Anyone else make their own resin bonded stones?

311climber said:
I figured their whole matrix is of mostly other cheap hard compounds too for sure. plus even though they are listed as resin bonded they are using im sure something that can handle those high rpm temperatures compared to the resin im using. so why was it again you think the resin bonded stones are not produced thicker? the more i thought about it i have some closer or larger than 20mm thick. for the application im using to produce them and the way im using them at slow speeds etc, they work identically thick or thin for me and see no reason why there couldnt be thicker ones offered?
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The resin in stone polishing tools is harder but I don't think its heat resistance is any different than typical epoxy. They are all used wet and if they heat up at all it will screw up the polish and possibly the stone. Man-made quartz surfaces are notoriously sensitive to how the polishing pads are used. I searched for years and even called 3M to find out what resin is used in stone polishing pads and NEVER got any, as in zero, information.

The reason resin bond stones are not made thicker is expense and any stone other than your bevel setter should last a few thousand uses to tens of thousands. My stones have 1.5mm of resin/diamond bond and the finer stones should sharpen conservatively 20,000 knives if used properly, based on 1x6 stones used with a guided sharpener. I have figured this number a few different ways including measuring the thickness of the ones Edge Pro was using every year for 4 years. They were sharpening around 50 knives a week so the stones were getting a fair amount of use. Nearly all the wear I ever measure is from dressing. From about the 450 grit/ 20 microns to the finest stone they don't wear much from use. Only the coarsest stones wear much from use and I think most of that could be mitigated by how you use them. Phenolic bonded stones like Venev are the same, until you modify the resin, which Venev did a few years ago. I think their new bond is more user friendly but, I think, it vastly increased the wear rate. Still, they last a long time too. How fast are your stones wearing?

When thinking of what bond to use, as in resin, you need to keep in mind diamond has a high-energy surface. That means it pushes away anything that tries to touch it, like water on a freshly waxed car that beads and runs off. It is difficult to bond to and a lot of how these stones are made is in the process, not just the materials.
 
Mr.Wizard said:
Would gypsum plaster be of any value as a DIY-accessible matrix?
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I had actually bought some plaster of Paris just to make a silicone mold with cornstarch out of
311climber said:
if you can, for a mold i would go and buy one of those plastic cavities for your stones, something like the fishing plastic boxes you would store plastic worms etc in. like this, https://hrtackle.com/products/bubblegum-worm-kit minus the worms of course. this will allow for your epoxy to not stick to the walls like before. choose the size mold that fits the stone your trying to make. rule of thumb for viscosity, mix as little epoxy as possible to the abrasive, but make sure its not so thick that it doesnt settle flat. if it has too much abrasive you will see it rise in mounds that will never level out. if your using grit size ballpark 600 and heavier 240 grit, 120 grit etc, when mixing it will not stay suspended at all(in my experience with deep pour). it is heavy it will sink to the bottom of the epoxy as you had happen, like sand on the ocean floor settled. I actually prefer this because I know the cutting area is most condensed at the bottom of the stone where it settled. the smaller grit like 800 plus ive had good luck with it staying in suspension while the epoxy cures. it takes alot of abrasive to make a big stone for sure, and i would make sure you only use identical sized grits if your going to mix diamond with sic. they typically take over a week to cure and for me even like 6-7 days in i could still slowly bend the stone, so dont be impatient if you use the long cure stuff, i had a few bend on me that I had to put so much effort into flattening it wasnt worth the headache. you can try the faster setting stuff, I hadn’t tried it but im sure it will work just as well. once you have a hardened stone, i used a belt sander/sandpaper and a flat surface to cut off the top excess epoxy and then I lap the other concentrated side on rough stones. its a tedious project but hands down worth the fact you can make 10 stones to the cost of 1 if you have the energy to spare. I like saying I made stuff.
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I had actually heard and I know first hand that poly ethelyene plastic number 2&4 are both great for epoxy because it doesn't stick to it. I tried repairing a trash can made of #4 with jb weld and it peeled right off🤣🤣. I actually had the thought of making some glue sticks out of it with me 3d printer and making a mold out of it. I think it has a relatively low melting temp. The hot glue didn't stick to the epoxy either so I even thought of giving that another try with a polyethylene bottom like the tackle box you had mentioned. Melting wax and using the aluminum blank is also another great way to make sure the plastic or hot glue that your using doesn't stick to while you are making your negative mold impression. The first time around I just brushed on the wax from a candle then used the aluminum blank and put hot glue around it. This time I think I'm just going to get a good polyethylene box and make a mold out of silicone/cornstarch. I'll keep you guys updated. Thanks for the info guys. You all have really inspired me to try this. I think I'll stick with the deep pour epoxy as I know it takes 3 days to cure I think it will yield the hardest matrix. I'm still very curious about the bondo as well because you can have the diamond not settle and it cures extremely fast and always seems really hard when you sand it. I'm trying to make some pretty coarse stones and I own one of the venev phenoix (f80/f150) stones and they are amazing, and when you look at them up close it almost looks like their is also copper powder in the matrix. Not quite sure why copper but they do cut just as good as my atomas
 
