Sharpening Stone Grit enough?

[Johan Axelsson]

Hello guys

So I'm new into woodworking and decided to go by the products Rob Cosman recommends when Sharpening. So I recently bought a 16K and 6K shapton.
However he recommend the Trend Diamond 300/1000 stone, but It got very mixed reviews... so I was thinking of going a DMT stone instead.
The DuoSharp 8", however this stone only got 365/600 in that size. To get 365/1200 you need to get a 10" stone.

Will It be enough with 600 and jump to the shapton 16K or do I need to spend the extra money on the 10"... rather not. It's costly at it is :o

Happy for any input.

[Jim Matthews]

Rob Cosman uses the very same Trend combo "stone".

Have a browse of his videos, and take it for a spin around the block. It might be adequate.

Sometimes, it takes a few uses to get familiar with new tools and materials.

https://youtu.be/ZLobikOSftY

[Johan Axelsson]

Yea I know he uses it, and I was going to order it. But the stumbled upon some reviews that was not very pleasing. So hence I ask, if you think It would work with DMT.
Apparently(not talking out of own experience, only reviews) the stones is a bit of coinflip.

[Jerome Andrieux]

I would recommend against trend stones. The last one I bought is so concave it added an heavy camber to my precious edges. Something between .1 to .2 mm translates to the double when honing at 30degrees.

DMT stones are flatter and also more expensive. And single grit.

For beginners though, I recommend such trend stones, double sided, with a strope for the final honing. It’s cheaper, easier to use and absolutely good enough to produce good results.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Go ahead and get the the DMT stone, it should server you well (I own many). My latest are the extra-coarse / coarse and the fine / extra-fine in 3"x12" (or something crazy like that). I own a lot of stones.

You can easily go from 6K to to 16K, I do exactly that all the time.

If you live near Columbus, Ohio, you can try them out in my shop.

[Frederick Skelly]

I have several DMT and recommend them. I also have Shaptons. This vendor (LINK (https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/8-DMT-DuoSharp-Bench-Stone-P127.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu-_0h8246gIVi4bACh30NAhCEAQYBiABEgJBpPD_BwE)) sells an 8 inch DMT Duosharp for $110 US that is 325 mesh (45 microns) on one side and 1200 mesh (9 micron) on the other side.

Everyone sharpens differently. Myself, I would not go from a 600 stone directly to a 6000 (or 16,000). For me that would be too big a leap. I use a DMT Duosharp that is 600/1200. Then I go to my Shapton 6000.

Good luck!
Fred

[Robert Engel]

Hello guys

So I'm new into woodworking and decided to go by the products Rob Cosman recommends when Sharpening. So I recently bought a 16K and 6K shapton.
However he recommend the Trend Diamond 300/1000 stone, but It got very mixed reviews... so I was thinking of going a DMT stone instead.
The DuoSharp 8", however this stone only got 365/600 in that size. To get 365/1200 you need to get a 10" stone.

Will It be enough with 600 and jump to the shapton 16K or do I need to spend the extra money on the 10"... rather not. It's costly at it is :o

Happy for any input.
IMO you should go to at least 8K before jumping to the 16K.

IF you check the DMT duo sharp 8" is available in fine/x-fine (600/1200)

I use diamond plates for the lower grits up to to 1200, then to 4K, 8K & 16K. I often skip the 4K. I am using the Duo Sharp mesh stones (black/blue & red/green) x-coarse/coarse & fine/x-fine. You really want the lower grits for repair work, flattening backs, flattening a water stone, reworking an edge that's gone too far.

Personally I like the larger size of the 10" stones. My only "thing" about the mesh stones is sharpening narrow chisels can be a little finicky.

I use the Norton 4K/8K water stone and a Shapton 16K. The Norton is an economical alternative and is a decent stone.

[Johan Axelsson]

I would recommend against trend stones. The last one I bought is so concave it added an heavy camber to my precious edges. Something between .1 to .2 mm translates to the double when honing at 30degrees.

DMT stones are flatter and also more expensive. And single grit.

For beginners though, I recommend such trend stones, double sided, with a strope for the final honing. It’s cheaper, easier to use and absolutely good enough to produce good results.
Yea that's what I heard also, thank you for confirming. I already bought the 6k and 16k shaptons so I might aswell you go with it and get a decent diamond stone right away also.


