Unveiling the BYXCO "Black Magic" Honing Plate

[FortyTwoBlades]

I've been experimenting with these for over a year now, and it's finally time to go public with them! Much like sintered alumina ceramic stones, these are ultra-hard fully fused stones produced without binder under enormous heat and pressure until the grains lock together, much like sedimentary stone does in nature. A common issue with alumina ceramics is that since they do not shed grit, the surface does eventually blunt and needs periodic refreshing. While sintered silicon carbide ceramic is no exception to this, its higher hardness reduces the rate of this wear, and its higher friability allows the grains themselves to fracture under pressure to expose fresh surface, which further extends the life of the surface before requiring dressing. Inexpensive lapidary diamond may be used to recondition the surface if necessary, but I have yet to need to do so with any of my test pieces despite using them extensively.

When seeking out a suitable grade of production for my purposes I did end up with some test pieces with significant warps in them that I lapped flat with lapidary diamond on glass, and it worked fantastically, but none of the test pieces have needed resurfacing from honing wear. All I've ever needed to do was wipe steel dust off the surface with the side of my thumb and keep on honing. These have been my finishing stone on almost all of my edged tools, regardless of if they're set up with a coarse slicing edge or a finely polished push-cutting one. They cut almost alarmingly fast for how fine they are, as well.

 

[Justin.P]

Hmmm........ I just might have a little room left in my big drawer of stones, and plates....................

 

[Wowbagger]

Much like sintered alumina ceramic stones . . . much like sedimentary stone

higher friability allows the grains themselves to fracture under pressure to expose fresh surface,

Inexpensive lapidary diamond may be used to recondition the surface if necessary

I'm REALLY liking the sound of that !

All I've ever needed to do was wipe steel dust off the surface with the side of my thumb and keep on honing.

Used dry then ? ? !
Crazy talk

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I'm REALLY liking the sound of that !

Used dry then ? ? !
Crazy talk

I typically use a little water on the surface, but it's not necessary. If you start seeing a lot of steel on the stone, give it a wipe and get back to it. The plates are black, but the grade used for sintering is actually high-purity green when it goes into the process. It's a pretty incredible material, and the results I get off of it have made it a real favorite of mine. I use it for the last few light strokes on all of my knives to really make that apex POP.

 

[Mr.Wizard]

Are these ballistic tiles?

 

[Eli Chaps]

Will they come in different sizes or is that the only option right now?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Are these ballistic tiles?

They're made using a die normally used for ballistic tiles, but they're a different grading of material.

Will they come in different sizes or is that the only option right now?

There will be different sizes in time, but these are the opening offering. The 4x4 size makes honing things like spoke shave irons or broad chisels a snap but the plate remains small enough to hold onto. We'll eventually offer 2x4, 2x8, and puck shapes, but the amount of time it'll take us to release them is uncertain just due to how much of a workload I'm currently dealing with.

 

[hoplite.308]

What is the approximate grit equivalent, in microns?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

What is the approximate grit equivalent, in microns?

Grit rating is kind of irrelevant with sintered materials. Most sintered materials are done in a carefully graded mix to impart various mechanical properties on the resulting fused part. The mix used to produced these plates has a maximum grit size of 12µm with most of the particles being much finer, and the surface produced is quite smooth. You can modulate the effective aggressiveness by lapping the surface with different sizes of diamond grits, but as it comes in the as-fired state it produces a brilliant glossy mirror finish that could probably be estimated as being equivalent to sub-micron finishes.

 

[CasePeanut]

Damn FortyTwoBlades this looks so cool! I love how deeply you think about new products.

Would this plate be a replacement device for the times when a strop and/or lapping film are normally used?

 

[Ourorboros]

So unless the surface is refinished, this is a polishing stone finer than the Shapton 30K with a harder abrasive?
What kind of pricing are we looking at for a 8x2? I assume there is enough clearance to be used in a stone holder.

 

[RadialBladeworks]

Boys, YES. Dude. Baryonyx products are mint. The Manticore, Bullthistle, the frickin' Ptarmigan and full size Arctic Fox are still some of my most frequently used stones. I am stoked to grab one of these!

 

[Mr.Wizard]

FortyTwoBlades It's shocking to think what it costs the taxpayers to armor an APC in these. Thanks for bringing an esoteric offering to market.

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

Grit rating is kind of irrelevant with sintered materials. Most sintered materials are done in a carefully graded mix to impart various mechanical properties on the resulting fused part. The mix used to produced these plates has a maximum grit size of 12µm with most of the particles being much finer, and the surface produced is quite smooth. You can modulate the effective aggressiveness by lapping the surface with different sizes of diamond grits, but as it comes in the as-fired state it produces a brilliant glossy mirror finish that could probably be estimated as being equivalent to sub-micron finishes.

