Break-in diamond stones
- This topic has 23 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 04/27/2017 at 2:57 pm by
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Thats a really good question. My original stones came to me used and very worn in when I bought mine 2nd hand. The new 100/200 grit paddles I have are clearly not worn in enough….
Id bet Josh would have a really good idea, seeing as how he burns through them about faster then anyone on Earth at this point.
If I recall correctly, ceramic knives don’t sharpen up well, so you’d likely ruin it with the first “sharpening”, and would learn nothing from the sharpening.
my 2¢
Get a couple of inexpensive kitchen knives. One longer, one shorter that you would actually use. Practice on those. Use them. Get a feel/idea of what happens for what ever technique you use.
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I am not sure if ceramic would work quicker or not… you may have to sharpen it 20 times 😀
But truth be told they are broken in enough after about 5-10 knives, especially w/ a little bit of light stropping.
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I am not sure if ceramic would work quicker or not… you may have to sharpen it 20 times
LOL
Could be. I hope not.But truth be told they are broken in enough after about 5-10 knives, especially w/ a little bit of light stropping.
Thank you. Very good to know.
Did you mean “light stroking”? I am a bit puzzled about “stropping” here.
My goal is to break-in new diamond stones as quick and easy as possible. I am perfectly fine to ruin one ceramic knife for this purpose. To sharpenen 20 steel knifes seems to be boring chore and I am looking for a shortcut. If it makes sense. Thank you.
I wouldn’t worry so much about “breaking in” the stones. They will work just fine brand new to sharpen a knife; you even might do a little re-profile work while they’re new.
If you’re looking for a mirror edge, that is different, as the new stones will leave some deeper scratches, which will be much more difficult to remove with the finer grain stones.
Just me now, but I think “20 knives to break in” the stones is overkill.
Alan
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The reference to 20 knives is just a SWAG (scientific, wild-assed guess), as it is highly variable. I think the idea is that by the time you’ve done 20 knives, you should be well-broken in.
The idea of buying a cheap knife and sharpening it 10 times will certainly help, but you really should try to spend that effort gaining the experience of setting up various knives and trying different strokes. I took the well-seasoned approach of never reading instructions or seeking direction. I probably wasted six months to a year not learning much of anything. This is one of those technologies where it looks pretty straight-forward, but there’s a lot of detail to be learned and you’ll steadily build your knowledge and skills as you deal with the highly variable spectrum of knives.
I recommend strongly that you don’t try breaking in your stones on a ceramic knife. The coarser stones (<400) will fracture the edge, leaving a mess you’ll never recover from. I tried it once and I think I shortened the life of my 400 grit diamond stones drastically by trying to re-establish a flat bevel. I think that ceramic can damage a stone if you press too hard or too long. I stoned for an hour or more before giving up. I could see absolutely no progress being made.
I once had an 800 grit diamond stone that just wouldn’t seem to reach a fully broken-in status. It would take out chunks of steel along the edge of my ZDP Delica. With my USB microscope I found two or three clusters of diamonds which were oriented longitudinally so that they were too solid to break off normally. I went to a small section of plate glass and in a dozen or so strokes had knocked off the offending clusters. I don’t recommend it, but if you’re going thru the same difficulties, it’s an option.
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This is an interesting discussion; however I am a bit unclear on the concept of ‘breaking’ in a diamond stone. It is my understanding this relates to the coarseness of the stones, which are typically more coarse when new – is that correct.
There are some good tips on the ‘breaking’ in process, but I am still unclear on how this is identified – anyone have some images to compare?
Regards,
Jacques
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My understanding of ‘breaking-in’ process is basically getting the surface of the stones to be even and flat with no loose grits etc which will result in a uniform abrasive action across the stones. From my experience, the diamond stones requires about 10 sharpening sessions. For the ceramics, its longer as the grits are too fine, and with light strocks only thus takes longer to smooth out. I would probably guess around the 15 sets.
The best thing i like is that when resharpening, I only need to use the 1200/1600 ceramics, unless I need to repair knicks or the sort.
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The manufacturing of diamond stones uses the deposition of diamond particles on a substrate which is then electroplated onto a base of steel or other material. The objective is to deposit an excess of particles so as to ensure an complete coverage of the base grit on the substrate. The result is that there is an excess of particles which need to be stripped off to expose a final matrix of particles with the desired grit size.
The “break-in process” is intended to accomplish that process with normal use. Generally, Jumpstat is correct. Saying that the excess grit is “loose” is a little misleading, but it is less tightly held than the base matrix.
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Other than for practicing your technique, I don’t see the point of breaking in diamond stones on knives, cheap or otherwise. Running the stone over the edge of an old plane blade or other piece of tool steel will break in the stone pretty quickly, and you can be fast and forceful at it in a way that you would not be with a knife.
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