for the wire edge business, my experience suggested that the diamond pastes would break down further as you went, making for a finer grit the longer you honed. Because they can remove material fairly quickly, it's possible you're producing and then removing the wire edge before you've even seen it. Impossible to say with any certainty without seeing your process.

What stone are you using and what medium for the paste? It may also be an imperfect honing medium rounding the edge slightly and removing the wire edge prematurely.