Atoma vs DMT scratch pattern.

I recently switched to an Atoma diamond plate to sharpen my chisels and I'm very happy with it. It's fast, consistent, the back of a chisel doesn't stick to the plate and it produces a great edge. However, the Atoma isn't suited for sharpening small chisels. It's difficult with a small chisel to keep the bevel flat on the plate because of how the diamonds are clustered. A small chisel also has the tendency to get in between the diamond clusters. So to sharpen my small chisels I bought the DMT credit card sharpener. This way I can hold the little plate in my left hand and the chisel in my right hand and that makes it much easier to sharpen a small chisel. I've broken in the DMT on a scrap piece of metal and it's performing nicely now. But there is a huge difference in the scratch patterns left behind by the 2 plates. The Atoma is very consistent while the DMT produces a wild scratch pattern. Another thing is that even the back of the 18mm chisel in the picture wants to stick to the DMT. Other than that it performs well enough and I don't notice any difference in sharpness produced by the 2 plates.

Small gouges & V chisels I use slip stones. Would also use on the job to sharpen my ice carving tools. I have coarse, medium, & fine stones in a sectioned pouch.