What's the difference between DMT Duosharp and Whetstone??

[Ian Scofield]

Looking to get into handplanes and need to invest in the sharpening setup that goes with it. From my research thus far, most seem to recommend the DMT stones over the EZE-lap ones as they last longer and people were having issues with the EZE-lap ones not coming/staying flat.

The double sided part aside, both are diamond sharpening stones with a non-continuous surface. They don't list anything on their site, nor can I find any comparisons online. The reviews on Amazon don't list anything specific.

What is the difference between the two? Is one better than the other? I'm a firm believer in buy once cry once, so if it's more expensive but has significant advantages or will last longer, then I'm all for it.

Or is it worth looking into ceramic stones? Read a couple marathon threads on here that never really conclusively lean one way or the other.

[lowell holmes]

I can't say for sure what you get in each case, but some diamond stones (generic name for this discussion) come with diamonds attached to ss plate. Other stones have diamonds attached to a thin ss plate and then to plastic. I have both and I don't have any complaints about either.

[Allan Speers]

DMT's are more expensive because they use a different TYPE of diamond crystal. They last longer.

[Andrew Hughes]

Hi Ian,If you really want a diamond plate that's last.Shaptons DLRP is very long lasting and guaranteed to me flat.It has two side one for stone and one for steel.Its core is bronze it's expensive.The one I have has out lasted all plastic one I've bought.

[Ian Scofield]

Hi Ian,If you really want a diamond plate that's last.Shaptons DLRP is very long lasting and guaranteed to me flat.It has two side one for stone and one for steel.Its core is bronze it's expensive.The one I have has out lasted all plastic one I've bought.

Andrew, are you referencing the DLRP for actually honing blades or just flattening stones?
http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Shapton-Diamond-Reference-Lapping-Plate-P516.aspx
According to this it looks like it's just for flattening stones >500grit.

I'm entertaining the idea of sharpening with diamond stones exclusively, not water stones since they last longer, cut faster, and should stay flat and won't dish.

[Andrew Hughes]

Hi Ian,its for both stone and steel,sorry for the confusion.

[Reinis Kanders]

500 bucks for a sharpening stone? Where is fun in that! Get whatever is cheap and flat. Once you get some sharpening skills then you will be better equipped to decide what you need.
If you have nothing then coarse duosharp and spyderco ceramic can be a decent combo.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Who told you diamond stones last longer ? This is the opposite of true. Diamond stones, whether cheap or expensive will become finer cutting as the years go by. This is nice for your medium and very nice on your fine stone, not so nice for your coarse stone. People who relay on a fast cutting coarse stone will need to replace their diamond stone every one in a "depends how much you sharpen". But that's about it. You are unlikely to ever wear out one of the harder water stones and it will never get finer than it is. Diamonds are nice, you will need to strop after your fine stone or add a fine ceramic/water stone to finish. I like the EzeLap very much, they cut well and have a good feel for sharpening on. I didn't like the plastic mounted dmt as much. A fine and extra fine EzeLap will wear in nicely after some time. The fine is coarse enough at first to be your first stone, once it gets too fine for that you can pick your new coarse stone and use a 3 stone set-up. If you use a grinder you might never need a coarser stone.

[Ian Scofield]

Who told you diamond stones last longer ? This is the opposite of true. Diamond stones, whether cheap or expensive will become finer cutting as the years go by. This is nice for your medium and very nice on your fine stone, not so nice for your coarse stone. People who relay on a fast cutting coarse stone will need to replace their diamond stone every one in a "depends how much you sharpen". But that's about it. You are unlikely to ever wear out one of the harder water stones and it will never get finer than it is. Diamonds are nice, you will need to strop after your fine stone or add a fine ceramic/water stone to finish. I like the EzeLap very much, they cut well and have a good feel for sharpening on. I didn't like the plastic mounted dmt as much. A fine and extra fine EzeLap will wear in nicely after some time. The fine is coarse enough at first to be your first stone, once it gets too fine for that you can pick your new coarse stone and use a 3 stone set-up. If you use a grinder you might never need a coarser stone.

