So, I'm getting some diamond stones, what else do I need?

H

_habit_

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http://knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=DMTD6F

and

http://knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=DMTD6E


What else do I need? I guess a really high magnifying... magnifier? What's all this I hear about strops? I already have a cheapo knife to practice on. All in all I'd like to stick to the basic (read: cheap) essentials.


Anyways, all help is appreciated, so thanks guys!



P.S. I'm looking into getting some paracord for lanyard making, should I go with the 100 or 50 ft. hank? I'm thinking black and either red or dark green... anyone know where I can get it on the cheap, without killer shipping costs ($10 from 1sks)?
 
You don't really need anything else. If your eyes are good you don't need a magnifier, if you are farsighted almost any magnifier is enough. Get a nice black marker to color your bevel before you hone. That will let you see where you are removing material. Go get some junk kitchen knives at a Goodwill or Salvation army store and practice on them.

The hones will be a little rough and uneven at first. The hone grit may be uniform in size, but they will project upwards unevenly. With use the tallest grit will wear down to match the majority of the lower grit. The hone will not seem to be cutting as fast, but it will give you a much better edge at that point.

Stropping can be as simple as lightly stroking your finished edge along an old belt. If you have a very hard stainless blade you may have mixed results with simple stropping. Your extra-fine diamond hone will leave a fine edge with just a slight bit of roughness from the diamond grit. It will push cut and slice well. If you want to make a quick strop apply some abrasive to the back of a pad of paper. I like to use around a .5 to 1.0 micron abrasive from a rock shop. I use diamond, but aluminum-oxide or silicon carbide would work. Be sure to use light pressure in the later stages of your honing and when you strop. The edge is very thin and easy to damage at that point.
 
Well, I guess I can get along without a magnification device (we've got your average magnifying glasses lying around here somewhere, probably 2-3X magnification anyways).

As far as stropping goes, it will be VG-10 and Sandvik steel, how will that fair?


I've pretty much answered my own questions about paracord... red and black I like, and red is easy to spot if I should somehow lose the knife (you ever drop a dark purple guitar pick on a persian rug? It's gone forever...)... a mix of glow in the dark, red and black would be cool, but possibly difficult to make into a knife lanyard. Gonna go with 100' since it's not that much more expensive.
 
Just a note on the Diamond hones if you haven't heard it already. Go easy on the hones, nice light pressure, or you can scrape the diamond off he backing media, even with the nice DMTs. I speak from experience on this one, hate to admit it but I scraped a DMT darn near bear before I got straightened out. Nice light pressure and let the abrasives do their job. Once you get the feel for them, they are awesome sharpening surfaces.

Syn
 
I'd tend to recommend a 10X magnifier really strongly because it will solve a lot of problems with troublesome knives. It lets you look right at the edge itself and see the nature (or lack of) burr in detail. You can do it by eye and light, with experience, but the magnifier lets a complete novice solve many problems immediately.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
I'd tend to recommend a 10X magnifier really strongly because it will solve a lot of problems with troublesome knives. It lets you look right at the edge itself and see the nature (or lack of) burr in detail. You can do it by eye and light, with experience, but the magnifier lets a complete novice solve many problems immediately.

-Cliff
Click to expand...


Good point... one probably would help a lot... now to find one on the cheap lol

synghyn said:
Just a note on the Diamond hones if you haven't heard it already. Go easy on the hones, nice light pressure, or you can scrape the diamond off he backing media, even with the nice DMTs. I speak from experience on this one, hate to admit it but I scraped a DMT darn near bear before I got straightened out. Nice light pressure and let the abrasives do their job. Once you get the feel for them, they are awesome sharpening surfaces.

Syn
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've heard that before, but I'm glad you reminded me :)
 
1200 grid diamond benchstone should be enough for practical sharpness. Because anyway sharpness better then this will goes away to 1200 grid level almost after first few cuts.

If you like super sharpness - get mdf and diamond powders.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Cliff Stamp said:
I'd tend to recommend a 10X magnifier really strongly because it will solve a lot of problems with troublesome knives. It lets you look right at the edge itself and see the nature (or lack of) burr in detail. You can do it by eye and light, with experience, but the magnifier lets a complete novice solve many problems immediately.

-Cliff
Click to expand...
It's surprising how much a really bright light can reveal. I use a 100 lumen LED flashlight to examine blades, and imperfections fairly leap off under that light.
 
Try this link for paracord. www.supplycaptain.com

I couldn't located shipping cost, but I have purchased 100ft lengths in 3 different colors and the quality was good. I don't recall that the S&H was unreasonable.

Go with the 100ft length, depending on what you are making, you could be using several feet at a time. It's kind of like duct tape... good to have/never enought.

mike
 
Both VG-10 and Sandvik are fine-grained steels and will respond to stropping. The Sandvik will respond to almost anything (it doesn't have much in the way of alloying elements). The VG-10 will also improve, but if you strop too much or with too much pressure you may notice a decrease in sharpness. Only strop lightly and briefly. If you want better results add some hard honing compound and strop on a harder surface. You don't want to push your edge down into your strop, just glide along the surface. A harder strop will keep your edge acute.
 
maclight said:
Try this link for paracord. www.supplycaptain.com

I couldn't located shipping cost, but I have purchased 100ft lengths in 3 different colors and the quality was good. I don't recall that the S&H was unreasonable.