Go ahead and get the the DMT stone, it should server you well (I own many). My latest are the extra-coarse / coarse and the fine / extra-fine in 3"x12" (or something crazy like that). I own a lot of stones.

You can easily go from 6K to to 16K, I do exactly that all the time.

If you live near Columbus, Ohio, you can try them out in my shop.
I'm Scandinavian but thanks for the offer and reply!


I have several DMT and recommend them. I also have Shaptons. This vendor (LINK (https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/8-DMT-DuoSharp-Bench-Stone-P127.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu-_0h8246gIVi4bACh30NAhCEAQYBiABEgJBpPD_BwE)) sells an 8 inch DMT Duosharp for $110 US that is 325 mesh (45 microns) on one side and 1200 mesh (9 micron) on the other side.

Everyone sharpens differently. Myself, I would not go from a 600 stone directly to a 6000 (or 16,000). For me that would be too big a leap. I use a DMT Duosharp that is 600/1200. Then I go to my Shapton 6000.

Good luck!
Fred
Great, I did not know they had Course/X-Fine... Maybe they were just out on the official website. They only had it in 10". Will go for this one!

IMO you should go to at least 8K before jumping to the 16K.

IF you check the DMT duo sharp 8" is available in fine/x-fine (600/1200)

I use diamond plates for the lower grits up to to 1200, then to 4K, 8K & 16K. I often skip the 4K. I am using the Duo Sharp mesh stones (black/blue & red/green) x-coarse/coarse & fine/x-fine. You really want the lower grits for repair work, flattening backs, flattening a water stone, reworking an edge that's gone too far.

Personally I like the larger size of the 10" stones. My only "thing" about the mesh stones is sharpening narrow chisels can be a little finicky.

I use the Norton 4K/8K water stone and a Shapton 16K. The Norton is an economical alternative and is a decent stone.
The 10" seem like a better size for sure, It's just the price point im concered at.I already spent quite abit to get going :p
In Rob video he goes straight from 1K Trend stone, to 16K when resharpening. This seemed abit odd for me also with such a huge gap. But I will try, it seemed to work for him.
He used the Coarse on the DMT and the 6K Shapton to prepare Chisels for the first time.


Thanks everyone for the very helpfull answers!

[Winston Chang]

I have a Trend stone. It's OK. The first one I got wasn't quite flat -- it was slightly convex on one side, and concave on the other. That caused problems when I used it to flatten the backs of blades. When I used it for flattening stones, it imparted the curvature to the stone. The good news is that I was able to get them to replace it with one that was flatter. (With the first one, it was out of flat by about .002 inches, or .05 mm. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when one side makes the back of your blade convex and the other makes it concave, that's a problem. Even a slight amount of curvature results in a lot more work removing metal.)

The Trend looks very similar to cheap diamond stones that you can get for around $25. I wouldn't be surprised if they're made in the same place, to the same level of quality. But at least the Trend has some guarantee of flatness, so that counts for something.

A long time ago I had some DMT DuoSharp stones, and I recall those also not being flat, although I didn't measure exactly how much. I'd suggest buying a stone at a local retailer if possible. The people at my local Woodcraft store said that if I were to buy a diamond stone from them, I could check it for flatness before actually buying it.

As for the 600 to 16000 jump... that's a lot. Rob Cosman goes from 1000 to 16000, and I think that works only because he raises the angle on the 16000 and puts a tiny microbevel on the blade, which gets honed off each time he goes back to the 1000. If you don't do a microbevel this way, you'd have to spend a really long time on the 16000 to get the 1000-grit scratches out.

[Johan Axelsson]

I have to watch the Video again. So what you are saying is he bassicly have 3 bevels? One 25 degree, a second that he goes for with the 1000 and the third he goes straight to 16k?

[Winston Chang]

He does add another bevel on the 16000 stone. You can see him do it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLIEoz00v0#t=19m50s

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Johan and Welcome to the Creek.

Interesting your first post is a sharpening thread. Sharpening seems to be a subject upon which everyone has an opinion.