Diemaker said:
The resin in stone polishing tools is harder but I don't think its heat resistance is any different than typical epoxy. They are all used wet and if they heat up at all it will screw up the polish and possibly the stone. Man-made quartz surfaces are notoriously sensitive to how the polishing pads are used. I searched for years and even called 3M to find out what resin is used in stone polishing pads and NEVER got any, as in zero, information.

The reason resin bond stones are not made thicker is expense and any stone other than your bevel setter should last a few thousand uses to tens of thousands. My stones have 1.5mm of resin/diamond bond and the finer stones should sharpen conservatively 20,000 knives if used properly, based on 1x6 stones used with a guided sharpener. I have figured this number a few different ways including measuring the thickness of the ones Edge Pro was using every year for 4 years. They were sharpening around 50 knives a week so the stones were getting a fair amount of use. Nearly all the wear I ever measure is from dressing. From about the 450 grit/ 20 microns to the finest stone they don't wear much from use. Only the coarsest stones wear much from use and I think most of that could be mitigated by how you use them. Phenolic bonded stones like Venev are the same, until you modify the resin, which Venev did a few years ago. I think their new bond is more user friendly but, I think, it vastly increased the wear rate. Still, they last a long time too. How fast are your stones wearing?

When thinking of what bond to use, as in resin, you need to keep in mind diamond has a high-energy surface. That means it pushes away anything that tries to touch it, like water on a freshly waxed car that beads and runs off. It is difficult to bond to and a lot of how these stones are made is in the process, not just the materials.
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Well thats cool to know if the temps dont make much a difference. Im sure 3M didnt want to say anything about formulas haha.

I get why you say for the expense and your definitely right about how much is only needed if used properly. I think alot of people including myself don't / didn't prefer sharpening with trailing only. But after seeing how the stones pretty much only shed a rare diamond here and there, I literally never dress them at all and they just keep cutting. Its hard to keep track of how they are wearing I never did buy a micrometer and most of my stones are between 1/4" and 1.5" thick so I might see a tiny bit of light under a steel flat edge but its probably from sharpening in both directions. I do see the same, the coarsest lose the most, some light loss in all of mine up to the 2300grit with edge leading, but like you said, the coarser the easier a fine edge seems to catch it and try to tear it from the matrix. Now that I exclusively trail only with them and then i use any fine stone that technically doesn't really shed alot of grit to cut the burr off with a few edge leading passes. Something like a spyderco medium or i have a few boron carbide stones that are hard up for shedding grit.
 
dmr6064 said:
I had actually bought some plaster of Paris just to make a silicone mold with cornstarch out of

