Low grit Japanese water stones great for stock removal & edge repairing?

J

J-P SAN

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Apr 23, 2013
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Some people may have noticed that recently I have made more than one posts about medias that remove steel quickly. I'm currently at situation where I sharpen a lot other peoples knives and enjoy it. However Once in a while (read: all the time) I get to work with heavily damaged, dinged, chipped, forgotten blades. I got lansky with extra coarse diamond stone which COULD be used to set the bevel. However the lansky set has its limitations ( blade has to have flat stock, big blades and so on) and I have tried to use it in extensive use with tricks trying to eliminate cons put it remains poor system for big jobs, such as trying to reprofile pushdagger made by (suprise, suprise..) United cutlery, which appears to have 80 or 90 degrees inclusive bevel. Made from cheap stainless it still manages to be huge job because the sheer amount of steel. Tried that push dagger in freehand sharpening with my 220 AlOx stone and had quicker results. However it still took too much time and effort for my taste. Now I know more than well that sharpening is slow proscess and a hobby of a patient person. BUT I'd more rather spent more time progressing grits and polishing the edge than setting the actual bevel. Add to that I have bunch of knives to sharpen at same day, which are all in poor condition.
Now to the actual question: how good are low grit japanese style whetstones at stock removal edge repairing? Next step from that might be getting work sharp or tormek, but I enjoy freehanding a lot more. Edge pro also seems tempting, but I'm concerned about how long such slim stones will last, as they are relatively expensive.
 
I work on lots of damaged blades. For a while I was using the DMT XXC 8x3" diasharp plate. It cuts steel very quickly; much more quickly than any other stone I've personally used. It was a revelation for me. But it's still slow when you have a lot of stock to remove. The Work Sharp Ken Onion removes steel much faster with a low grit belt (like a 60 grit for example), but can still take a while depending on the job. It really depends on how much regrinding you are doing. On a lot of blades, I really feel like I'm completely redoing what the factory should have done to the edge.

I also have the Nubatama Bamboo 150 grit waterstone. It's "fast", but not nearly as fast as the DMT XXC and doesn't begin to compare to a 60 grit belt on the WSKO.

Brian.
 
So you would rate dmt xxc better steel remover than japanese whetstones? Elitist in me would love freehand stone that could remove tons of steel in quick succession, but lately I've started to think that powered system would serve my needs much more. Can you use basic WSKO freehand way without any add ons like blade grinder?
 
J-P SAN said:
So you would rate dmt xxc better steel remover than japanese whetstones?
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In my experience, yes. Ken Schwartz sells a 24 grit Nubatama Ume that probably outperforms the DMT XXC, except that the DMT will cut any steel and I'm not sure about the 24 grit.

Can you use basic WSKO freehand way without any add ons like blade grinder?
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That's how I use it; I've never used the guide. I have a little setup I use to hold it in place with some shelf liner and a baking sheet. I did a youtube video of my using it to sharpen blade. I think it's a fantastic system.

Brian.
 
The 140 Atoma with the 150 Bamboo Nubatama is an excellent combination. But even here it has it's limits. If you just have a bunch of metal to remove there's the 24 grit Nubatama Bamboo. It can remove a serious amount of metal. You would clean up the scratch pattern with the 60 Nubatama or an Atoma 140. I'm sure there are high vanadium steels that would laugh at the 24 grit Nubatama too. Past that I have a 60 grit diamond plate I use that tears metal pretty rapidly. and some 165 micron diamond film that's rougher than the Atoma 140.

If you want to remove more metal than that ceramic or diamond belts do a good job depending on the steel. I save the diamond belts for uber steels like Rex121. At this point you need a serious grinder. a 60 grit belt on a 1x30 is a toy and a 2x72 with a 24, 36 or 60 grit ceramic belt with over 1.5 hp is the best solution. 24 grit belts BLOW grit off themselves and I find 36 or 60 grit belts hold up much better.

I wouldn't recommend the Ken Onion unit for heavy stock removal. The motor is not for heavy continuous duty and you run the risk of just burning up the unit.

So for most repairs the 150 Bamboo + 140 Atoma works quite well, but I've laid out some more aggressive solutions. Of course 'stock removal' has different meanings from getting some small chips out to turning a chef's knife into a paring knife.

---
Ken
 
Is EPAs 120 or 220 grit stones powerful enough to handle tough jobs? Might end up buying the system. Any 'freehand guys' here that use EPA?
 
So stones mentioned before (DMT, Nubatama, Atoma) would fit my said need better than EPA? They would at least outperform my coarse side of stones anyway, because all my coarse ones cost less than 5$ and are from auto part shop. Not that amount of money would define quality, but I would strongly bet on that. Though edges that EPA produces are quite sight to marvel at.. Still it's addictive to get that hair popping, silently cutting edge by freehand.
 
I'm going to have to look into some of these suggestions.
My current experience is that I'm better off with a belt sander and coarse belt - tends to make fewer deep scratches. My current hand stone solution is an 80 grit norton boat stone that cost me 12 bucks.
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Works pretty good, I used it to convert a few overbuilt sabre grinds to full convex entirely by hand, have also used it to reshape a few AlumOx combination stones into cigar stones. Is still no fun and slow compared to a belt sander, but I have more control and no worries about HT.
 
J-P SAN said:
So stones mentioned before (DMT, Nubatama, Atoma) would fit my said need better than EPA? They would at least outperform my coarse side of stones anyway, because all my coarse ones cost less than 5$ and are from auto part shop. Not that amount of money would define quality, but I would strongly bet on that. Though edges that EPA produces are quite sight to marvel at.. Still it's addictive to get that hair popping, silently cutting edge by freehand.
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I use the EPP with aftermarket Shapton, Nubatama and Atoma stones. Makes short work of even the worst jobs.

The average user is going to be quite happy with the Atoma 140/150 Nubatama combo , however if your dealing with lots of knives that come to you without even a bevel or anything then some more horsepower is nice. I have the 24 and 60 grit Nubatama stones. The 24 in particular is a beast of a stone. Being hard stones with hard binders they also last a long time for such coarse stones making them a worthwhile investment if you feel they are necessary.
 
Sadden said:
I use the EPP with aftermarket Shapton, Nubatama and Atoma stones. Makes short work of even the worst jobs.

The average user is going to be quite happy with the Atoma 140/150 Nubatama combo , however if your dealing with lots of knives that come to you without even a bevel or anything then some more horsepower is nice. I have the 24 and 60 grit Nubatama stones. The 24 in particular is a beast of a stone. Being hard stones with hard binders they also last a long time for such coarse stones making them a worthwhile investment if you feel they are necessary.
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where do you buy Shapton, Atoma, and Nubatama stones? I live in Finland and I did not find any from amazon. do you know any site that would ship into Finland?
 
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