which DMT combo?

A

Aeneas

Joined
Dec 24, 2001
Messages
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I'm new to this knife thing; since Xmas I've gotten a Leatherman Wave, Buck 110 and Buck Nighthawk. I put a bit of a chip in the 110 whittling my daughter's pinewood derby car, so now I need to learn to sharpen. I have read a lot of posts and visited a lot of web sites re sharpening. I also have the Razor Edge book and Steve Bottorf's new book.

I have pretty much decided to try free-hand sharpening with a 2-sided diamond hone from DMT. My question is, what combo? Do I go for coarse/fine, or fine/extra fine, or what? I have read some posts where people indicate that the coarse takes off so much steel that it is useful only for re-profiling an edge. Am I better off with the fine/extra fine? Would that be enough to get rid of the chip?

TIA
 
Aeneas, welcome to the forums. Your answer will depend on your application of the blade. I have found for light repair & general use the fine/coarse combo works well. If you desire a really fine finish you may want to consider the ultra fine (Green?). You can usually take care of a fair amount of damage with the coarse, restore an edge bevel etc... The fine is then used to "finish" the edge if desired. You may also want to consider a small ceramic stone to remove the burr.

Be advised I have also found that the diamonds require a "break-in" period. You may want to practice first on something other than your good knives.
 
Hmm. Well I've got all the DMT Bench-sized Diamond stones, Fine, Xtra Fine, and Coarse. Almost everything I do is with the fine and the extra fine. Coarse is only used for re-beveling an edge, or repairing a really badly dinged blade, or sharpening an axe, but I hopefully never let my knives get that bad where I have to re-bevel one. The coarse stone really removes the metal fast, almost too fast sometimes.

So for me, for most uses, it would be the fine, followed by the extra fine to re-sharpen blades most all the time. Diamonds **really** can take some metal off, and even the fine can take off more than you want if you aren't paying attention.
 
I don't know... That hasn't been my experience. At least not after the stones break in for a while. I think the coarse/fine is the best over-all combo. Especially if there is a ding in the blade. Remember that just because it takes off a lot of metal doesn't mean you have to use it a lot! That's a round about way of saying that if the coarse stone takes off too much metal for your taste in say 20 strokes, then use only 10 and go lighter! You can control it all you know.

I have never used nor wanted the x-fine. Mostly for polish, it hasn't enough bang for the buck IMHO. If I'm really going to polish an edge, I'll finish up on a smooth ceramic rod or something like that.
 
Echo Matthew.

Can to do something and really do it – this is not the same. Yes, coarse diamond stone removes steel pretty fast. Very nice, use it only when you need to remove some steel and want to save your time and effort, for example to restore damaged edge or to reprofile another one.

Fine (red in case of DMT) sharpening surface provides you to put shaving sharp working edge to each blade. Sure, if you want to polish edge farther you should use u-fine one, but think about how frequently you really need highly polished edge?

So I think the coarse/fine DMT double sided surface (Duo-Sharp) would be the most practical choice. Go with 8” long one if you can afford. If you can shell out some bucks more – get SPYDERCO fine ceramics, Bench Stone or ProFiles for ex. for finishing touch.

Visit also this thread, we have discussed such things literally while ago.
 
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