Ceramic sharpening stone questions

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TwinStick

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Anyone have a 6", or an 8" ultra fine ceramic sharpening stone ? How do you like it ? Any tips or tricks ?

I have up to 6000 grit water stones but wondering what more an ultra fine ceramic stone can give me ? Or if it's even worth it ?

Thanks for the help.
 
I've owned a Spyderco UF ceramic stone for probably 10+ years. To be honest, I really don't use it much any more, as I just don't prefer edges with that much polish now That said, my thoughts on this specific UF stone: very fine finish. Not sure what grit rating it would compare to. Finer than 3000 which is about as fine as I ever go now. Can get very sharp edges and it has never worn or dished to any appreciable amount. It does load up quickly though and to keep it working best it needs to be cleaned very frequently. I would clean it maybe every 2 or 3 knives.
 
I have a ultra fine ceramic stone but I really only use it to lightly micro bevel my 1095 bladed knives. Ultra fine ceramics are a must if you do want to achieve a mirror edge.

I really haven’t found much use for them anymore these days. I tend to not sharpen much past a medium of fine diamond stone.
 
TwinStick said:
Anyone have a 6", or an 8" ultra fine ceramic sharpening stone ? How do you like it ? Any tips or tricks ?

I have up to 6000 grit water stones but wondering what more an ultra fine ceramic stone can give me ? Or if it's even worth it ?

Thanks for the help.
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I have the Spyderco 8” medium, fine and ultra fine ceramic stones and the Norton fine and ultra fine ceramics. The Nortons are a bit flatter than the Spyderco stones. This matters more for woodworking tools than knives. Whether or not the ultra fine ceramics are worth it to you depends on the steels that you wish to sharpen. If they are plain high carbon steels, like 1095, then they are a waste of money compared with what you have. I like to sharpen with a dry stone, so they are worth it to me. If you want to sharpen steels with lots of vanadium, then they might be worth it.
FWIW, I think that the Norton fine is a bit finer than the Spydeco fine stone. I rarely go beyond the Spyderco fine for most of my knives. I may go to a finer finish on woodworking tools, and reserve the Nortons for more complex steels. For most of my tool blades, I use natural Norton Arkansas stones.
 
The Spyderco UF ceramic is like an 8k Waterstones.

IMO, ceramics are good for touch-ups but Waterstones beat them in nearly every aspect for bench sharpening.
 
I also view sintered ceramics as mainly touch-up stones, used with a minimum number of passes at a very, very delicate touch. The finer ones are handy for the tiniest of microbevels, applied to refine the very apex of otherwise more coarsely finished edges - that works very well. So, used minimally as such, I have almost no use for benchstone-sized ceramics and prefer the smaller, handheld hones for those light-touch finishing passes.

I don't polish edges hardly at all, anymore - I prefer toothy, more coarsely finished edges. But in the few occasions when I have, I've preferred to use firm/hard strops of wood for that, with polishing compound.
 
I actually planned on using them for touch ups. I am not trying to polish anything, although it may be an unintended result. Being able to easily bring it back to hair popping sharpness is my goal, which is why I thought a 8"x3" ceramic ultra fine stone from Norton might be the ticket ?

I have a lot of knives besides my kitchen knives. No high end steels or super steels. Lots of big choppers/outdoor knives. 5160 tool steel, 1095, 1095 CroVan, 420HC, 440c, S7 tool steel,1075, AUS-8, VG-10 & San-Mai. I think that's about it as far as the steel all my outdoor knives are made of. Kitchen knives are just German steel, Mercer knives, Dexter-Russel knives.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
 
In my opinion: The Spyderco fine would be much superior for touch ups than the ultra-fine. I'd even probably take the medium over the ultra-fine. These are all slow stones and the UF is VERY slow. Any of these stones will make an edge pop hairs, with appropriate skill to use them.
 
They're phenomenal stones for generating a crisp apex, and like Obsessed with Edges mentioned they're best used as a touchup stone or a final stone after using conventional stones for doing the "heavy lifting" of the operation.
 
I don't like them. They can be handy on some steels but are far less user friendly than any polishing grade waterstone and prone to making small (but sharp) burrs. In basically the same role, a smooth steel is a better option in my opinion.
 
TwinStick said:
I actually planned on using them for touch ups. I am not trying to polish anything, although it may be an unintended result. Being able to easily bring it back to hair popping sharpness is my goal, which is why I thought a 8"x3" ceramic ultra fine stone from Norton might be the ticket ?

