Tub shaped Norton flattening stone - now my plane iron is convexed shaped.

[Christopher Hawkins]

I'd used my son's Norton flattening stone in conjunction with the 220/1000 and 4000/8000 combination stone and had good luck with it. I ordered the same system as I was using "Norton Waterstone Starter Kit: 220/1000 grit stone, 4000/8000 grit stone, SiC flattening stone" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XK0FMU) from Amazon. I did a quick flattening of all the stones and went to work.

Norton's tub shaped flattening stone wasn't flat so I spent 2 hours turning my beautifully cambered convex A2 steel 1/8" thick smoothing plane iron into a useless concave smoothing iron which is 0.004" concave over 2 1/8". This is the view of the iron.206013 Note the concavity of the iron edge. Assuming Norton can replace their "flattening stone" with a flattening stone, it will take me several hours to fix the plane iron. This is a picture of the "flattening stone." The gap between the center of the stone and the jointer is 0.010. 206011 I called Norton customer service and they said we don't handle customer complaints. Just send it back to Amazon for a replacement.

The title should say concave, not convex.

[David Weaver]

I don't know if any of them are perfectly flat. I still have one that I haven't used for several years, but I remember that mine was out in the opposite direction. if you want to use it, it would be far less effort to put it to 50 or 60 grit wet/dry paper until it's flat. you will have to flatten it once every several dozen times you use it to flatten a stone, anyway.

[Mike Henderson]

The Norton Flattening Stone is useless. The problem is that it will not stay flat when you use it to flatten other stones so you have to flatten it on a regular basis. Instead of doing that, you can just flatten the working stones on whatever you use to flatten the Norton flattening stone. I went through that same thing. I tried a Norton flattening stone and couldn't figure out why I was getting strange results in my sharpening. A friend had a DMT diamond plate and lent it to me. I found out that the working stones were not flat because the flattening stone was not flat.

I went out and purchased a DMT diamond plate and haven't looked back. I still have that Norton Flattening stone somewhere but it'll never be used on my working stones again.

Mike

[James Taglienti]

Several hours?! Don't you mean several minutes?

[Chris Vandiver]

I can't understand why someone would blindly assume anything is flat, without testing to make sure it is. A quick check with a straight edge would have saved a lot of trouble. Hopefully you wanted a cambered iron.

[tico vogt]

Brian Burns, author of "Double Bevel Sharpening", says: "Flatten a face of the polishing stone with 80 grit wet-or-dry paper on 1/2" glass, with water. Flattening a water stone with a diamond stone will reduce the cutting efficiency of the diamond stone."

[Zach England]

I bought one of those norton flattening stones once and it was junk. I had to flatten it on my granite machinists plate, then i used it a few times and had to flatten it again.

Now I just flatten the stones on the machinists plate. I accidentally dropped the flattening stone and it thankfully broke in half.

I had purchased the flattening stone because I keep my waterstones in a sort of holder jig thingy I made and it is kind of inconvenient to remove them to flatten them, so i need to re-design that.

[Larry Williams]

Brian Burns, author of "Double Bevel Sharpening", says: "Flatten a face of the polishing stone with 80 grit wet-or-dry paper on 1/2" glass, with water. Flattening a water stone with a diamond stone will reduce the cutting efficiency of the diamond stone."

What does he base this on, Tico? Does he suggest one use diamond stones on steel?

[David Weaver]

I've never heard of Brian Burns, but general consensus is that a mid priced diamond hone is the best way to dress/flatten waterstones regularly, especially if you are dealing with resin bound (ceramic) stones. I have not had any issues with using the same diamond hone on stones for four years (everything from soft fired stones to hard resin bound stones), but that hone is used only for stones. What I have found is that steel itself wears a diamond hone to a slow cutting point very quickly. By slow, I mean that a diamond hone with a year of honing use on it with tool steel will cut slower than a similar waterstone on everything but HSS - that's the case for every diamond hone I've used (three different brands, monocrystalline and polycrystalline).

Cheapest way to do it effectively and avoid paper, is to search amazon for a duosharp, find them when they're on sale for about $60 or less shipped, and save one side of the thing for stones only. It will last halfway to forever flattening stones, but it will be slow on stones if it is used to lap tool steel. With a duosharp, you can still beat one side with tool steel and have a "good" side for the stones.