Most of the threads I've read on here have mentioned wetstones you need to flatten quite frequently, problems with dishing, etc. The ceramic stones have gotten good reviews as well, but the fact that they eventually wear out and need to be replaced (same as the diamond stones). I know all of them won't last forever, just want to get something that will last a significant amount of time after sharpening one or two handplanes somewhat frequently. Is this not the case?

I've seen this set listed quite a few times on here with great reviews:
http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=335_404_403&products_id=1667

I was looking into just getting this set or assembling a 3 stone set of DMT stones, C, F, XXF.

[Jim Koepke]

Most of the threads I've read on here have mentioned wetstones you need to flatten quite frequently, problems with dishing, etc. The ceramic stones have gotten good reviews as well, but the fact that they eventually wear out and need to be replaced (same as the diamond stones). I know all of them won't last forever, just want to get something that will last a significant amount of time after sharpening one or two handplanes somewhat frequently. Is this not the case?

I've seen this set listed quite a few times on here with great reviews:
http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=335_404_403&products_id=1667

I was looking into just getting this set or assembling a 3 stone set of DMT stones, C, F, XXF.

If perfection in edge honing is desired, then one must do a lot of stone maintenance. If one can work with slightly less than perfect, one can go awhile between flattening sessions. It is easy to see how cambered blades may have come about due to wear on softer stones.

Looking at the set you linked, followed by looking up the conversion rate makes me wish my wife didn't notice my bare arms. It would be hard to convince her my stones have all given up to my steel.

Maybe I should let my arm hair grow back to convince her I need some new stones. :eek: :D

jtk

[Allan Speers]

I started a similar thread earlier this year, specifically asking about using nothing but diamond stones.

Diamond stones, even DMT types, wear out quite quickly if you use them for blades all the time. This is why most folks here recommended to me NOT to use the Seller's method. (Paul probably replaces his diamond plates a lot, or else he made that video soon after switching to all-diamond, and before he realized his mistake. This exact thing happened with Rob Cosman.)

I've also discussed this topic with 2 different techs at DMT, and even though they sell stones specifically "rated" for honing blades, they also don't recommend it.

IMO, the ultimate setup is a set of Spyderco ceramic stones (no water needed, and incredibly little dishing over time) with one good diamond lapping plate to keep the course stone dead flat. (And for initial tweaking of the finer stones as well.) - Plus some green paste & strop, at least for chisels.

I just wish the lower grit Spyderco's came in a 3" wide version. It's quite infuriating.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Most of the threads I've read on here have mentioned wetstones you need to flatten quite frequently, problems with dishing, etc. The ceramic stones have gotten good reviews as well, but the fact that they eventually wear out and need to be replaced (same as the diamond stones). I know all of them won't last forever, just want to get something that will last a significant amount of time after sharpening one or two handplanes somewhat frequently. Is this not the case?

I've seen this set listed quite a few times on here with great reviews:
http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=335_404_403&products_id=1667

I was looking into just getting this set or assembling a 3 stone set of DMT stones, C, F, XXF.

Ian, I see what your saying. the thing is you are simply not understanding the proportion. you can sharpen all your hand planes and chisels and what not on ceramic water stones, flatten them as often as you need (I don't consider this an issue, is simply part of life with water stones) and you can continue to do so for many many years before you might notice one getting a little thin. if you sharpen so much that you can wear out a shapton pro or a sigma or a chosera, then I suspect the cost of a stone won't bother you much at all ! :)

Diamond stones on the other hand... will not continue to cut as well for that long... not by a long shot. but a worn in fine and extra fine diamond stones are nice, and I've yet to see one that didn't cut at all (except cheap ones where the diamonds get ripped off). as I said before it's the coarse stone that will need replacing, and you will replace many coarse diamond plates in the life span of a single shapton pro 1000 (just for example).

