Edge Pro Matrix resin bond diamond stones

Interesting. I'll dress it today and see if I can get rid of that. I noticed that but wasn't sure what it was. Guessing I flipped the stone after cleaning and what what you're seeing at the top is the same thing at the bottom in the 2nd photo.
 
David & Diemaker appreciate the last two posts. I use the Windex with a little Dawn when cutting with these Diemaker stones. Cleaning often with paper towels on both the knife and stones.

They stay pretty clean that way with no crossing the grits because when moving to the next stone I place the just used stone on a rubber mat to Be cleaned later with 91% alcohol and white cotton towel - never contaminating the different stones with one another.

This way it is easier to control cross grits from contamination and avoid the hard clean up. The beauty of these stones is light to no pressure really does the job because I keep my knives in rather good shape. The second thing is that these stones can sharpen both ways:

The so called High Polish Finish

Or the So called Very Sharp Rough Finish

For the gentleman searching for leather. Just search online with EBay
or Amazon for a good tanned belt stock at around 2" by 5 0" - outline the 6" by 1" cuts with a pen or pencil and cut with a box cutter or blade cutter -
Use 3M super 77 spray can that will stick anything
To your E.P. Aluminum 6" by 1" bar.
 
I generally clean as I go as well. I generally wipe my stone whenever I flip the blade. If I'm going for a mirror finish I'll use a lot more water to rinse the stones and blade to get rid of any remaining grit. So far it's much better on getting rid of scratches.
 
I'm lazy, I keep a tray of water that I rinse the stones off in after each use. Rinse, a quick scrub with my thumb if I see any dark marks, another rinse then set them on top of the tray to drain while I go to the next grit. I use a piece of paper towel to clean up the blade between grits. This is enough to avoid cross contamination between the stones and my test set of stones has sharpened about 23 3" knives and still look good and work well. I shy away from detergents in the water because my skin is already too dry from everything else I do. I have noticed that keeping the stones wet while using them is a requirement to being able to rinse them clean after each use.

McMasterCarr has veg tanned cow hide in 1/32" thick x 1" wide that I used to make my strops.
 
I,ve been talking with and sampling a few stones to a sharpener named Mike Emler, Big Brown Bear introduced us. He called me yesterday to tell me he has worn out his 2300 Matrix stone. Shawn gave him his 1100 and Mike liked it soo much we ended up getting in touch. Since just having the 1100 is a very poor display of what these stones can do I sampled him the rest of the set about 9? months ago. Since most of what he does for a living is knife sharpening he puts a LOT of use on stones so I figured his opinion would be a good resource for me. Mike sharpens free hand but likes to use light pressure which is important since you need to use light pressure with the Matrix stones. Let them cut at the speed they like, don't hurry them. Anyway I caught the tail end of a video he did this morning where he talkes up the Matrix stones. It starts at 58:40.


My all time favorite one of Mikes videos has already been linked to in post 88 of this thread, but here it is again if you missed it.


Here is one I did last night on dressing the Matrix stones. It's an update to an earlier video that I obviously need to update again, these videos aren't as easy as it looks. The stones getting dressed are for the pass-around kit that is going to sickpuppy1 next.

 
Appreciate the dressing video. I still need to get something more coarse for my 80 grit. It's still cutting so I'm not in a hurry.

Surprised he wore out the 2300 stone first. With light trailing strokes only it seems like the 1100, 2300, and 4000 will last far longer than lower grit stones. 650 gets the most time on blades for me. Betting I'll wear our my 650 or 250 first. The 250 gets less time, but does a lot of cutting.
 
Diemaker said:
Here is one I did last night on dressing the Matrix stones.
Click to expand...

Given the amount of time it took to dress the 250 Matrix stone I wonder why you are not using a coarser grit. Is it because you want one grit for all stones and 240 grit is a compromise, or because a coarser grit is actually too rough for the 250 Matrix stone?
 
Mike freehands and puts a convex bevel on the knife which I speculate will wear the stones faster than using a guided system properly.

The coarser the stone the more resin needs to be removed to expose the right amount of diamond crystals since they are bigger. The 240 is perhaps a little fine but it is easier to just use a little extra than another grit. Yes the 240 is a compromise. The only downside I think with using only 240 is extra wear from dressing on the finer stones, but we are only talking about millions of an inch each time you dress. A little common sense when dressing would be better than extra grits though. Dress the finer stones on used abrasive and only dress for the time needed. For the 2300 and 4000 that would be 5 to 15 seconds for a maintenance dress depending on how fresh your abrasive is on your flat plate. In post 74 I show what my test set of stones look like after some use. They now have around 230 strokes on them and still look and work the same. If you keep them clean and don't use too much pressure so they don't need to be dressed very often I am pretty sure these stones will last a very long time. EP only wears their stones they use daily about .001"-.002" a year for the 2300 and 4000. I measure EPs daily use stones every May so I will get to see how the other stones wear after a year. I will post the results after I do.
 