I hated using wet and dry paper (especially on clay fired stones - huge mess), and 80 grit might be OK for muddy fired stones, but on a resin bound stones, it is horribly coarse and deep cutting for a 1 micron (or less) very hard finishing stone.

Many ways to skin the cat here, all of them will work, but I would never forego a decent quality diamond hone in favor of 80 grit paper for the stones that are popular now. Portability to dress a stone in hand under the faucet is another reason to prefer diamond hones. The newer stones 1000 grit+ should never be so out of flat that someone can't quickly dress them flat with a diamond hone.

[Stuart Tierney]

Brian Burns, author of "Double Bevel Sharpening", says: "Flatten a face of the polishing stone with 80 grit wet-or-dry paper on 1/2" glass, with water. Flattening a water stone with a diamond stone will reduce the cutting efficiency of the diamond stone."

Using a diamond plate will (eventually) reduce the cutting efficiency of a diamond 'stone'.


I'll refrain from further comment on the (lack of) wisdom of using sandpaper to flatten waterstones.

Stu.

[tico vogt]

What does he base this on, Tico? Does he suggest one use diamond stones on steel?

Yes, for initial shaping of an edge, prior to using a Takenoko 8000 stone for polishing. He uses the DiaSharp 120 micron (approx. 130 grit), 45 micron (approx. 326 grit), and 9 micron (approx. 1200 grit).

[tico vogt]

Using a diamond plate will (eventually) reduce the cutting efficiency of a diamond 'stone'.


I'll refrain from further comment on the (lack of) wisdom of using sandpaper to flatten waterstones.

Stu.

Mention that to David Charlesworth and Deneb at L-N. They'll have to re-do several videos.

[David Weaver]

It is the steel wearing his hones and not the stones. And the steel probably isn't wearing the diamonds, it's just too much localized pressure for the nickel electroplate to tolerate.

[Stuart Tierney]

Mention that to David Charlesworth and Deneb at L-N. They'll have to re-do several videos.

If they're using Norton stones, then they're in the clear. Norton says it's ok.

If not, well, who am I to tell them they're wrong? I'm a nobody...


Stu.

(Who's getting really sick and tired of the "flatten your stones with sandpaper" rhetoric. So sick of it, I think I'll go do something about it...)

(Because I can!)

[David Weaver]

Mention that to David Charlesworth and Deneb at L-N. They'll have to re-do several videos.

Who knows what their motivation is, probably startup cost. By the same logic, we should use an expensive piece of custom glass for the sandpaper (instead of a $20 piece of chinese granite) because we saw it in a video?

It doesn't take much looking to find that LN is now carrying a large diamond plate to lap stones, and describes their use as "faster and flatter" than other methods.

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=DMT-DiaFlat

Arguing that this or that is better because someone said something in a video is a game of cat and mouse, and a useless one. For those of us who have been using a diamond hone only on stones (not ripping the diamonds out of the nickel electroplate with steel), I doubt you will find *anyone* going back to sandpaper, and I'll bet all or almost all of us have plenty of experience with sandpaper. I even bought the expensive piece of glass as described in the video when it came out as I was a beginner then. What a waste that was.

[David Weaver]

If not, well, who am I to tell them they're wrong? I'm a nobody...


Stu.

(Who's getting really sick and tired of the "flatten your stones with sandpaper" rhetoric. So sick of it, I think I'll go do something about it...)

(Because I can!)

Yeah, sandpaper's not so great on resin bonded stones or oilstones. And a huge mess with fired stones that are pretty tidily done with a diamond hone in a sink.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Using a diamond plate will (eventually) reduce the cutting efficiency of a diamond 'stone'....

OK, I'll bite and admit that I'm not up on diamond device terminology; so what's the difference between a diamond plate and a diamond stone?

Pam

[Stuart Tierney]

Having both, yeah, there's a "bit" of a difference.

A diamond 'plate' is a piece of metal with diamonds stuck to it, typically with an electroplated nickel coating to hold them in place.

A diamond 'stone' looks similar to a normal waterstone, but the 'stone' part is usually very thin (1-2mm) and is stuck to a thick backing material. The 'stone' part replaces the more common abrasives such as aluminium oxide or silicon carbide with diamonds. These stones can have a resin binder (King, Naniwa) or be vitrified (Sigma Power, iWood).