One thought for consideration, "the products Rob Cosman recommends" are often products in which he has a financial interest. This is often the case with some 'professionals' in any trade.

For my on purposes water stones used to be my Holy Grail of sharpening. Mostly a 1000 or 2000 grit stone to start. Followed by a 4000 and an 8000. Stropping was optional. If a blade was in really bad shape coarser grit would be supplied by abrasive sheets. For my way of working the 800 and coarser stones wore away too quickly. One point is to not wait to sharpen until an edge gets frustratingly dulled.

Because my shop isn't heated in the winter water would freeze. For this an accumulation of oilstones were used to sharpen. Funny that years ago oilstones just didn't seem to work for me. After learning to sharpen with water stones the oilstones started working a whole lot better.

One test of a chisel's sharpness is paring end grain on a soft wood like fir or pine. Mortising is a lot of end grain cutting. One of my recently acquired chisels was sharpened on oilstones and cut end grain quite well:

436255

The chips laying on the work were pared off with the aid of a mallet. There were actually some pared off by hand at the end of the mortise. This chisel is great, it actually held its edge very well throughout cutting a 2-1/4" X 4" (~55mm X 100mm) mortise.

BTW, this chisel has a single bevel at 25º.

jtk

[glenn bradley]

Just my experience with DMT over the last 17 years . . . First, I will say that my DMT stones have outlasted any Trend or EZ Lap stones that I tried, wore out and tossed. Second, coarser grits are difficult in diamond stones. Although I have a DiaSharp Extra Coarse I use it rarely. For coarse work I use a grinder or sand paper on glass/marble depending what I am doing.

For Coarse (~300grit) through Extra Extra Fine (`8000 grit) I use DMT DiaSharp stones in 8". I started with the 11.5" stones and have a few grits of those. They are handy for narrow edges and just a few swipes on each grit does the job. The 8" are wider and allow for things like my 2"+ plane irons and such.

The DuoSharp products seem like a good idea for dual-grit stones but the Fine/Extra Fine combo is the only one that really makes sense to me for sharpening chisels, planes and the like. We have to remember that there are folks out there that sharpen other tools, woodworking and not. The products made for these folks are not as useful for what I do.

In short, DMT is my go-to, Trend and EZ Lap are off my list, I have not tried Atoma and other recent players and the full-surface abrasive DiaSharp format is my preferred. Other opinions will abound. I just wanted to share what I have found to work for me long term.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Carefully consider why you need each stone. Maybe you do not need all of the stones when you begin. Are you starting with sharp blades?

I started with sandpaper on a flat plate (such as glass). Eventually, sandpaper gets expensive, but so are plates. I use a hollow grind, so I spend much more time on finer grits than with lower grits. I cannot comment on what you need if you use a flat bevel and do a full grind each time. Since you are talking about micro-bevels, perhaps you do need the coarser stones, but you could also do that with sand paper; or use sand paper for the higher grits.

Can you use a strop rather than the 16K stone? I like my 16K stone, just so we are clear, but, you might be able to make a strop for less than the 16K stone.

In the long run, the stones will cost you less money I think, but, if you want to try it out to see if it matters, you might find that for much of what you do, a 6K followed by a strop will work just fine.

Saying that, I have 2K, 4K, 5K, 6K, 8K, 16K, a bunch of diamond stones, Arkansas Stones, etc. I just gave away a 500 and a 1K since I pretty much never used them. They were fancy stones that worked well, I just don't like soaking my stones before I use them, which is why I use the Shapton stones. Spray and go! But that is what I like to do, no comment on what you will like and what will work for you.

My local woodcraft has a sharpening area setup where you can try some of their diamonds and sharpen something to try it out. Or they did last I checked, no idea if it is still there, but, nice to be able to give it a go to see what you think.

[Jerome Andrieux]

I have to watch the Video again. So what you are saying is he bassicly have 3 bevels? One 25 degree, a second that he goes for with the 1000 and the third he goes straight to 16k?

Even 4 if you count the back bevel created on the back, with the ruler trick.

The primary bevel is done with a grinder at 20 to 25 for instance, the a secondary is created on the 1000 grit stone at +2 or 3 degrees then again a tertiary is added on the finest stone, a few degrees higher, if any.
Then the back is polished with the infamous ruler trick.


