Confused by 3 micron diamond stones

[Blaine Gribble]

Hi everyone,

I’m still very new to sharpening in general, I purchased the 3 micron diamond stone set thinking it would be the place to go after 1200/1600 ceramics, I used this grit table as my logic for that decision: http://www.gessweincanada.com/category-s/11328.htm

Unfortunately i’m missing something fairly obvious because the 3 micron stone scratches the crap out of the blade when used after the 1200/1600 ceramics. At what point am I supposed to be using it, and why does something that is ~8000 grit causing so much damage? Thanks!

[Mark76]

I haven’t used these stones yet, so I cannot comment from experience.

Are you sure your stones are worn in? How many times have you used them?

A general tip: try to use light pressure, particularly with newer stones. And diamond stones will often give a somewhat coarser scratch pattern, compared to waterstones and ceramic stones, because of the way they work.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[blacksheep25]

I bought a pair of these to try out. Agreed they’ll need to be broken in. And they appear coarser than the 1200/1600 ceramics. My one and only knife sharpened on the 3 micron is a spyderco delica; it was a touch up, 3 micron only then stropped. The only odd thing I noticed were the scratch marks on the face of the 3 microns, looks like they are from the knife.

About a dozen pics in my photobucket album (sharpening). Here is just one of those pics:

[Mark76]

The only odd thing I noticed were the scratch marks on the face of the 3 microns, looks like they are from the knife.

About a dozen pics in my photobucket album (sharpening). Here is just one of those pics:

This looks pretty weird to me. I’ve never seen that on a diamond stone. Can you see what is scratched? Is it something with the diamonds or is it the backing material?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Blaine Gribble]

The stones are very new, i’ve only run them for a few minutes on my zdp-189 manbug. Should I run them for a while on an old junky chef knife just to try and break them in?

[Mark76]

Yes, all diamond stones need to break in. I have no experience with the 3 mu stones, but I’d say the other diamond stones take about 5-10 knives to get broken in. Maybe slightly less if all of your knives are made of ZDP-189 🙂 .

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Geocyclist]

Good point Blacksheep. I wonder where these fit into the progression? Maybe they do need to come before ceramics?

[Joel Casto]

The July WE Newsletter says this about the 3 Micron diamond stones:

“They are designed to remove scratches left by the coarser diamond stones and further the refinement of your edge.”

When I bought my 3 Micron diamond stones I had the same idea as bleomycin, that they would fill the 3 micron niche. In my nimrod mind, it seemed logical but found the grit chart is not linear, at least with respect to the substrates. To illustrate that, a 3 Micron diamond stone leaves a totally different scratch pattern from 3 micron lapping film, which is different still from a 3 micron diamond paste strop. I’ve started using the following progression: diamond stones, ceramic stones, lapping films, then strops. As I get more experience I may understand this concept better.

My 3 Micron diamond stones have the same scratches as bleomycin’s, having been used on 4-5 knives.

Attachments:

• photo.JPG

[Mark76]

Interesting discussion. What I know from other stones is that their grit listing is not always accurate (and often difficult due to the various grit systems and the various ways in which different types of stones work[/url]). For example, the micro fine ceramic stones are listed as 1.4/0.6 mu, but if we judge them on their scratch patterns, they seem more coarse (see here[/url]).

I bought a pair of these to try out. Agreed they’ll need to be broken in. And they appear coarser than the 1200/1600 ceramics.

How do they compare to the 1000 grit diamond stones? Do they seem finer?

For now I’d make sure the stones get well worn in. Clay should be back in about a week and I’m interested in his experiences with and opninion on these stones. (One of the things he also wanted to do was to make a new grit comparison list with photos that includes the new stones.)

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Joel Casto]

Very nice write-up on the micro fine ceramic stones. What did you use to take the pictures of the scratch patterns? They’re outstanding.

[Mark76]

It’s a Veho 400x USB-microscope. Some people on this forum use a USB-microscope by Dino Lite. I think they’re pretty similar.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Lukas Pop]

I’ve started using the following progression: diamond stones, ceramic stones, lapping films, then strops. As I get more experience I may understand this concept better.

I use the same progression. I haven’t any water stones, but I think in this progression, they would be an alternative for ceramics. 3 um diamonds are definitely coarser then all WEPS ceramics. They seem even coarser than 1000 diamonds, but my 1000 are well broken in, my 3 um aren’t.

[Mark76]

They seem even coarser than 1000 diamonds, but my 1000 are well broken in, my 3 um aren’t.

If this is the case, we should ask some questions. But I’ve seen similar questions in the past and their answers were all understandable. Please first make sure your stones are well broken in. Otherwise all comparisons are based on quicksand (Dutch expression, is there a similar expression in English?). Then we should make comparisons, preferably based on published micro-photographs of the scratch patterns. (I understand not everyone has a microscope to do so, but there are people here who can do this.)

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Lukas Pop]

They seem even coarser than 1000 diamonds, but my 1000 are well broken in, my 3 um aren’t.

If this is the case, we should ask some questions. But I’ve seen similar questions in the past and their answers were all understandable. Please first make sure your stones are well broken in. Otherwise all comparisons are based on quicksand (Dutch expression, is there a similar expression in English?). Then we should make comparisons, preferably based on published micro-photographs of the scratch patterns. (I understand not everyone has a microscope to do so, but there are people here who can do this.)[/quote]

I think that breaking in is a continous process in case of diamond stones. I made some micro-photographs of 1000 diamonds, 3 um diamons, 1200, 1600, 1.4 and 0.6 ceramics (about 220x). DMT and WEPS patterns looks little different and is difficult to say which one is coarser.

Very interesting are the ceramics. 1200 and 1600 look quite similar to each other, but 1.4 look absolutely different. 0.6 look very smooth, but absolutely different than 1.4. So it doesn’t make sense to me to compare grits between ceramics and diamond stones and between different types of ceramic stones.

1000 diamonds

3 micron DMT diamonds

1200 ceramics

1600 ceramics

1.4 micron ceramics

0.6 micron ceramics

Attachments:

• 1000_1m.jpg
• dmt_1.jpg
• 1200_1.jpg
• 1600_1.jpg
• 14_1.jpg
• 06_1.jpg

[Mark76]

I wrote a couple of blogs in the past on this subject. Indeed it is hard to compare diamond stones to ceramic stones because they work in different ways: http://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/the-mystery-of-the-spyderco-and-the-wicked-edge-ceramic-stones/

Thus, the grit listing of the micro fine ceramic stones is hard to determine. At least, I had a hard time in doing so: http://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/wicked-edge-micro-fine-ceramic-stones/ and http://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/more-on-the-wicked-edge-micro-fine-ceramic-stones/ . I think we agree that the coarse micro fine stones (1.4 mu) are pretty coarse for their listing and the fine ones (0.6 mu) are pretty fine.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Author]

Posts