Where are Sharpal stones manufactured?

mikey488

mikey488

Gold Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2006
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I've been looking at Sharpal diamond pucks and stones, and can't find a statement anywhere of where the products are actually made. The company is based in California. Does anyone know if the product itself is manufactured here in the USA, or somewhere else? Product packaging is unmarked. There is no information that I can find on the company website or on product descriptions. Thanks.
 
mikey488 said:
I've been looking at Sharpal diamond pucks and stones, and can't find a statement anywhere of where the products are actually made. The company is based in California. Does anyone know if the product itself is manufactured here in the USA, or somewhere else? Product packaging is unmarked. There is no information that I can find on the company website or on product descriptions. Thanks.
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Amazon Q&A one response claims they're made in USA.
I've been wondering why nobody made a diamond plated puck, pretty cool, might have to pick one up...
 
I just heard from the Mfg.
"It is designed and engineered by SHARPAL team in CA, manufactured in SHARPAL’s fully owned facility in Shanghai, China to SHARPAL quality standards." :(
 
mikey488 said:
I just heard from the Mfg.
"It is designed and engineered by SHARPAL team in CA, manufactured in SHARPAL’s fully owned facility in Shanghai, China to SHARPAL quality standards." :(
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Well, I already placed an order for a puck...TBH I've had pretty good luck with recent diamond plated items coming out of China. I buy American when I can, but in this case none of the domestic mfgs make a diamond puck anyway.
 
I'm trying very hard to buy USA made when ever possible, even if it costs more. Hope you have good results from the Sharpal puck. Let us know how it performs and holds up HeavyHanded.
 
No pics at this point, but I did receive the puck and gave it a try on one of my Fiskars hatchets. The coarse side is plenty coarse - at least a XC DMT though I expect it to mellow as time goes on. The 600 grit was not quite a DMT fine, but again it will probably mellow back to something close.

Got my hatchet shaving arm hair off the fine side with very little fuss. The disk is held in place by friction fit and strong magnet. Easy enough to pop it out but isn't going anywhere once its in place. The holder has recesses in the plastic that could hold a piece of compound, some fishing line, a few waterproof matches, ibuprofen etc.

The disk itself could make a handy pocket combination plate - too heavy for wallet carry though. All in all is OK out of the box, time will tell. I'll sharpen up a few more of my second string choppers and work up to some of my better ones.
 
Couple pics to go with the initial impressions. This time I sharpened up the X7 second gen Fiskars. Did a solid job and right quick. Started with circular pattern on the coarse side, switched to a back and forth on the fine side - again edge was shaving arm hairs.
Smeared some compound on a smooth piece of wood and the edge was just about tree-topping arm hair.

A chunk of ferro rod or magnesium, a few ibuprofen, benedryl, maybe H2O treatment tabs, chunk of compound - I like that there is built in storage.

All in all am pretty happy, I consider this an upgrade.


off the fine side:
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pckHZvzl.jpg


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I find the use of coarse diamond stones on steel tools an unusual choice overall, and especially so on a puck. Most tools that are sharpened using puck stones aren't high carbide, and coarse stones are often subjected to high pressure, which diamond plates don't do particularly well with. But I guess if folks just prefer the feel of 'em that's fine. It's just...an odd choice to me.
 
FortyTwoBlades FortyTwoBlades
While I agree in some respects, there are definitely times when these tools get beat up enough to justify a coarse surface. Use of diamond definitely not needed, but it will eliminate possibility of glazing or plugging and water optional. Very little pressure needed to get it grinding fast.

Time will tell if it holds onto the diamonds on that coarse side, I've had hit and miss luck in that dept even with DMT products.
 
HeavyHanded said:
FortyTwoBlades FortyTwoBlades
While I agree in some respects, there are definitely times when these tools get beat up enough to justify a coarse surface. Use of diamond definitely not needed, but it will eliminate possibility of glazing or plugging and water optional. Very little pressure needed to get it grinding fast.

Time will tell if it holds onto the diamonds on that coarse side, I've had hit and miss luck in that dept even with DMT products.
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The use of a coarse stone isn't what I find curious. It's the use of coarse diamond specifically. There are contexts where coarse diamond abrasives make sense, but it's mostly for stuff like abrading ceramics and stone. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
The use of a coarse stone isn't what I find curious. It's the use of coarse diamond specifically. There are contexts where coarse diamond abrasives make sense, but it's mostly for stuff like abrading ceramics and stone. :)
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As long as the user doesn't use too much pressure and the steel isn't too soft diamond works very well, and doesn't wear away like a stone.
 
Thanks for your impressions and the review of the puck. I do hope the diamonds stay on the puck. Time will tell. Keep us posted please.
 
Diemaker said:
As long as the user doesn't use too much pressure and the steel isn't too soft diamond works very well, and doesn't wear away like a stone.
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That's what I'm saying, though. In the coarse range of sharpening it's common for people to be tempted to apply firm pressure to increase the speed of the work. That's to be avoided with diamond plates, and leads to premature wear, but it's commonplace for the average user not to exercise such restraint. So it nevertheless represents a case of using diamonds outside their best range of use. The chief place for coarse diamonds with regards to ferrous tools, in my opinion, is in low-profile portable stones. Overall I'm not saying that this tool isn't potentially useful, and there may be some cases where it's of distinct benefit, but that those circumstances are unusual for the kind of tools usually sharpened using puck-style sharpening stones.
 
Definitely my tendency with my SiC pucks is to get on it when using the coarse side. This also leads to me dunking it often in whatever water is available and the stone plugging/glazing a bit over time.

This puck felt initially like it was skating a little, I just kept at it with light pressure and sure enough it started to feel sticky as it finally cut to its depth and started really grinding. Just gotta stay patient. This is helped by bringing the puck to the work, just have to keep it nimble on the bit (how's that for a phrase!) and not succumb to leaning on it.

Ultimately will work up to using it on my Rinaldi - which is higher RC than the Fiskars based on how little a fine file can catch on it. I have an older Ontario machete that IIRC is run to higher RC than the typical Tram or Condor and that will make a nice test as well.
 
Yeah Rinaldi runs 58 RC so a lot of files skate off 'em. Only Stella Bianca files manage to bite, of the ones I've tried. And those are so hard that I can't use them to file-test oil-quenched O1.
 
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