You sound like Sal Glesser.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Damn FortyTwoBlades this looks so cool! I love how deeply you think about new products.

Would this plate be a replacement device for the times when a strop and/or lapping film are normally used?

I generally use it instead of a strop, and use it for finishing with edge-leading strokes. As a final finishing stage I'll just alternate a few light pressure strokes back and forth, but for light touchups, especially of rolled edges, I'll sort of "flutter" the edge back and forth on the stone down the length, then the other side, using slightly heavier pressure, before using finishing strokes.

So unless the surface is refinished, this is a polishing stone finer than the Shapton 30K with a harder abrasive?
What kind of pricing are we looking at for a 8x2? I assume there is enough clearance to be used in a stone holder.

Having no personal experience specifically with a Shapton 30K I can't make that call personally, but you can mirror polish this stuff if you so cared to go through the arduous process of doing so. It gets used for manufacturing aerospace and space telescope mirrors. To alter the surface finish, just change how fine of diamond grit you use for lapping it, and what mode (loose grit vs. plate), since loose grit will work faster and leave a uniform matte-like finish while plates will leave directional scratches but they'll be very shallow, even when using coarse diamond, due to the hardness of the material. You'd want to use a cross-out method of lapping if using diamond plates in progression to make sure you eliminated all of the scratches of the previous grit. As far as pricing on the 8x2, we'll be using a slightly different manufacturing method to produce that piece from a different manufacturing supplier, but it'll have to wait just a little while longer because it's most economical at larger volume, but we should be able to produce them competitively with the 4x4 plates once we get there. Using the stock 4x4 dies helps us in getting this little project off the ground, but it also is a useful size/dimension in its own right that I've grown to appreciate when honing woodworking tools.

You sound like Sal Glesser.

Well, the man knows his stuff, and to the best of my knowledge he was the pioneer in sintered ceramic stones for knife and tool honing applications.

 

[Ourorboros]

I suppose I should have asked, how fine is the initial finish?
And not to push, but what is the ETA for the 8x2. Not holding you to it, I know delays are common. But ballpark.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I actually did answer that question in post #9 above.

As far as a timeline, I have no realistic estimate to give to you at this point in time, other than they're on the to-do list. There are too many unknown variables at play at the moment to make any sort of meaningful prediction. Could be very soon, could be much longer. New product development takes time. Sometimes triple or quadruple the time originally anticipated. Which is why I usually don't mention stuff that's in the works unless it's already being worked on with significant progress made and a somewhat foreseeable release date range. There's a lot going on behind the scenes here.

 

[Ourorboros]

I thought that in standard sizes, sub-micron could be 1/2 micron or 1/4 micron. Or even finer.
I suppose I could finish one side differently, but this does affect what my preceding stone would be.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Again, actual grit size is irrelevant, so comparison based on micron size isn't really straightforward, especially since the grain size is only one of a multitude of factors that impact the resulting edge finish. But the finish produced with the as-fired surface finish of the stone is a bright mirror. You can consider it similar to a Spyderco Ultrafine or finer. The issue here is you're asking an apples question when we're dealing with oranges, if that makes sense. I realize you're looking for info that can help you figure out where it fits in a progression, but all I can tell you is that it produces a bright mirror finish. I can try taking a piece of steel, mirror polishing it, and then rubbing it on the plate to show the finish, though. I'll just need to find something appropriately hard since that does matter in polishing work. I think I have some appropriate scrap, though.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I just took a beater contractor chisel (literally one of those ones with a steel cap on the end for hammering on with a steel hammer) that's an estimated 56-58 RC and polished up the back with my belt grinder up to a cross-hatched X pattern on a cork belt loaded with black emery grit. It produced a slightly streaky mirror finish. There were some rust pits just behind the edge that I didn't bother with grinding out, and some coarse scratches around the periphery I didn't bother with either, because what we were going for here is just making at least a patch of pretty high polish and then seeing how the Black Magic plate with an as-fired finish affects it, not actually getting the back perfectly flat; I can worry about that later and leave it at a lower polish when I do--the beveled face is butt ugly and it'd be putting lipstick on a pig when this chisel's used for rough work. You can see the emery polish here, with photos showing both the polish and the scratches themselves:

Now we have after. The plate, being completely rigid, only hit the high points on the surface, while the cushion of the cork belt had conformed to the surface a bit. The glare in the first image is highlighting the region polished by the Black Magic plate. The faint scratches of the emery grit were completely removed by the fore-to-aft finer scratches:

Nice clean reflection:

Trying to capture the fine fore-to-aft scratches. It wasn't easy to find an angle where they reflected well enough for the camera to capture it easily:

The auto-focus actually kept trying to focus on my shirt in the reflection.

Another photo of the reflection at the tip in the region polished by the Black Magic plate:

Edit: corrected minor typo.