The main idea being to limit the honing to fine strips of metal, to save effort but also wear on the fine stones and blades. Some blades are pretty hard and not enjoyable to hone if not using this approach (hock thick blades, Veritas bevel ups, LN a2...). I would not worry with vintage Stanley thin blades.

Myself, I hollow grind at 25 on a wheel maybe twice a year, then hone at 30 degrees on stones with a guide maybe one a week, then strope a few times a day, when busy on projects.

[Johan Axelsson]

He does add another bevel on the 16000 stone. You can see him do it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLIEoz00v0#t=19m50s
You have any idea what the benefit is of doing it this way? Why not just sharpen with the 1k stone and get a 25 degree bevel then do a secondary bevel with the 16K.


Howdy Johan and Welcome to the Creek.

Interesting your first post is a sharpening thread. Sharpening seems to be a subject upon which everyone has an opinion.

One thought for consideration, "the products Rob Cosman recommends" are often products in which he has a financial interest. This is often the case with some 'professionals' in any trade.

For my on purposes water stones used to be my Holy Grail of sharpening. Mostly a 1000 or 2000 grit stone to start. Followed by a 4000 and an 8000. Stropping was optional. If a blade was in really bad shape coarser grit would be supplied by abrasive sheets. For my way of working the 800 and coarser stones wore away too quickly. One point is to not wait to sharpen until an edge gets frustratingly dulled.

Because my shop isn't heated in the winter water would freeze. For this an accumulation of oilstones were used to sharpen. Funny that years ago oilstones just didn't seem to work for me. After learning to sharpen with water stones the oilstones started working a whole lot better.

One test of a chisel's sharpness is paring end grain on a soft wood like fir or pine. Mortising is a lot of end grain cutting. One of my recently acquired chisels was sharpened on oilstones and cut end grain quite well:

436255

The chips laying on the work were pared off with the aid of a mallet. There were actually some pared off by hand at the end of the mortise. This chisel is great, it actually held its edge very well throughout cutting a 2-1/4" X 4" (~55mm X 100mm) mortise.

BTW, this chisel has a single bevel at 25º.

jtk
Yea It's a subject with many ways to do it! That's why I just went with the Rob system. I have plenty to try and understand thus far anyway. If I have bad results I have to try something else.

Carefully consider why you need each stone. Maybe you do not need all of the stones when you begin. Are you starting with sharp blades?

I started with sandpaper on a flat plate (such as glass). Eventually, sandpaper gets expensive, but so are plates. I use a hollow grind, so I spend much more time on finer grits than with lower grits. I cannot comment on what you need if you use a flat bevel and do a full grind each time. Since you are talking about micro-bevels, perhaps you do need the coarser stones, but you could also do that with sand paper; or use sand paper for the higher grits.

Can you use a strop rather than the 16K stone? I like my 16K stone, just so we are clear, but, you might be able to make a strop for less than the 16K stone.

In the long run, the stones will cost you less money I think, but, if you want to try it out to see if it matters, you might find that for much of what you do, a 6K followed by a strop will work just fine.

Saying that, I have 2K, 4K, 5K, 6K, 8K, 16K, a bunch of diamond stones, Arkansas Stones, etc. I just gave away a 500 and a 1K since I pretty much never used them. They were fancy stones that worked well, I just don't like soaking my stones before I use them, which is why I use the Shapton stones. Spray and go! But that is what I like to do, no comment on what you will like and what will work for you.

My local woodcraft has a sharpening area setup where you can try some of their diamonds and sharpen something to try it out. Or they did last I checked, no idea if it is still there, but, nice to be able to give it a go to see what you think.
Sadly I have no shop close by, and It's not really common where I live, that you get the cance to try stuff out. I will start with mostly brand new stuff, and hopefully in time when I learn how to sharpen correctly. Take a go at fixing some of my grandpas old tools. And to be honest, I have no clue what I need :cool: I just went with the "Rob system" because, I felt like he explained it well, and I don't want to dig in any further into sharpening than I already done(YET!!). I just wanted to be done with it.