The DRESSING VIDEO was easy-to-follow and offered the different type dressing options - Thank You.

The box Idea was good for me because I use my wife's 12" X 12" mosaic/stained glass for the base.

The best was the show and tell about the water use and what to look for when doing the circle eights.
 
Ya know, I love holidays, and this one is more deserving than most, but when a package gets held up its.....grrrrr those stones were supposed to be here Sat, but got held up and I'm hoping for tomorrow......kinda feels like christmas eve,lol
Even if I dont get to keep them,lol
 
A month ago I noticed my brand new Spyderco Manix 2 XL had a 1/16th inch CHIP out of it right near the point. AND THE CHIP went all the (whole) way UP on its - "the" bevel.

I lightly used all my 250 to 4000 brand new E.P. Diamond Matrix stones and removed the S30V steel chip right away. They worked rather well. PERHAPS Better than my Chosera or SiC E.P. would have done.

They all, of course, could have done it. It was just more fun to use the new stones to see how they worked. The new NEW MATRIX stones took 80% of the stress away and made it more of an American spirit CAN-DO project.

The trick was deciding how to get rid of the chip; then doing the light re-profiling to (actually) do it. No steel bothers the E.P. Diamond Matrix stones to date. Light to no pressure is the key.
 
Steven W. Knight said:
No steel bothers the E.P. Diamond Matrix stones to date. Light to no pressure is the key.
Click to expand...
Actually the harder the better, including ceramic. The farther you can get from "gummy" steel the better.

sickpuppy1, it's on your front porch as of 9:59 AM this morning. No rush on getting it back, take your time.
 
Thanks, called the wife to tell her to bring it in , which she did. Thanks again, looking forward to this....
 
C20H7b0
F2xYlIR


Question for Diemaker:

I'm wondering what's going on with the stone pictured here. It seems to have a somewhat irregular load pattern. At first I brushed it off, decided not to worry about it, and it seemed fine the first time I used it. I have one other Matrix stone, a 2300 grit, that pretty much loads uniformly in all areas, but again I wasn't too concerned. However I started to notice a a difference in edge finish depending on if I concentrated my short back and forth strokes in the middle of the stone, or at the ends. The ends left a high polish, the middle much coarser. I'm starting to wonder if this is a defect, like the abrasive all managed to settle in that middle line somehow? I really don't want to bother the seller, as he has helped me out with multiple issues already, and I don't want him to think I'm being picky or taking advantage of him, so I decided to check in here first.

What do you think?

Edit: Am I the only one who can't see my photo?
 
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Thanks for asking here. I can't see your images either but from your description I am pretty confident that the stone in question did not get dressed in the center. These diamond stones are pretty hard on the flats they get dressed on so EP does go through quite a few flats a year. The centers wear down faster than the periphery so a dished flat will dress the center of the Matrix stone last, and I think yours didn't get completely dressed. I think all you need to do is dress your stone and it will be fine. Of corse it should have been dressed completely to begin with but these stones do work better after about the 3rd dressing since made so don't be timid about dressing them a few times when new. Again, the ONLY way to dress these stones is with a loose abrasive on a hard flat surface with a little water. Exactly what that loose abrasive is isn't critical but brown aluminum oxide seems to be the best performer, this is what EP sells for these stones. Any other way I have tried to dress the Matrix stones is totally inferior. Oops forgot, a hard stone works very well for maintenance dressing.

I would like to see your photos but until then I have a question. Is the center shinny like in post #159?
 
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Diemaker said:
Again, the ONLY way to dress these stones is with a loose abrasive on a hard flat surface with a little water. Exactly what that loose abrasive is isn't critical but brown aluminum oxide seems to be the best performer, this is what EP sells for these stones. Any other way I have tried to dress the Matrix stones is totally inferior.
Click to expand...

David, I know we've discussed this in the recent past, but are you saying that using a (near equivalent) Shapton Glass stone, in lieu of loose abrasive grit, is no longer a recommended technique as a good way of dressing both? You seemed pretty happy with the method previously.
 
Blues said:
David, I know we've discussed this in the recent past, but are you saying that using a (near equivalent) Shapton Glass stone, in lieu of loose abrasive grit, is no longer a recommended technique as a good way of dressing both? You seemed pretty happy with the method previously.
Click to expand...
Oh shoot, thank you, I forgot about that. Yes a hard stone works very well for maintenance dressing. Which gets me to thinking I wonder if a piece of granite would work as well? I think I am going to have to try it.
 
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