I had actually heard and I know first hand that poly ethelyene plastic number 2&4 are both great for epoxy because it doesn't stick to it. I tried repairing a trash can made of #4 with jb weld and it peeled right off🤣🤣. I actually had the thought of making some glue sticks out of it with me 3d printer and making a mold out of it. I think it has a relatively low melting temp. The hot glue didn't stick to the epoxy either so I even thought of giving that another try with a polyethylene bottom like the tackle box you had mentioned. Melting wax and using the aluminum blank is also another great way to make sure the plastic or hot glue that your using doesn't stick to while you are making your negative mold impression. The first time around I just brushed on the wax from a candle then used the aluminum blank and put hot glue around it. This time I think I'm just going to get a good polyethylene box and make a mold out of silicone/cornstarch. I'll keep you guys updated. Thanks for the info guys. You all have really inspired me to try this. I think I'll stick with the deep pour epoxy as I know it takes 3 days to cure I think it will yield the hardest matrix. I'm still very curious about the bondo as well because you can have the diamond not settle and it cures extremely fast and always seems really hard when you sand it. I'm trying to make some pretty coarse stones and I own one of the venev phenoix (f80/f150) stones and they are amazing, and when you look at them up close it almost looks like their is also copper powder in the matrix. Not quite sure why copper but they do cut just as good as my atomas
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I thought about how far to dive down the matrix rabbit hole, but even though they are not the fastest cutting stones, resin bonded diamond that is, they still cut and cut and cut like its no ones business. and when a diamond falls out. there's one right there below it in the matrix to replace it. I am still super happy with the stones current performance. I could only imagine, how awesome it would be if you could use lesser amounts diamonds to make still a badass stone including the additional ingredients, but in my mind, the diamond does the cutting so why not make the matrix as many diamonds as possible, the copper may keep the stone together and add a filler / binder / strength agent. Either way i can only imagine there's probably 50 other trade secrets and quite a bit of r & d perfecting their formulas etc. on the venevs giving them their most yield / strength for the cost to them
 
dmr6064 said:
This is my first one that I made, as you can see it's not horrible but very inconsistent it's 400 grit diamond mixed 50/50 with sic but definitely way too much epoxy. I used mica powder for the green color


I saw this on YouTube for making silicone molds and it's really cheap so I'm going to give this a try

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if you do use that mold id suggest to find an object the shape of your stone to push down into it to form the cavity... if the bottom face is wavy its a PITA to flatten.
 
dmr6064 said:
This is my first one that I made, as you can see it's not horrible but very inconsistent it's 400 grit diamond mixed 50/50 with sic but definitely way too much epoxy. I used mica powder for the green color


I saw this on YouTube for making silicone molds and it's really cheap so I'm going to give this a try

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it looks like the areas where there is no gold has no diamond powder in it at all OR the areas where you see the green poking through around all the gold diamond powder isnt sanded down till it hits the diamond layer. one of the biggest pita is to just take off that little resin layer across the surface of the stone, especially if you haven't come up with a good method yet. can you tell if all the sic and diamond just went to that heavy corner?
 
311climber said:
it looks like the areas where there is no gold has no diamond powder in it at all OR the areas where you see the green poking through around all the gold diamond powder isnt sanded down till it hits the diamond layer. one of the biggest pita is to just take off that little resin layer across the surface of the stone, especially if you haven't come up with a good method yet. can you tell if all the sic and diamond just went to that heavy corner?
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I believe that the table I poured the stone wasn't level so I'm pretty sure that what happened, it just all went to that one corner but also I think with it being my first stone I literally had no clue that 5g was just way too little diamond to make a little 1x6 stone work, let alone a huge 8x3 like I tried to make. My various grits of 40g bags I ordered from AliExpress should be more then enough though, they were delivered today. Im am going to be experimenting with more resin bonded this week. I've also been looking at these new super vitrified stones that are like $400 bucks (too rich for my blood), and sold out everywhere. Fellas, I honestly think we can make these ourselves right along with the resin bonded, I bought me a gallon jug of sodium silicate (water glass) off Amazon. It turns out that is really all a super vitrified diamond stone is. The advantages of vitrified diamond is that it's as hard as ceramic and it is very very slow to dish. There are guys saying that even after 500-1000 sharpening still no dishing, or having to resurface it. You can use them wet or dry, doesn't really matter much, and they cut just as fast as a regular sintered diamond stone Sodium silicate is a really cool chemical that not many ppl even know about, it's what they use to
To make regular sic whetstones with, and depending on how you cure it you can get it to have different hardnesses. So I'm going to be experimenting with it as there are several different ways to get it to cure, you can heat it, mix it with sodium hydroxide is another way but I'm not very fond of the idea of making a whetstone with caustic soda, the other way is simply by letting it air dry, it takes a lot longer but might be the safest way to do this. Heat would probably be my next go to solution if the air dry ends up being to soft but I really don't think the heat will be all that great as diamond can break down just as diemaker had said in a previous post. Diamond begins breaking down at 900 C, but the cool thing about sodium silicate, is that you can heat treat it lower then that. Just like baking a cake 😄😄. The longer you leave it in the oven the harder this stuff gets. I already made myself a stone mold of my 8x3 stone but to experiment with the sodium silicate I'm going to make little 1/2" square mold until I get a, and experiment until I get a result that I'm happy with. I'll post back here with my results. Let me know what you guys think. Have any of you guys played with this stuff before??
 