I've got plates from iWood, DMT, Atoma and few other places. I've got a single stone from Sigma Power.

The plates work well for flattening normal stones and abrading metal, but you can't push them too hard with metal, since the diamonds can be torn out of the nickel plating. The plates range from very coarse at #140 or so all the way up to DMT's #8000 (which isn't really all that fine, but they're naming it, so...)

The stones are for working with tougher materials like HSS and Tungsten Carbide. There's no real limit to how hard they can be pushed, the diamonds don't get torn out easily, and most diamond loss is from delousing the stone's surface because the metal being sharpened just piles up. The stones generally start at #1000 and go up to #12000 (iWood). These things exist here in Japan because for some odd reason, there are a lot of HSS planes and chisels, and folks like to be able to actually sharpen them. Diamond stones are one way to get that done, and since they're for HSS and other materials that can generally be ground on a grinder without harm, there's little need for coarse grits. These can't be used for flattening stones though, since they usually come with a small piece of 'stone' for conditioning them.

So, while plenty of folks call diamond plates "stones" when they mean "plates", they're two distinctly different devices.

Dave, Brian Burns has a sharpening 'system' he's developed with a guide and a box for holding the stones/plates. He's happy with the edges he's getting and it seems to all work just fine. I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, sharpening gear has progressed a little since he developed his system since it's as old as I am.

Stu.

[Mike Henderson]

I've never heard of Brian Burns, but general consensus is that a mid priced diamond hone is the best way to dress/flatten waterstones regularly, especially if you are dealing with resin bound (ceramic) stones. I have not had any issues with using the same diamond hone on stones for four years (everything from soft fired stones to hard resin bound stones), but that hone is used only for stones. What I have found is that steel itself wears a diamond hone to a slow cutting point very quickly. By slow, I mean that a diamond hone with a year of honing use on it with tool steel will cut slower than a similar waterstone on everything but HSS - that's the case for every diamond hone I've used (three different brands, monocrystalline and polycrystalline).

Cheapest way to do it effectively and avoid paper, is to search amazon for a duosharp, find them when they're on sale for about $60 or less shipped, and save one side of the thing for stones only. It will last halfway to forever flattening stones, but it will be slow on stones if it is used to lap tool steel. With a duosharp, you can still beat one side with tool steel and have a "good" side for the stones.

I hated using wet and dry paper (especially on clay fired stones - huge mess), and 80 grit might be OK for muddy fired stones, but on a resin bound stones, it is horribly coarse and deep cutting for a 1 micron (or less) very hard finishing stone.

Many ways to skin the cat here, all of them will work, but I would never forego a decent quality diamond hone in favor of 80 grit paper for the stones that are popular now. Portability to dress a stone in hand under the faucet is another reason to prefer diamond hones. The newer stones 1000 grit+ should never be so out of flat that someone can't quickly dress them flat with a diamond hone.
Amen. I've been using a DMT diamond plate for years - the same diamond plate - to flatten my stones and I don't think it will ever wear out. But let's say that it will eventually wear out, maybe in ten years. I paid maybe $70 for it so that's $7 a year. Quite a deal in my book.

I've tried a whole bunch of methods to flatten my working stones, from the Norton flattening stone (junk) to sandpaper on glass. The DMT extra coarse diamond plate is the hands down winner.

Mike

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Okay, I'm lessed versed in waterstones. I use 220 grit wet dry on a piece of granite to flatten my stones. They start out maybe not flat, afterwards they are flat, and I'm quite happy with the edge I'm getting. I have no doubt in the long run, something that's needs less frequent replacing than the sandpaper is cheaper. But am I hurting my stones by using the sandpaper to flatten them when needed? I'm using three Naniwa SuperStones, the thin ones. (That's all I could afford at the time.) Is there something about those stones that's allowing me to get away with this?

[David Weaver]

But am I hurting my stones by using the sandpaper to flatten them when needed?

No, and since they're not porous, you can just wipe across them with water and your hand and tell whether or not there is any stray grit on them.

If you're using paper, 220 should do a nice job on the surface of the stone and leave it in good condition.

Diamond hones are not necessarily about cheaper, but about easier and more pleasant to use.

