What are your favorite silicon carbide stones?
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The worst thing is to be reminded that you have stones you have bought, and never used. You reminded me that I bought Gritomatic 120, 600, and 1200 Sic stones, and never used them. Any experiments you'd like me to do with them? I'm now eager to put them into play.
M1k3
Senior Member
Crystolon and Sigma 240.
spaceconvoy
Senior Member
I haven't tried many SiC stones, but I like the King Neo 800
Why you interested in silicon carbide?
mojo
New Member
Jovidah
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That looks like an Arashiyama to me... and to my knowledge neither is a silicon carbide stone.
mojo
New Member
There is silicone carbide in most manufactured stones.. this is made by Imanishi in Japan.. they also are known for their natural stones..
I didn't have any experiments in mind, but I'd be interested in seeing what you do with them if you do run any experiments. What were you planning on sharpening with them when you bought them?
To try something new, and to learn more about stones. From what I understand, all but one of my knives at this time are sharpenable with alumina stones, so this isn't an "I need stronger abrasives" situation so far.
From what I understand so far, the only SiC stone I have is the Sigma Power Select II 1000. It sees pretty much no use at the moment, as my Naniwa 800 can handle most all sharpening (and I haven't yet had to sharpen the one exception, a CPM-S30V knife; from what I read, that steel all but requires cubic boron nitride or else diamonds).
Hmm interested to see what you think. I've never tried any SiC stones from what I've heard SiC is more friable it could be kinda interesting for polishing stones.
At 4% vanadium, S30V resides at the border between ceramics and diamond. It doesn't require CBN or diamond but lots of folks will find those abrasives faster, especially if they aren't used to higher vanadium alloys.
Norton Crystolon and the Baryonyx offerings are excellent. But these are coarse stones.
The Sigma Power Select II 1000 is a dark-blue soaking-stone that definitely releases a lot of abrasive in use (if one uses it for "mundane" steels, one will be flushing a lot of material away). I've heard that it's good for "super-steels" where releasing more abrasive can be useful, but I have yet to try it out for such use at this time.
If you're looking for polishing stones made of SiC, I believe the Suehiro G8 8000 might fit the description of what you seek. However, I have no experience with it (my current 8k is a Naniwa Fuji, which to my knowledge is a resinoid alumina stone).
However, I currently have no way of identifying for myself what stones are made of which abrasives; it's all hearsay to/from me.
The Norton Crystolon Coarse n Fine has got to be top of the pile - it's a superb stone. I also like the SSII 1k a lot (haven't tried others in the range).
As @mojo mentioned above - many but not all Japanese synthetic stones actually mix AlOx and SiC, though it's a bit difficult to find info about what exactly different companies are using.
To be brutally honest, I doubt it matters all that much. SiC seems to be the preferred option for super low grit stones, but after that it probably isn't that noticeable. I haven't done any direct comparisons though, so could be completely wrong.
As @mojo mentioned above - many but not all Japanese synthetic stones actually mix AlOx and SiC, though it's a bit difficult to find info about what exactly different companies are using.
To be brutally honest, I doubt it matters all that much. SiC seems to be the preferred option for super low grit stones, but after that it probably isn't that noticeable. I haven't done any direct comparisons though, so could be completely wrong.
The_Real_Self
Well-Known Member
The part about SiC being in most stones I don't believe is entirely factual. In face, the vast majority of stones from Japan are made using Aluminum Oxide as the abrasive material. Now, I know in the United States that may be the other way around and SiC may be more common here.
Case_D
Member
The King Neo 800 is one of my favorites. For fixing broken stuff, I use the Baryonyx Manticore when I don’t have access to a belt grinder. It's a 60 grit SiC stone. Comes in a few styles. There's also the American Mutt by the same brand. It's a mix of different sizes of AlOx and SiC. Good edge for farm tools
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I tried out the 120 for thinning. It was quite effective, but I was a bit shocked by the depth of the scratches, compared to, say, Shapton Pro 120. So I have not revisited.
Another vote for King Neo 800, I have ST3 and it is huge, a very serious brick works very well on stainless knives many friends give me to sharpen.
JustAnotherJoe
Hobbyist
Did you manage to get an idea of how quickly it dishes?
Oh, and on the subject of SiC stones, has any one tried BYXCO's sintered SiC ceramic stone? It's damn expensive for such a small format, but it seem unique in the world of sharpening.
https://byxco.com/products/byxco-black-magic-4x4-honing-plate
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No, I didn't use it long enough to judge dishing.
I have one of those BYXCO plates, a 4"x2", bought out of curiosity because, as you say, it is so different from anything else. It's smooth, very fine and very hard. It's nearly impossible to imagine it wearing at all. It seems to function well for minor touchups of pocketknives, and is a great size for bringing along with you. Not particularly fast, but faster than the smooth surface might lead you to believe. Seems to work fine without water or oil, which is a nice advantage for a portable stone. If it weren't for that, though, I'd much rather use a small Arkansas stone.
JustAnotherJoe
Hobbyist
Thanks for the insight. Your description of those plates sounds just like the sintered alumina plates, and I suppose any differences would only become apperant with side by side testing.
Damn curiosity is a hell of a drug! One day I might pick one up for no good reason.
Damn curiosity is a hell of a drug! One day I might pick one up for no good reason.
At the low grits I’ve found that SiC stones cut faster on low-alloy steels, are easily available, and cost 1/10th as much. And unlike Venev they don’t have to be flattened out of the box. At high grits I’m not sure, but I have a Venev 1200/2000 that feels awful and leaves big uneven scratches. I’d still be curious to try Naniwa if I felt the need for a fine diamond.
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1/10th of the venev? Sounds like a hyperbole. SiC does very well, often better than diamonds, on steels that don't have too many MC carbides, stainless that is used for most production knives and annoying stainless cladding on many san mai fall into that category.
If anything I understated the price difference. Ignoring shipping costs, Norton Crystolon xB83 is $27 for 12.7 mm of abrasive ($2.13/mm from SharpeningSupplies) while a Venev Phoenix 80/150 is $120 for 2 ~1 mm thick layers of abrasive ($60/mm from Hapstone). The wear rates may not be the same but I doubt the Venev lasts >28 times as long.
On a per-unit cost basis this holds for coarse to medium grits in guided system sizes. A 0.25 * 1 * 6" SiC stone from BORIDE or Congress Tools is between $5 and $9, while the Venev diamond stones of 1 * 6" are about $75 each.
This is a very interesting way of comparing stones that use different abrasives and construction. My King Neo st3 is more of a bargain than I thought. It is 70 mm tall and retails for around $86, so that is $1.23/mm. Something like 1000 BBB or JKI 800 diamond vitrified stones are ~$450 - $425 for ~3 mm, so best case scenario $142/mm.... I wonder if these vitrified diamond stones will last 115 times as long as a King Neo ST3
just to give a sense of relative use, the current 800 I'm using still has about 50% of its life or so left (maybe a bit more), and its been used to do rather serious sharpening on about 8k knives as a conservative estimate. I'm pretty sure i would have gone through at least 5 king neo doing that same number of knives with the same amount of work per blade.
Thanks Jon for some reality check. I think the whole $/mm stone comparison is odd. Especially when we are talking about different abrasives and construction. It's like comparing knives using $/mm disregarding all their other attributes. I only used the examples I did because the difference is dramatic and absurd. I fully expect my vit diamond stones to last me another 50 years at my use rate, possibly longer.