I did manage to wear out a 1000\4000 king combo stone, there was 2mm left of the 1k and the stone cracked. it was thin to start, very very soft stone, and I flattened it several times between blades (I didn't quite know how to keep wear even on a stone back then) and it still took me over a year to wear it out. a full size ceramic stone would last me over 10 years if not much more.

Spyderco Ceramics probably cannot be worn out. I just got my first ceramic stones at work but have yet to put them through their paces so cannot comment on if I like them or not.

I had the sigma ceramic set that you linked too, I didn't like them much. I would go with other stones, but the Atoma 400 is a great diamond plate for stone flattening and if you use is ONLY for that it will likely last forever.

[Ian Scofield]

Ian, I see what your saying. the thing is you are simply not understanding the proportion. you can sharpen all your hand planes and chisels and what not on ceramic water stones, flatten them as often as you need (I don't consider this an issue, is simply part of life with water stones) and you can continue to do so for many many years before you might notice one getting a little thin. if you sharpen so much that you can wear out a shapton pro or a sigma or a chosera, then I suspect the cost of a stone won't bother you much at all ! :)

Diamond stones on the other hand... will not continue to cut as well for that long... not by a long shot. but a worn in fine and extra fine diamond stones are nice, and I've yet to see one that didn't cut at all (except cheap ones where the diamonds get ripped off). as I said before it's the coarse stone that will need replacing, and you will replace many coarse diamond plates in the life span of a single shapton pro 1000 (just for example).

I did manage to wear out a 1000\4000 king combo stone, there was 2mm left of the 1k and the stone cracked. it was thin to start, very very soft stone, and I flattened it several times between blades (I didn't quite know how to keep wear even on a stone back then) and it still took me over a year to wear it out. a full size ceramic stone would last me over 10 years if not much more.

Spyderco Ceramics probably cannot be worn out. I just got my first ceramic stones at work but have yet to put them through their paces so cannot comment on if I like them or not.

I had the sigma ceramic set that you linked too, I didn't like them much. I would go with other stones, but the Atoma 400 is a great diamond plate for stone flattening and if you use is ONLY for that it will likely last forever.

That makes perfect sense, thanks for the thorough detailed writeup (as well as the responses from others).

What didn't you like about the sigma ceramic set? I know you haven't used the Spyderco Ceramics yet, but would you recommend those or any other brands within the ceramic realm? My only reservation is that they are only 2" wide, and not the normal 3".

[Allan Speers]

The only downside to ceramics (in my limited experience) is that they don't cut as fast as, say, my old Norton water stones.

For me, the extra mess of the water stones isn't worth the extra speed, especially since most sharpening is a simple honing touch-up.

[Kees Heiden]

I have worn down a Naniwa superstone 800 and am quite far with a Bester 400. The first one is very soft and disappeared incredibly fast. The Bester is a lot harder but goes rather quickly too. My Sigma 1000 on the other hand wears a lot slower.

I agree about the diamond hones. Especially the coarse ones. You can wear one out with one recalcitrant chisel!

Nowadays I like oil stones. When you only use high carbon steel, they have many virtues. They don't wear, they don't dish, you can't gouge the surface, they don't create a mess and they are plenty fast enough for me.

[lowell holmes]

When you are using a granite plate with wet or dry sandpaper, you only have to put another sheet of sandpaper on.

It makes short work of sharpening planer knives as well as chisels. I'm surprised more are not using the granite plate.

You can visit Woodcraft to see what I'm talking about.

[Allan Speers]

When you are using a granite plate with wet or dry sandpaper, you only have to put another sheet of sandpaper on.

It makes short work of sharpening planer knives as well as chisels. I'm surprised more are not using the granite plate.

You can visit Woodcraft to see what I'm talking about.

