Unveiling the BYXCO "Black Magic" Honing Plate

This is something I would be up for trying. I have a .05" kerf diamond blade that has lost its tension so is no good for production sawing, but works great at cutting down carbide end mills. The hardest material I have tried cutting so far was some ceramic balls out of my milling machines spindle, I asked for the bearings back when I got it rebuilt last. It cut it but they were pretty hard.
 
Quick update on my experience so far with my 2x4 plate. Out of the box I was impressed with its cutting speed. It was definitely cutting rather than burnishing which is a problem I have with some AlOx sintered ceramics. However the edge finish it was leaving was pretty coarse, like a 1k finish, not the near mirror I was hoping for based on some pictures that were posted here. I ordered some 1 micron diamond powder to refinish the surface, but the lapping process revealed that the plate was not flat. I went down to some coarser abrasives, but after little success and further examination I discovered the plate was warped and/or bowed. I'm still trying to work with it, but the plate is very hard to grind. So I'm not giving up, and I can't draw any conclusions about this plates potential performance until I can get it flat, but for $80 I'm a little frustrated and disappointed.
 
Last edited:
Baron Mind said:
Quick update on my experience so far with my 2x4 plate. Out of the box I was impressed with its cutting speed. It was definitely cutting rather than burnishing which is a problem I have with some AlOx sintered ceramics. However the edge finish it was leaving was pretty coarse, like a 1k finish, not the near mirror I was hoping for based on some pictures that were posted here. I ordered some 1 micron diamond powder to refinish the surface, but the lapping process revealed that the plate was not flat. I went down to some coarser abrasives, but after little success and further examination I discovered the plate was warped and/or bowed. I'm still trying to work with it, but the plate is very hard to grind. So I'm not giving up, and I can't draw any conclusions about this plates potential performance until I can get it flat, but for $80 I'm a little frustrated and disappointed.
Click to expand...

It's specifically noted in the item description that if extreme flatness is needed that lapping is required. All sintered ceramics that aren't surface-machined post firing will have a certain amount of warp to them. This degree of irregularity is smaller than that of most bonded abrasives after a handful of strokes have been made on them, and so doesn't have a meaningful impact on the sharpening performance for most cutting tools.

You should be getting a high polish off of it, and it may be possible that you're scraping the bevel on the edges of the stone, which may leave a more coarse finish due to the mechanical nature of how sintered ceramics perform. If that's difficult for you to achieve, soften the edges of the stone a bit with a fine diamond plate. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
It's specifically noted in the item description that if extreme flatness is needed that lapping is required. All sintered ceramics that aren't surface-machined post firing will have a certain amount of warp to them. This degree of irregularity is smaller than that of most bonded abrasives after a handful of strokes have been made on them, and so doesn't have a meaningful impact on the sharpening performance for most cutting tools.

You should be getting a high polish off of it, and it may be possible that you're scraping the bevel on the edges of the stone, which may leave a more coarse finish due to the mechanical nature of how sintered ceramics perform. If that's difficult for you to achieve, soften the edges of the stone a bit with a fine diamond plate. :)
Click to expand...

Hmm, idk, it's just for a hard finishing stone thats purpose is to put on that final crisp clean apex, I would think extreme flatness would pretty much be a necessity.

I mean I understand this is a brand new, never been done before kind of product, and that manufacturing and machining them are probably super expensive to begin with, and that lapping them would add even more to the price, but given its extreme hardness, flattening them at home is highly difficult proposition.

Like I said I'm still evaluating and experimenting, and still think it's a great concept, I'm just a bit flustered. And sorry, maybe a private message would have been a better place to voice my concerns than a public forum.
 
No worries. Flattening does take time, but it's ultimately not too bad. Just use coarse diamond lapidary grit to start and take it from there. I lapped a considerably larger plate of a sample material that had a pretty severe "groove" distortion in it and it did take several hours of grinding, but you should be able to lap smaller plates with more typical surface distortions in only an hour or two. Then bring it up to your desired surface texture using either loose grit for a more matte finish that's more aggressive-cutting or use a diamond plate for a smoother, glassier surface. Extreme flatness is only needed for finishing precision edges like straight razors and the like. Otherwise, the degree of variation caused by a freehand stroke is already introducing inconsistencies in the angle with which the blade and stone interface, and like I said, the degree to which the plates are out of flat in as-fired condition is equal to or less than the degree to which most stones (especially soft ones like water stones) will be after very little use. Machining to dead flat would increase the cost by a decent amount (consider the price jump from a Spyderco fine to an ultrafine--they're the same material, but the latter is machined) and the base material itself is quite costly, so with that in mind it made the most sense to offer it with the surfaces in the as-fired state and if people needed greater precision they could supply their own labor, greatly increasing the accessibility of the stone, since that degree of flatness isn't needed for most applications. My personal user plates are totally stock, not lapped, and I use them for touching up all of my knives without issue. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
No worries. Flattening does take time, but it's ultimately not too bad. Just use coarse diamond lapidary grit to start and take it from there. I lapped a considerably larger plate of a sample material that had a pretty severe "groove" distortion in it and it did take several hours of grinding, but you should be able to lap smaller plates with more typical surface distortions in only an hour or two. Then bring it up to your desired surface texture using either loose grit for a more matte finish that's more aggressive-cutting or use a diamond plate for a smoother, glassier surface. Extreme flatness is only needed for finishing precision edges like straight razors and the like. Otherwise, the degree of variation caused by a freehand stroke is already introducing inconsistencies in the angle with which the blade and stone interface, and like I said, the degree to which the plates are out of flat in as-fired condition is equal to or less than the degree to which most stones (especially soft ones like water stones) will be after very little use. Machining to dead flat would increase the cost by a decent amount (consider the price jump from a Spyderco fine to an ultrafine--they're the same material, but the latter is machined) and the base material itself is quite costly, so with that in mind it made the most sense to offer it with the surfaces in the as-fired state and if people needed greater precision they could supply their own labor, greatly increasing the accessibility of the stone, since that degree of flatness isn't needed for most applications. My personal user plates are totally stock, not lapped, and I use them for touching up all of my knives without issue. :)
Click to expand...

That makes sense. My Hope's and dreams have been to find the perfect ceramic style stone to finish my progression with, with the last stone in the 3 micron range, without setting back the polish and capable of cutting high wear resistant steels relatively well. I'll keep working on flattening the plate and tailoring the finish to my preference. Thanks
 
For doing the bulk of the flattening I recommend a coarse diamond lapidary grit on plate glass. Works MUCH faster than using even a very coarse diamond plate. :thumbsup:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top