I have a lot of knives besides my kitchen knives. No high end steels or super steels. Lots of big choppers/outdoor knives. 5160 tool steel, 1095, 1095 CroVan, 420HC, 440c, S7 tool steel,1075, AUS-8, VG-10 & San-Mai. I think that's about it as far as the steel all my outdoor knives are made of. Kitchen knives are just German steel, Mercer knives, Dexter-Russel knives.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
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For the touching up on the steels you mention, you might first consider using something like a Sharpmaker set with it's standard medium & fine rods, or the optional UF rods. I mention this, because I generally use it for essentially the same purposes: that's keeping the edges tuned up on my kitchen knives in simple stainless, as well as for my EDC knives in similar steels. I use the SM with either of the medium or fine rods, and I touch up almost exclusively on the corners of the triangular rods, using a minimum number of passes per side.

Most of the knives' edges I mention are initially created using the Fine side of my Norton India C/F combination stone (IB8). Then, for the upkeep after that, I often use the SM's medium rods if I'm NOT microbevelling, or the Fine rods if I want to add that very tiny microbevel. In either case, it generally takes less than 5 passes or so per side, and generally only 1 or 2 per side if I'm microbevelling. Maybe 2-5 minutes of very light-touch work - no more than that. I like using the corners of the rods because, with the lightest possible touch, it focuses just enough pressure to quickly enhance & bring back a very crisp apex. It's almost effortless, once you get used to doing it this way.

Because it works so well with such minimal effort on those small SM hones, I really don't have any use for large benchstones in the same ceramics. I DO HAVE the Spyderco medium & fine stones in the benchstone 8" x 2" format, and almost never use them except for some occasional experimentation. But I just don't need that much grinding capacity in stones of this type. Large ceramic stones are probably more suited for heavy refinement and/or polishing of wide bevels on larger blades, assuming that's not otherwise being done on waterstones, strops or something else. But for the type of apex refinement I do, and for what you're apparently wanting to do, there's not much need for large stones of this type.
 
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I have an older Spyderco Sharpmaker, it has only one angle setting, and it is very easy to use. I have the medium, fine and ultra fine rods for it. For me it is a great way to maintain a knife’s edge, especially with the ultra fine rods. No need for any oil or water, easy to clean and very quick. I also have the Spyderco bench stones in medium, fine and ultra fine. I am still trying to get the muscle memory to use them well but again for keeping an edge those three grits work very well, at least for me.
Now, if I am sharpening larger knives or trying to reprofile an edge then out comes my Worksharp. A coarse belt on that usually does the trick. To each his own but if I was forced to have only a single sharpening system it would probably be the Sharpmaker followed by the Worksharp. Both are easy to use while the bench stones may be more versatile there is indeed a learning curve with them.
 
I find sintered ceramic stones extraordinarily useful, but also most people use them outside of their best application and would be better served by using other stones before moving to the ceramic to finish.
 
TwinStick said:
Anyone have a 6", or an 8" ultra fine ceramic sharpening stone ? How do you like it ? Any tips or tricks ?

I have up to 6000 grit water stones but wondering what more an ultra fine ceramic stone can give me ? Or if it's even worth it ?

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
I have the Spyderco stones for my TSProf K03 and from what I have is if you do to many pass's with them after using a water stone you dull the edge.

A lot of guys were suing the Spyerco fine or ultra fine to deburr the edge but for me I don't really care for them that much.
 
Spyderco, Nortons, and Idahone all make fine ceramic bench stones with Nortons being the most expensive. Anyone use the Idahone? I've tried their rods and like them but I find almost no info on the bench stones.
 
Reading the nortons literature I wonder if its worthwhile getting a fine ceramic if you already have the hard arkansas. Is it that much faster?
 
P_A_S_1 said:
Reading the nortons literature I wonder if its worthwhile getting a fine ceramic if you already have the hard arkansas. Is it that much faster?
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The aluminum oxide ceramic grit would be 2.5X as hard as the novaculite in the Arkansas stone. So, for more wear-resistant steels with any hard carbide content, the ceramic would be a much faster polisher by abrasion. A hard Arkansas stone would tend to only burnish such steels without much abrasion at all - but it could be useful for burr removal and edge alignment at least.
 
It's still unclear to me if the Ascent stones are sintered or not. That is a huge bevel to put on sintered stones unless they're pressing them that way.
 
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