Lots of folks do, but there are 3 good reasons why most DON'T use any type of scary-sharp system:

1: It makes a mess.

2: Sandpaper gets expensive after a while.

3: If you sand dry, with no vacuum, the airborn steel dust is incredibly bad for your lungs. (I use my Spydeco's without water, but I do so in front of a vacuum system.)

[lowell holmes]

Well,

I have oil stones, water stones, granite plate, and diamond hones. I have yet to wear any of them out.

A diamond hone stays out on my bench with strop for instant touch up. The other devices are used as the spirit moves me at the moment of use.

I have a Deulen jig for sharpening jointer knives. That jig with the granite plate allows me to keep the jointer knives sharp.

I bet I'm not the only one that is so fickle.

[Matthew N. Masail]

I sharpen free hand so 2" wide is plenty, most of the old oil stone are 2" and that's not by chance, it is easier to keep the stone flat and it dosent take up more space than it needs to.

About the sigma, the 1k or 1.2k are great stones, but they need soaking, they can load more than I like and there are other 1k I like more. The 6k and 13k I don't like so much, they load up fast with even moderate pressure and don't have a nice feel. Both can get a little sticky when flattening and honing, just not my cup of tea. Not bad stones, they just don't work like I like a stone to work.

Can't say about ceramics but spyderco are a safe bet.

[Phil Mueller]

Ian, thank you for starting this thread. I was all set to go diamond only based on Paul Sellers vid, but the responses here may have kept me from a $$$ mistake.
I currntly use sandpaper on 1/2" float glass. It works for me. For touch up, a quarter sheet of 600/800/1000/1500 each and strop is all I use.
Major reconditioning of garage sale chisels and irons can chew through a lot of course sandpaper, but I can usually find loads of course paper at garage sales for next to nothing.

I have a set of Norton wet stones, but just found them messy and inconvenient without the space to have them set up all the time. And frankly, I just didn't put enough practice in to get comfortable with using them...I was getting a much better edge with sandpaper.

[Mike Holbrook]

Lately I have been "preaching" for people who are trying to set up a first sharpening station to take a different approach than what they frequently hear. Many people start out buying tools that have reasonably sharp blades, add that to the fact that the greater part of sharpening is maintenance work, honing a blade that just got dull after some hard use and it causes people to start out with stones oriented towards that work. The thing I discovered though is, although honing (finishing an edge) may be done the most often, it is the regrinding that eats up the most time and effort.

I started out with Arkansas and Wachita stones as teenager, went to King stones when I got into woodworking, bought a Tormek thinking it would fix everything, tried a few Shapton Pro stones, then I invested in Sigma stones from Tools From Japan, more coarser Sigma stones...along the way I also tried a granite stone with sandpaper and a large DMT Diamond plate, a belt sander......

The problem I had was getting blades to the point of needing honing, Sure we should spend most of our time just touching up our blades. Unfortunately if the bevel/camber...of a given blade is not ideal for the work we have a larger job that needs to be done before we can hone. Using even a diamond lapping plate and very coarse stones it is hard to make progress on regrinding bevels. I spent days trying to regrind bevels in thick BU & 3/16-1/4" thick wood plane blades, not to mention the fact that the whole process of making a hollow grind like Derek and others suggested totally eluded me. The Tormek, in my humble opinion, is a painfully slow way to regrind. Using slow stock removal methods I had a very hard time seeing and feeling what I was doing, often ending up with results that were way off. I was wasting a great deal of "shop time" trying to get blades ready for honing. Those blades that had good bevels were often getting "polished" before I had a good edge, which of course was more wasted time.

My suggestion is to start off with the ability to grind off more steel quickly. I have found that the cambers and hollow grinds that many posters use can be very frustrating to learn how to make if the process takes too long to do. I found that I would get impatient and start using too much force/pressure causing all sorts of other issues that winded up meaning all the extra time I spent was fruitless. Some of this work ends up needing to be done by hand without guides/jigs.