Just my experience with DMT over the last 17 years . . . First, I will say that my DMT stones have outlasted any Trend or EZ Lap stones that I tried, wore out and tossed. Second, coarser grits are difficult in diamond stones. Although I have a DiaSharp Extra Coarse I use it rarely. For coarse work I use a grinder or sand paper on glass/marble depending what I am doing.

For Coarse (~300grit) through Extra Extra Fine (`8000 grit) I use DMT DiaSharp stones in 8". I started with the 11.5" stones and have a few grits of those. They are handy for narrow edges and just a few swipes on each grit does the job. The 8" are wider and allow for things like my 2"+ plane irons and such.

The DuoSharp products seem like a good idea for dual-grit stones but the Fine/Extra Fine combo is the only one that really makes sense to me for sharpening chisels, planes and the like. We have to remember that there are folks out there that sharpen other tools, woodworking and not. The products made for these folks are not as useful for what I do.

In short, DMT is my go-to, Trend and EZ Lap are off my list, I have not tried Atoma and other recent players and the full-surface abrasive DiaSharp format is my preferred. Other opinions will abound. I just wanted to share what I have found to work for me long term.
Thanks, feels good that I went with the DMT after all.
So I ordered a 10" because Amazon could not send the 8" to me for some reason? And the 8" from US would land at a steeper price than the 10" from EU for me. Corase/X-Fine


Thanks again for all the helpfull replies guys! Really appreciate it!

[Jerry Olexa]

DMT normally dependable ans easy to work with...

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Before you buy the other water stones, give the X-Fine diamond stone a try to see how sharp things are with that. You probably want something finer, but you want to see if you can see improvement with those first. You can see if things get sharper if you have a piece of sandpaper that is high grit and a flat surface for it to sit.

How will you make sure that you have the correct angle? Will you free hand? I might have missed that discussion.

[Rafael Herrera]

Johan, you may want to consider simpler and more economical methods of sharpening than those advocated in youtube tutorials that may be also infomercials in disguise. A wood worker called Paul Sellers puts out a lot of decent advice and you don't feel like hes trying to sell you something.

Take a look at this video on chisel sharpening, https://youtu.be/GN4yr7vp4I4.

Here's his opinion on sharpening systems where you are advised to go to very high grit levels, https://youtu.be/UbAo4RpM7oM, https://paulsellers.com/2012/09/questions-on-sharpening-stones/

Here's a blog post on using inexpensive diamond plates, I got a set and I'm waiting for them in the mail.
https://paulsellers.com/2020/03/edge-sharpening-under-10/

[Johan Axelsson]

Before you buy the other water stones, give the X-Fine diamond stone a try to see how sharp things are with that. You probably want something finer, but you want to see if you can see improvement with those first. You can see if things get sharper if you have a piece of sandpaper that is high grit and a flat surface for it to sit.

How will you make sure that you have the correct angle? Will you free hand? I might have missed that discussion.
I will start with a Guide, that looks similiar to the Lie Nielsen one. But it's alot cheaper. And then when I feel comftarable move over too free hand. If I need to redo a real bad edge, I will use my friends tormek, to get the first 25 degree bevel going.


Johan, you may want to consider simpler and more economical methods of sharpening than those advocated in youtube tutorials that may be also infomercials in disguise. A wood worker called Paul Sellers puts out a lot of decent advice and you don't feel like hes trying to sell you something.

Take a look at this video on chisel sharpening, https://youtu.be/GN4yr7vp4I4.

Here's his opinion on sharpening systems where you are advised to go to very high grit levels, https://youtu.be/UbAo4RpM7oM, https://paulsellers.com/2012/09/questions-on-sharpening-stones/

Here's a blog post on using inexpensive diamond plates, I got a set and I'm waiting for them in the mail.
https://paulsellers.com/2020/03/edge-sharpening-under-10/
Yea I recently come across Paul Sellers, he seems great. I already bought the stuff, so will go with this for now. I will for sure look at Paul Sellers input in the future, he seem very keen on helping the total beginner(That's me), and not make it to complicated.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I will start with a Guide, that looks similiar to the Lie Nielsen one. But it's a lot cheaper. And then when I feel comfortable move over too free hand. If I need to redo a real bad edge, I will use my friends tormek, to get the first 25 degree bevel going.