Go with the 100ft length, depending on what you are making, you could be using several feet at a time. It's kind of like duct tape... good to have/never enought.

mike
Click to expand...


They do have pretty good prices... I assume they're a reliable site?

Anyone know of 10x magnifiers at knifecenter.com? I'd like to put everything together when it comes to shipping... unless that's something I could find at my local Hobbytown USA?

Jeff Clark said:
Both VG-10 and Sandvik are fine-grained steels and will respond to stropping. The Sandvik will respond to almost anything (it doesn't have much in the way of alloying elements). The VG-10 will also improve, but if you strop too much or with too much pressure you may notice a decrease in sharpness. Only strop lightly and briefly. If you want better results add some hard honing compound and strop on a harder surface. You don't want to push your edge down into your strop, just glide along the surface. A harder strop will keep your edge acute.
Click to expand...

Hmm... is there any way I can strop without spending any more money, and if the knives aren't going to stay super sharp very long, is there really any reason to strop?
 
If you can find a rock shop they sell polishing abrasive by the pound. A quarter pound is maybe a couple bucks and will last forever. You want something like 50,000 grit. Mix up some in some vaseline, mineral oil, toothpaste or whatever you have handy. Rub it into the cardboard backing of a pad of 8.5x11 paper. If you wanted to round off some contours while stropping you might want the cardboard attached to a 100 sheets of paper (so that it has a softer support). If you want to keep your stropping maximally flat you might remove all of the paper from the pad and lay the cardboard on a rigid counter top. I often take smooth plastic viewgraph material (which is somewhat stiff as well as smooth) and put my compound on top of that and lay it on top of a pad of paper. There are lots of things you can do to create a strop.

The primary reason to do this is to have a bragging edge that really does a slick job of shaving arm hair. You can really peg your sharpening geek-o-meter with this type of edge. For practical purposes the edge that you get straight from your extra-fine diamond hone is great. You might lightly brush it on some leather for about 4 light strokes and have an extremely efficient edge.
 
I think, what I may do is just get used to sharpening in general, then once I get decent at it, I'll get a loupe and strop (or a makeshift strop), and learn to use those as well, because it seems like the most important thing now is figuring out how to sharpen freehand.


And my order is already over $150, then like $20 for paracord.
 
One thing I should mention: My current knife, a Kershaw Leek, has gotten pretty beaten up, to the point where I'm thinking I made need to start it out on a coarse stone, however I'm not going to be ordering a coarse stone, so should I just send it in and have it sharpened/replaced? My plan was to learn on crappy knives, move up to the leek, and throw an edge on part of the back for fun, then send it in and have it replaced with one of the newer steel (right now I have a 440A, it would be replaced with a Sandvik one).

Anyways, what do you more knowledgeable people think?
 
A new fine-grit diamond hone should be adequate for anything that I can imagine you've done to a Leek. Diamond hones cut faster than others, particularly when new. A Leek is not very long so the work should go fast. If you look at the attached table (click to expand) you will see that a fine grit diamond hone cuts faster than a coarse grit aluminum oxide hone and around as fast as a medium grit silicon carbide hone, but leaves a finer finish than either of them.
 

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Jeff Clark said:
A new fine-grit diamond hone should be adequate for anything that I can imagine you've done to a Leek. Diamond hones cut faster than others, particularly when new. A Leek is not very long so the work should go fast. If you look at the attached table (click to expand) you will see that a fine grit diamond hone cuts faster than a coarse grit aluminum oxide hone and around as fast as a medium grit silicon carbide hone, but leaves a finer finish than either of them.
Click to expand...


So then coarse and extra coarse stones would be for like if I wanted to reprofile D-2 steel or something? I guess that makes sense anyways... don't know how I got into my mind that a coarse stone would be the only thing that would cut it.

Anyways, thanks.
 
Jeff, that table never made any sense to me for hand honing. I think it assumes very light pressure. For regrinding I have always found diamonds much slower than waterstones because of the inability to use them with heavy force.

-Cliff
 
Hi Cliff, I never considered that chart to be gospel, it just gives you some general ideas of how things work. There are also different families of waterstones which have remarkably different grit grading. I don't really like the coarse waterstones or the coarse diamond hones much. I have better luck with the coarse diamond hones, but they both sort of set my teeth on edge. It reminds me of honing on a sidewalk. I would rather use a 60-grit sanding belt than a 120 grit waterstone.

Habit, As long as you don't have a large or thick blade you would probably do pretty well using a fine diamond hone on a D2 blade. You notice the difference the most when you have a lot of material to remove. I particularly like diamond hones on D2.
 
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