The difficulty in learning to do this work isn't learning to hand sharpen, it is having a grinding system that allows the user to see what the heck is going on while it is going on. For quite a while I did not see what I think guys like Derek Cohen and David Weaver had been trying to tell me. I needed a better grinding system. I eventually winded up with a relatively economical Delta grinder and a CNC wheel. Although I love my CNC wheel many posters will be astoundingly quick to point out that the same work can be done with decent, less costly, stone wheels. The problem I and others have with stone wheels is a fear of over heating steel blades. Certainly most people can learn to do this work safely on quite a few of the stones available now. The CNC wheels just cut faster and cooler than stone wheels. They also don't break apart, tossing less dust into the air and dramatically reducing the chance of the wheel breaking into pieces during the work (safety feature). Apparently CNC wheels do not wear out, even vs diamonds which are harder. It isn't always just about hardness.

I can now walk into the shop and camber/hollow grind/regrind chipped blades.....that I could never, I actually mean never, succeed at before. I could spend an entire day sharpening that ended up wasted time before. Now I can take several blades regrind bevels and cambers, prepare for honing, hone and be done in an hour or less. For me the ability to regrind is where one should start not work up to after 30 or so years. Hollow ground blades are sooo much easier to resharpen. It takes experimentation to find the best camber, bevel angle, micro bevel or not..., different strokes for different folks as it were. Trying to do that work with stones that are too fine is probably the most frustrating thing I have tried to do in woodworking. Shortly after getting a better grinding system I found a whole new world opening up for me with edged hand tools. Sharpening isn't a thing for using edged hand tools, it is THE thing! My suggestion is to start at the faster end of steel removal and work your way down instead of the other way around. Take the money many invest in expensive super fine 12-20,000 grit stones and buy better coarse grinding gear. I think the majority of people new to hand tools will be much happier and successful if they do.

[lowell holmes]

And how many edges have been ruined by a newbie on a power grinder? I ruined an edge or two.

I have a variable speed grinder with white stones that gets used about every year or two.

[Mike Holbrook]

Lowell, so far I have not heard of a single person ruining an edge on a CNC wheel. Certainly it can be done if the user works hard at it. I learned to hand grind on a CNC wheel in less time than I have spent trying to figure out how to use many sharpening jigs. The other question I would ask is how many blades are lying around with edges that want do the work they were designed for because the owner can't regrind. I would guess there are thousands of blades that need attention for every one that has been ruined in the attempt.

How many BU or 1/4" plane blades get reground with the typical stones people buy? How many people experienced or not regrind all their plane blades to a hollow grind using stones? How many people take the beat up blades that frequently come on flea market finds and regrind them with hand stones or even diamond stones?....To my way of thinking I am suggesting that people starting out in hand tool sharpening learn to "walk before they try running".

My point is it is the "heavy lifting" of sharpening that can drive one crazy. It is the heavy lifting that eats the bulk of ones sharpening time. If the media one uses for sharpening is weighted towards making that super "razor" sharp blade instead of towards removing steel fast the big jobs can be very hard to get done. Certainly super fine stones are more expensive stones with: Shapton, Sigma, King....I say spend a little more on the coarser grinding gear to start and less on the super fine gear. CNC wheels or coarse grinding stones are simply the ultimate examples of the principal.

[Robert Engel]

I have the Duo Sharps in all grits.

Not particularly pleased with the coarse pretty much worn out already.

Used mostly for lapping and flattening waterstones, if that helps.

I think I will go to granite and sandpaper next time I need to flatten an iron.

Mike - I also found using coarser bench grinder stones generate less heat. Use to be scared to use them.

[Matt Owen]

I eventually winded up with a relatively economical Delta grinder and a CNC wheel.

Not to be picky, but I think you are referring to CBN wheels. Just wanted to point this out in case someone wants to do a search for them.

Matt