If you can use your friends Tormek for the initial grind, that changes a lot of things. I have a buddy here who comes over when he needs to sharpen. We throw it onto the Tormek and establish the initial hollow grind. The hollow grind makes it easy to free hand. Also, if you throw it there first, then you do NOT need the rougher diamond stones. I generally go directly from the Tormek to say a 5K or 6K stone and from there to the 16K stone; assuming that the back is flat and ready to go (of course).

So again, if you already have a hollow grind, free hand is much easier than without the hollow grind. Just saying.

[Johan Axelsson]

Okay, mostly I will also get new tools, so they should be decent already. Glad to hear it should not be a huge problem. Also I got the guide to start out with, to get a feel for things. I think It should be fine!

[Jerome Andrieux]

Okay, mostly I will also get new tools, so they should be decent already. Glad to hear it should not be a huge problem. Also I got the guide to start out with, to get a feel for things. I think It should be fine!

Get some nice wood and have fun blunting edges on it!

Oak, chestnut or cherry might be difficult to get in Scandinavia, but you may be able to find some nice beech. Birch and spruce arenÂ’t as fun.

[Jim Koepke]

Sometimes we forget where a conversation begins:


So I'm new into woodworking

My thoughts on someone "new into woodworking" is to keep it as simple as possible.


A wood worker called Paul Sellers puts out a lot of decent advice and you don't feel like hes trying to sell you something.

Take a look at this video on chisel sharpening, https://youtu.be/GN4yr7vp4I4.

Paul Sellers usually doesn't get a lot of praise from me. This is a decent video on setting up some chisels. It is much better than his convex bevel method of sharpening.



Posted by Johan Axelsson
I have to watch the Video again. So what you are saying is he bassicly have 3 bevels? One 25 degree, a second that he goes for with the 1000 and the third he goes straight to 16k?

Even 4 if you count the back bevel created on the back, with the ruler trick.

My advise would be to work on getting a good, useable edge on tools before experimenting with a secondary bevel let alone multiple bevels and back bevels.

Especially on a chisel, one does not want a back bevel or to use the "ruler trick."

One of the basic skills of sharpening is repeatability. Being able to produce a sharp edge without a secondary or tertiary bevel is difficult enough on its own.

With a single bevel, if there is a problem, it will be easier to determine what isn't working than to have a chisel with four different bevel angles that won't cut wood.


Also I got the guide to start out with, to get a feel for things.

This should get you to a useable edge quickly.

jtk

[scott lipscomb]

Sorry to throw in another tool, but my most useful sharpening tool, besides the stones, is an optivisor with an additional loupe. When I can see what I am doing, sharpening becomes easy.

[Jim Koepke]

When I can see what I am doing, sharpening becomes easy.

That worked great in my younger years. With advanced age on the eyes a lot of my sharpening is done by brail. :D:eek:

jtk

[ken hatch]

That worked great in my younger years. With advanced age on the eyes a lot of my sharpening is done by brail. :D:eek:

jtk

Jim,

Ain't that the truth. Bottom line if it looks sharp and feels sharp it is sharp. The kicker is knowing what sharp looks like and feels like. Same old story about frogs and kissing.

P.S. To add another factor: Diamond stones are good for grinding but natural stones work better for honing and polishing.

ken

[Jim Matthews]

Even 4 if you count the back bevel created on the back, with the ruler trick.



One note, chisels are maintained with flat "backs".

The Charlesworth "ruler trick" is for plane blades.
Japanese planes have a relieved back that this emulates.

[Johan Axelsson]

...... Being able to produce a sharp edge without a secondary or tertiary bevel is difficult enough on its own.

With a single bevel, if there is a problem, it will be easier to determine what isn't working than to have a chisel with four different bevel angles that won't cut wood.



This should get you to a useable edge quickly.

jtk
Makes alot of sense!


Sorry to throw in another tool, but my most useful sharpening tool, besides the stones, is an optivisor with an additional loupe. When I can see what I am doing, sharpening becomes easy.
Yea I've seen some recommend those haha. Will try my own first, not that "old" and repaired with operation not long ago :D


One note, chisels are maintained with flat "backs".

The Charlesworth "ruler trick" is for plane blades.
Japanese planes have a relieved back that this emulates.
Seen those, look great!