311climber said:
if you do use that mold id suggest to find an object the shape of your stone to push down into it to form the cavity... if the bottom face is wavy its a PITA to flatten.
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It actually wasn't too bad, maybe because it didn't have much diamond 😂. I flipped it over when it was still pliable and partially cured and adhered it to the stone. With both sides flattened.
 
My advice is to experiment with new resins and such with Alox or Sic and save your diamond for when you know it will work. I did this in the beginning and it saved a lot of money and stress. Besides some of the very fine Alox stones I made I found quite useful for stropping.

I have never heard of sodium silicate so please update us as you learn more. I thought diamonds started oxidizing well below 900c. I know that at 1800f in a near perfect vacuum it starts to oxidize in a couple of minutes.

Oops, sodium silicate is water soluble so that's a deal killer. My experience over the last 35 years is you want a fluid on your diamond stones when using them whether your grinding on carbide, ceramic, or steel.
 
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Diemaker said:
My advice is to experiment with new resins and such with Alox or Sic and save your diamond for when you know it will work. I did this in the beginning and it saved a lot of money and stress. Besides some of the very fine Alox stones I made I found quite useful for stropping.

I have never heard of sodium silicate so please update us as you learn more. I thought diamonds started oxidizing well below 900c. I know that at 1800f in a near perfect vacuum it starts to oxidize in a couple of minutes.

Oops, sodium silicate is water soluble so that's a deal killer. My experience over the last 35 years is you want a fluid on your diamond stones when using them whether your grinding on carbide, ceramic, or steel.
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Yeah that's actually a really good idea as I have tons of sic. Most ppl haven't heard of sodium silicate and it's no surprise because I hate to be the "conspiracy therapist" of the bunch but it's exactly the stuff that the previous civilization used to make all the old world structures. So it isn't really something that "they" want getting out. But this is the first recipe that I'm trying now.https://youtu.be/kUBB3wNae1s?si=Vj09uPLdOvHlMgRF
 
So I've definitely learned a lot about geopolymers in the last few weeks but I figured I would update you guys and let you know how I've been making out. After many failed sic stones crumbling apart to dust and doing this and doing that I think I've finally found an actual formula that works. I haven't made any actual full size stones yet, only test batches but I think over the weekend I'm going to attempt a full size diamond stone. Here's a picture of what I have so far and I have to say I'm impressed with how these test batches turned out and how hard they are. The rectangular one on the top is a silica metakaolin/lime powder stone that set up extremely fast and fairly hard, however has hair line cracks because I leaned when making this particular recipe that carbon dioxide is actually your enemy because the stones will set up faster but not necessarily the chemical bond that you want because it's a weaker C-S-H which is what regular cement is because of the additional lime added into the mix, the bottom round one is metakaolin based mixed with regular sand and is extremely hard as a rock. The middle piece is diamond powder 100 grit and metakaolin and it is strong and is will scratch metal easily. Will keep you guys updated with results but it looks promising.

 
dmr6064 said:
So I've definitely learned a lot about geopolymers in the last few weeks but I figured I would update you guys and let you know how I've been making out. After many failed sic stones crumbling apart to dust and doing this and doing that I think I've finally found an actual formula that works. I haven't made any actual full size stones yet, only test batches but I think over the weekend I'm going to attempt a full size diamond stone. Here's a picture of what I have so far and I have to say I'm impressed with how these test batches turned out and how hard they are. The rectangular one on the top is a silica metakaolin/lime powder stone that set up extremely fast and fairly hard, however has hair line cracks because I leaned when making this particular recipe that carbon dioxide is actually your enemy because the stones will set up faster but not necessarily the chemical bond that you want because it's a weaker C-S-H which is what regular cement is because of the additional lime added into the mix, the bottom round one is metakaolin based mixed with regular sand and is extremely hard as a rock. The middle piece is diamond powder 100 grit and metakaolin and it is strong and is will scratch metal easily. Will keep you guys updated with results but it looks promising.

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I'm still waiting for your next shares
 
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