I mentioned DMT earlier, because i like to think cheap, but I use an atoma on waterstones - it's a little nicer to use, but a tad more expensive if you are a smart shopper for the DMT. But that's an issue of nice to use without being horribly expensive.

If you like the results you're getting, no reason to worry about it.

[Tony Shea]

Brian Burns, author of "Double Bevel Sharpening", says: "Flatten a face of the polishing stone with 80 grit wet-or-dry paper on 1/2" glass, with water. Flattening a water stone with a diamond stone will reduce the cutting efficiency of the diamond stone."

Lol. Suppose I'll come and beat this up a little more, although David and Stu have done a pretty good job of it already. I would hate to use that polishing stone with fresh 80 grit paper scratches in it. Must look like a toothing plane went over the stone to prepare for veneer. And do stones not reduce the cutting efficiency of wet/dry paper? They certainly did in my experience which is why I gave that method up after about a month of it, although I never did use 80grit. Maybe there is some magical power in 80grit that my 220 didn't have to keep its cutting efficiency. But I bet my polishing stone was much less scratched up too. I used to go thru spray glueing paper down on plate glass as I was always worried about the paper creating low spots on the outside edges of the stones because it wasn't glued to the flat surface. Therefore after my paper went dull I had to go through getting the stuff off the glass with a solvent, which absolutely wasn't effecient. Moved over the diamond hone club and never looked back. What an absolute epiphany in flattening stones! What was I thinking with the sandpaper crap, it's too bad so many people advocate the sandpaper method. In that month of using sandpaper I think I could have bought two diamond hones for the amount I paid in paper. Turned into a complete waste of time and money, similar to the whole thing about buying cheap tools and having to replace them with more expensive better made ones. I guess you get the idea.... USE DIAMONDS TO FLATTEN STONES, you will not be dissapointed by its' lack of cutting efficiency even after 2 years of use maybe much much longer.

[Christopher Hawkins]

Several hours?! Don't you mean several minutes?

Maybe I'm just slow but I'm talking hours, not minutes. This includes the time already spent turning my convex edge into a concave edge. Now I've got to turn that concave edge into a convex edge. The iron is A2 steel, 1/8" thick, 2 1/8" wide with a 35 degree angle. I have to take off 0.004" off the entire face to start at ground zero, then making it convex to eliminate plane tracks.

[Christopher Hawkins]

I can't understand why someone would blindly assume anything is flat, without testing to make sure it is. A quick check with a straight edge would have saved a lot of trouble. Hopefully you wanted a cambered iron.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. And yes, I want a want a cambered edge to eliminate the plane tracks I'll get from my smoothing plane if the iron isn't cambered.

[geoff wood]

i flattened my norton flattening stone on a machinist plate with 80grit sandpaper, works great.

[Christopher Hawkins]

Thanks to all for your help. I will order a DMT diamond plate tomorrow.

[David Keller NC]

Maybe I'm just slow but I'm talking hours, not minutes. This includes the time already spent turning my convex edge into a concave edge. Now I've got to turn that concave edge into a convex edge. The iron is A2 steel, 1/8" thick, 2 1/8" wide with a 35 degree angle. I have to take off 0.004" off the entire face to start at ground zero, then making it convex to eliminate plane tracks.

Buy a grinder. They're cheap when made in China (in both senses of the word), but it'll be fine for this kind of grinding. Or you can haunt a few garage sales and get a better quality one from the 1960's or earlier for cheaper.

Turns a 45 minute job into a 2 minute job, and if you're reasonably careful about it and have the proper wheels, you won't burn your tools.

More importantly, the hollow-ground edge can go directly to an 8000 grit stone, and within about 4 swipes will be just as sharp as flat bevel that takes 20 minutes through a progression of grits.

[Pam Niedermayer]

...The stones are for working with tougher materials like HSS and Tungsten Carbide. There's no real limit to how hard they can be pushed, the diamonds don't get torn out easily, and most diamond loss is from delousing the stone's surface because the metal being sharpened just piles up. The stones generally start at #1000 and go up to #12000 (iWood)....

So the thing to use for metals like CPM 3V would be diamond stones? But you call the iWood 12000 a diamond plate on your site. And how could one use a 12000 stone or plate for shaping?

