Thread: Diamond Stones for honing

If the results you get satisfy you and the equipment to get those results suit you then carry on. Try as you might sharpening discussions usually grow legs but that is a good thing as it gives others a chance to see what choices there are and why. Diamond stones tend to lose their efficiency after a while because the diamonds lose their sharpness and some stones do it quicker than others. It was explained to me why this is and why they aren't the best long term answer but I forget the reasoning now.

Paul does use a strop after the diamond stones, not sure what the equivalent grade of that would be but obviously pretty fine. I use diamond stones but I do find the finest not to be fine enough for me to go straight to the strop I use 2000 grit wet and dry (scary sharp style) then strop. He uses ezelap where I use DMT stones so maybe there is a difference in how fine the finest one is.

The edge from Fine and Extra Fine diamond plates will be perfectly usable for general woodworking.
If you're going finer than that it's usually for one of the following reasons:

1) You're sharpening carving tools or other fine detail tools that need to cut with as little effort as possible
2) You want the best possible result (regardless of how much real-world difference it makes)
3) You like shiny things

I finish on a 12000 Shapton for a combination of 2) and 3)

It's just horses for courses!

Your going to get a lot of differing opinions on the topic but the truth is you can get extremely fine edges using any of the major systems if you practice with them enough. This includes the wicked sharp W&D all the way up to the very expensive japanese water stones. They all work and we get to pick whatever suits our budget, needs and wants!

I don't know why diamond stones get such a bad wrap? My first stone was an ezelap super fine that has been seriously flogged. I only owned that one stone for the first 15 years and I have abused it thoroughly during that time. I retired it about 4 years ago to my final stone before power stropping (power stropping is a new venture...bloody quick results IMO) It still can put a new wire edge on any tool extremely fast. Before I stropped anything other than in my hand, I could pull the wire edge off and re hone on the same stone to just bring the edge back.

In it's 20year life It has never needed any maintence other that a quick splash of turps to clean it.. I wipe off the stone and its back up full speed again.

I think people feel they are all done when they stop cutting as aggressively as they were when new. I think most of the time all they have done is reached the end of the break in period. The long life of the stone has just begun at that stage. They take a seriously long time to break in.
Maybe they got a bad batch or it's a cheaper quality stone?

Each to their own though. People take comments on their sharpening pretty personally...their is no need for it as we all can keep getting better at sharpening when we share our experience.

Back on topic, if your pleased with your sharpening results, then that's just right for you!