Japanese Knives Would there be interest?
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mpukas
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+1 - I agree with this.
i too am willing to pay a high price for stones like that... thats why i just ordered some ~$600 stones for myself to test out in that lower grit range... i'll keep you guys posted. I have an 800 grit diamond stone that works like a regular stone... needs to be soaked, has great feedback, cuts crazy fast, etc. Its significantly faster than my gesshin 400 for example. Here are the problems i ran into (and i should say i really love this stone and use it all of the time).
1. Its crazy expensive. It was originally going to be $600 each, but i was able to get the price down to $400 each by offering to mount the plates myself. They are each about 3mm thick. However, i havent had time to mount them. I was considering selling them as is, and letting people mount their own, for a bit of a savings. Thoughts?
2. Its stupid fast (i use it to get rid of high and low spots on wide bevels really quick and get rid of 150grit stone scratches). But, it doesnt work well on soft stainless cladding... its too aggressive and rips out chunks of the soft metal cladding. On solid stainless knives its great, as well as all kinds of carbon knives, and if you arent touching the cladding of the soft stainless clad knives, its awesome too. But when it touches soft cladding, pieces of steel go missing.
3. It isnt as dish resistant as the stones i'm talking about in this thread. It still is very dish resistant, but it dishes faster than the type of stones i'm considering here. I also havent found an effective way of flattening this stone... it destroys everything i try to flatten it with. Still working that part though.
In the last 2 years, the aforementioned diamond stone has gotten more use than any other stone i have in my lineup, by a pretty significant degree, so i think it held up quite well. But you will need to manage flatness more than the set being discussed here. Any interest in these ones here? I've got 5 in stock all unmounted as of now.
1. Its crazy expensive. It was originally going to be $600 each, but i was able to get the price down to $400 each by offering to mount the plates myself. They are each about 3mm thick. However, i havent had time to mount them. I was considering selling them as is, and letting people mount their own, for a bit of a savings. Thoughts?
2. Its stupid fast (i use it to get rid of high and low spots on wide bevels really quick and get rid of 150grit stone scratches). But, it doesnt work well on soft stainless cladding... its too aggressive and rips out chunks of the soft metal cladding. On solid stainless knives its great, as well as all kinds of carbon knives, and if you arent touching the cladding of the soft stainless clad knives, its awesome too. But when it touches soft cladding, pieces of steel go missing.
3. It isnt as dish resistant as the stones i'm talking about in this thread. It still is very dish resistant, but it dishes faster than the type of stones i'm considering here. I also havent found an effective way of flattening this stone... it destroys everything i try to flatten it with. Still working that part though.
In the last 2 years, the aforementioned diamond stone has gotten more use than any other stone i have in my lineup, by a pretty significant degree, so i think it held up quite well. But you will need to manage flatness more than the set being discussed here. Any interest in these ones here? I've got 5 in stock all unmounted as of now.
heirkb
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So with these 1k and 6k stones, is the entire thing usable or a small layer on the surface? I ask, because they look about as thick as an average stone. Also, mind elaborating a bit on what to avoid that could potentially ruin such stones? I'd be pretty interested in these if they could be at least close to a lifetime investment (since I don't sharpen nearly as much as you do).
about 1.5-2mm of the surface mounted on an aluminum base
I think people could get many years out of one of them... at least double what some of my other stones last.
As far as "donts" go, i would say dont try to flatten with a diamond plate, dont try tip repairs (ie. grinding in from the spine) on the surface of these, and i think thats about it that i can think of off the top of my head. If other things come to mind, i'll post them here.
I'm hoping that some of the guys who had a chance to try them will chime in with their opinions...
I think people could get many years out of one of them... at least double what some of my other stones last.
As far as "donts" go, i would say dont try to flatten with a diamond plate, dont try tip repairs (ie. grinding in from the spine) on the surface of these, and i think thats about it that i can think of off the top of my head. If other things come to mind, i'll post them here.
I'm hoping that some of the guys who had a chance to try them will chime in with their opinions...
The 1k does sound a bit noisy during use. Part of it is Jon sets his stones up on an incline and I noticed water runs off of this guy pretty quickly. It isn't quite as noisy when it's good n wet. You're also hearing some metal bits. It's pretty aggressive and I felt I got metal bits from the burr coming off quicker than I expected. I also felt feedback was very good. That goes for both stones. It was easy to find the sharpening angle based on the tone change.
As much as I liked the 1k (and it certainly is the more useful stone, imo), I was particularly impressed with the 6k. In combination with the 1k, the edge comes off super aggressive with that special keenness that I only seem to achieve with hard stones. However, it doesn't have the same slippery feel that I've gotten with similar-looking plates from other manufacturers. It really is stone-like in feel. I really enjoyed them quite a bit. On the vid, you can hear the burr come off almost immediately, resulting in that grainy sound. Once the surface is wiped, the grainy sound is gone. If these guys wear anything like other diamond plates of similar build, I can't imagine anyone but a pro sharpener ever using one of these guys up. Another bonus is a couple minutes on the Gesshin syn Aoto and you get a nice kasumi finish on large beveled knives.
Oh yeah. I tried flattening a diamond plate last year that came to me REALLY not flat. My Atoma became a shadow of what it once was.
*deleted
decided to start a new thread
decided to start a new thread
rick alen
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The diamond certainly sounds worth the money, if they do hold up better than other diamond stones. CBN, cubic boron nitride that is, has become a very popular knife sharpening medium as applied to stops, said to be even faster than diamond in knife sharpening use, and does not create deep scratches as diamond is known to. What are the possibilities of making stones in this medium? BTW, I have designed and will soon build a sharpening jig that is like a Wicked Edge on steroids, able to do very acute angles and hold a consistent angle along the entire knife edge. Medium that can be used dry really makes it with this type of setup.
Rick
Rick
i'm not sure i could convince our stone makers to go for it, but we'll see...
Did anything come from this?
yeah... and we're about to do another run of them around the end of this week
I think the follow up question was referring to cubic boron nitride stones rather than diamond.
rick alen
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Yes, and it's interesting that Jon's reply to me had stood unaccompanied for over a year.
I never got around to building my highly flexible precision sharpener, though it was already fully designed. Just too much other stuff going on, as much as I'd like to fool around with this stuff.
Funny also this should come up because just today I was talking to someone who supplies many of those using and selling lapping slurries and compounds for knife and tool sharpening. He told me that his customers here only order diamond from him. I don't know what to make of that as many have said CBN is faster/better than diamond here. Are they simply going elsewhere for their CBN, or what?
BTW, I thought the $300 price tag not only very reasonable, but awesome considering how much better these stones seemed to conventional diamond plates. I personally just don't have any great need of them right at the moment.
Rick
I never got around to building my highly flexible precision sharpener, though it was already fully designed. Just too much other stuff going on, as much as I'd like to fool around with this stuff.
Funny also this should come up because just today I was talking to someone who supplies many of those using and selling lapping slurries and compounds for knife and tool sharpening. He told me that his customers here only order diamond from him. I don't know what to make of that as many have said CBN is faster/better than diamond here. Are they simply going elsewhere for their CBN, or what?
BTW, I thought the $300 price tag not only very reasonable, but awesome considering how much better these stones seemed to conventional diamond plates. I personally just don't have any great need of them right at the moment.
Rick
no clue on the compounds... i dont really use them much. Sorry.