Pam

[Stuart Tierney]

So the thing to use for metals like CPM 3V would be diamond stones? But you call the iWood 12000 a diamond plate on your site. And how could one use a 12000 stone or plate for shaping?

Pam

CPM 3V, to flatten out backs and bevels, I still prefer an actual diamond 'plate' with diamonds-in-nickel or a proper stone designed for the stuff (3F Carbon, Select II) even though the stones do dish and the plate is at risk of having a shortened life. The diamond 'stones' aren't really very fast at all, but they last a long time, they're difficult to hurt (by comparison to a plate) and stay exceptionally flat in use, but not perfectly.

For simply getting the stuff sharp, the diamond stones are very good.

The #12000 is called a 'plate' because I was young, stupid and had too much to drink? Would that work as an excuse? Actually that was written up before I knew better. I'll try and get in there and change it ASAP.

Shaping? Not sure I follow you there... The #12000 is just to get straight edges sharp in materials that 'normal' stones have trouble with. It's really overkill I think, but they're popular enough here in Japan, especially for the PM HSS chisels. But the Select II deal with them just fine as well, and don't cost anywhere near as much.

(I might get this stuff cheaper than you folks, but I'm still a bit of a tightwad.)

Stu.

[Pam Niedermayer]

...For simply getting the stuff sharp, the diamond stones are very good.

The #12000 is called a 'plate' because I was young, stupid and had too much to drink? Would that work as an excuse? Actually that was written up before I knew better. I'll try and get in there and change it ASAP.

Shaping? Not sure I follow you there... The #12000 is just to get straight edges sharp in materials that 'normal' stones have trouble with. It's really overkill I think, but they're popular enough here in Japan, especially for the PM HSS chisels. But the Select II deal with them just fine as well, and don't cost anywhere near as much.

I'm particularly interested in diamond because I'm particularly interested in making edges in CPM 3V, which means I'll have to shape said edges with something much coarser than 12,000. After they're shaped, I'm all set.

Generally I think I understand the difference between plates and stones, but find it ponderous to explain, which can't be done unless all vendors and customers talk the same diamond language. As a retailer, I'm sure you don't want to have to educate each customer before purchase, right? :) So perhaps you could find some other way to differentiate plates and stones, some way to label them functionally instead of using the matrices (intended, plural of matrix, but I may be more into math than stone formation using it).

The iWood 300 plate (?) I bought from you seems to do a fine job leveling stones. Could I also use it for shaping CPM 3V or would that kill the plate too quickly?

Pam

[David Weaver]

I'll bet he has something that's nicer to use on 3V than diamond plates. If I were in your shoes, i wouldn't nub the diamonds off on that plate - save it for dressing the stones.

Have you got a belt sander that you could use to initially shape edges?

[Pam Niedermayer]

I'll bet he has something that's nicer to use on 3V than diamond plates. If I were in your shoes, i wouldn't nub the diamonds off on that plate - save it for dressing the stones.

Have you got a belt sander that you could use to initially shape edges?

Sure, I've got a belt sander that probably still works. What would be nicer on 3V than diamond plates.

Pam

[David Weaver]

One of those trick all-abrasive stones he has, either that or a belt. I just am left nonplussed with diamond electroplated hones every time I've ever used one to do even a moderate amount of work on steel. The just get the wind knocked out of them right away, and after that happens, the only thing they work on faster than a carbon steel purposed stone (like a shapton) is gummy HSS bevels, and they leave stray deep scratches.

How much shaping are you talking about, like a hardened blunt blank and putting the entire primary on it? If you're thinking unhardened, as long as you don't work harden it, it should work well with anything. I would use a moving belt for that, not knowing what 3V's temperature tolerance is. A coarse belt will remove material fast and not get very hot unless you're pressing a contact point on the metal right against a platen on a thin belt.

The one unknown is how fast it work hardens, though. I could be wrong about power with it if it work hardens really easy and you're working with unhardened material. I'd be inclined to use a coarse mill file if it's unhardened.

[Christopher Hawkins]

Turns a 45 minute job into a 2 minute job, and if you're reasonably careful about it and have the proper wheels, you won't burn your tools.
If I did it with a grinder, my lack of experience would likely end up with me buying another iron. However, your comment did trigger me to consider using the Worksharp sharpener I have. Thanks.