Thread: DMT 8000 stone

Hi Socrates,

I thought about the DMT series when I bought my last lot of waterstones. The info from the forum was that waterstones or shaptons were better for plane blades (or chisels) as there is less fracture at the tool edge (I will no doubt be corrected here).

I currently sharpen my veritas LAJ with A2 blade on King waterstones. According to the data I found, D2 hardness is 60 - 62Rc, which is similar to A2 of 59 - 62Rc. Sure, it takes a little longer but still comes up with a good edge.

If you search for Shapton you will find some posts by Derek, as I recall he reviewed them favourably.

Could be a good time to invest in some Shaptons with the USD at the current low rate.

Regards,

Tom

Originally Posted by TomH

According to the data I found, D2 hardness is 60 - 62Rc, which is similar to A2 of 59 - 62Rc. Sure, it takes a little longer but still comes up with a good edge.

With reference to the D2 steel that TS has arranged, you'll find that this takes more effort to sharpen because it has a higher abrasive resistance. Hardness is less relevant than steel composition in this case.

That said, I have a Batch 1 D2 blade and have no trouble sharpening on King stones freehand, it just takes time if you don't have a nice wide hollow

Also consider diamond pastes, these will produce a very fine edge for considerably lower initial cost.

I thought while you guys were getting your thoughts together that I should ask Trent Powrie from Harold and Saxon what he recommends. He thought the Shaptons were worth a look. Anyone had experience with these???

I use the Shapton Pros for hard steels, the King stones are not very good for D2 steel.

I have the DMT 8k plate, and I find that it works very well if the initial sharpening was done sufficiently on the lower grits. If the edge is not prepped, the D8EE won't make much progress in the right direction.

Also, In my experience the DMTs are for making quick work of the sharpening at a given grit level, but have to be followed up by a finer or equal waterstone for the edge to reach its max. potential. The diamonds seems to leave the edge a little rough (compared to waterstones of similar grit), even though it's very sharp.

There really shouldn't be any edge chipping, I've used mine on steel that's upwards of Rc64 with no problems.

I wish the process on the D8EE was slow, it seems to create deeper scratches than the 1200 diamond stone. It's as if there is no real diamond surface whatsoever. Do you use water or soap or do you keep the stone dry?

I thought from you initial post that it wasn't cutting at all, but if it's cutting too fast, I guess that's just the goal of the diamond plates.

The DMTs require a little bit of aggressive work to even out the factory fresh diamond surface, lapping my natural stones on it worked well for me. It's much more forgiving once "broken in".

I use it with plain water most times, soap does make things smoother but it's not prohibitive to use plain water.

What supplier are you going through to get your stones?

http://www.craftsmanstudio.com/html_p/T!D8.htm

The 8k plate is $70, but the packages really save some money for the work that they do (as compared to other stones of equal grit).

Originally Posted by BozInOz

What supplier are you going through to get your stones?

I purchased my stones on a US website www.thebestthings.com . They tried to help me initially and managed to get DMT to send me another stone, but when the new stone failed as well I think they put it into the too hard basket. I'm now thinking of going with Water Stones. I'm just not looking forward to the mess they create. Oh well!

I'm pretty unhappy with the performance of the DMT DuoSharp stones I recently bought. They just don't seem as aggressive as wet-and-dry, and I still need to use a waterstone for the final grade.

Huh, the diasharp series have worked great for me.

The duosharps seem like they might cut slower because there isn't as much abrasive in contact with the tool but I've never used one so I can't really say.

I agree that a waterstone provides a better finish in the end, but for fast sharpening (especially in the 1200 grit range) and ease of use, the DMTs are my first choice.

What grit(s) wet/dry do you usually use?

The grits depend on what I'm doing, but if I was starting with a new chisel or plane iron I'd probably use 300, 600, 1200 then off to the stone.

I've got the two Duosharps in the large size, which gives a supposed grit range of 220, 325, 600, 1200. I'm using the same honing guide and technique on both Duosharp and wet-and-dry.

The only thing I prefer about the Duosharp is that they are much less messy.