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Thread: 30,000 Sharpening

  1. #16
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    My understanding is that a 30,000 grit stone and green are about the same micron value. Depending on what you use for a substrate for the compound there could be some difference. For myself I use green or gold compound and leather. I keep the strop out and do a mindless strop when I stop to think. I’m interested to see how this goes. I also have some white compound for jewelry work that seems to work about like plain leather, not used much.
    Jim

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rafael Herrera View Post
    I'm partial to natural stones, one of the large 10x3x1 translucent or black Arkansas from Dan's would be in my list.
    Dan's claims that their Black Arkansas produces a finer edge than their Translucent.... Most places claim that their translucent produces a finer edge (such as Best). I think that Preyda claims that their surgical black is finer than their translucent. Yeah, I spent a lot of time looking at claims from different companies. I am currently sharpening my chip carving knives on a Dans Black because I cannot find the stone I purchased specifically for the job

    I own the 16K stone but have never tried to compare it to any of my Arkansas stones. I just use whatever whim takes me. I always just assumed that I got a finer edge off my 16K than my arks, but an Arkansas stone has a tendency to polish the edge as well.

    If I had a 30K stone would I use it? Yes, I would use it. I have also been considering using a heavy concentration diamond spray on maple to see how that works. I expect that the 30K would do a better job (especially given the edge I get off my 16K), but it costs so much more. Oh, and it should be said that although I like the edges I get off my stones, I have never been overly happy with what I get from hand stropping. Maybe that is because the 16K does such a good job, I just do not know. I do not feel like I need to strop my chip carving knives off my Dan's black. I suspect that I am just bad at stropping. Someday I will work on that.

    https://www.danswhetstone.com/inform...our-whetstone/
    https://www.bestsharpeningstones.com...ng-stone-grits

    Dan's has the better reputation for Arkansas stones but I have no particular complaints about any of my Arkansas stones, and that includes Dan's, Best, Preyda, Norton, and some I have no idea what they are.
    Last edited by Andrew Pitonyak; 12-18-2021 at 9:19 AM. Reason: added link to Dan's

  3. #18
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    And...Andrew has indeed seen how I sharpen my "Arsenal" ...and how I strop...

    More than welcome to visit the shop....
    A Planer? I'm the Planer, and this is what I use

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by steven c newman View Post
    And...Andrew has indeed seen how I sharpen my "Arsenal" ...and how I strop...

    More than welcome to visit the shop....
    Yeah he is scary, I hand him a blade I'm not done with and he just starts dropping it on whatever happens to have the next thing I know it's insanely sharp. I really should wander out and do that and then we could grab some Mexican food. Cuz I can't strop worth a darn.

  5. #20
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    Santa brought me the 30,000 Shapton Glass stone. Here is a report from doing my first chisel. I took a 1” LN chisel that I had already “flattened” in the past and went through the whole sequence again. I did this because as I observed the back, I recognized that I really didn’t work that hard on it the first time I did it. The chisel has been wonderful as is, but I thought it deserved some more TLC. I started with 320 self adhesive sandpaper on one of those ludicrously flat granite blocks - just because there was a small spot where I had not gotten all the way out to the tip, nor had I worked as far towards the handle as I wanted to.
    Then I went through a Shapton Glass stones, which were 1000, 4000, 8000, 16000, then 30,000. I worked the back for about 1 minute, then would re-flatten the stone on a DMT Dia-flat stone. I would work through the grits and reflagged each stone approximately 4-5 times before moving on the next grit. Then I worked the bevel side, with the LN honing guide quickly (20ish strokes per grit) all the way up to 30,000 at 35 degrees.
    Conclusion, I am one of those dummies that likes to see that a blade can shave hairs, but I have never been able to sharpen where the blade can pop hairs off that are suspending (not having to cut at the base towards the skin). That chisel could cut every hair, as I hovered through them. I haven’t said “Wow” in a long time. I have no clue if this will retain an edge longer or if it makes a hill of beans difference on performance, but it was really cool to see. The back is probably 10-15% more mirror-like than a 16,000. I have a cheap jewelers loop and looked at the scratch patter at the cutting edge and there is a pretty decent difference between 30,000 and 16,000.
    Is it worth the money…eh? I have about 50 tools to work through and a lot of projects to hopefully make throughout my life so time will tell. But since I have it - I’m glad I do. I hope this helps.

  6. #21
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    Nothing like having the stone at hand to put all the comments and theories to rest.

    Thanks for getting back on this.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Todd Sebek View Post
    If Santa brought you a 30,000 Shapton for Christmas, would you sharpen your tools that high regularly or at all. I have 16,000 and love it, I’m just curious if y’all would use it if it magically appeared in a stocking. Thanks for the input.

    Todd
    If Santa brought me the 30k stone then it would see regular use. Strop will get replaced by the stone.

    If stone was something like CAD 150 I would have probably bought it already. It is currently listed at CAD 499 on LV website. At this price, there is no way I will buy that stone.

    In retrospect, if Santa brought it, I will sell it off or return it to the store. Much more useful tools can be bought with that money.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anuj Prateek View Post
    If Santa brought me the 30k stone then it would see regular use. Strop will get replaced by the stone.

    If stone was something like CAD 150 I would have probably bought it already. It is currently listed at CAD 499 on LV website. At this price, there is no way I will buy that stone.

    In retrospect, if Santa brought it, I will sell it off or return it to the store. Much more useful tools can be bought with that money.
    Lee Valley has the 30,000 Glass stone at $259 (so I would expect under $330 in Canada). The Shapton Pro 30,000x Purple Ha-No_Kuromaku Cermaic Stone is $369 (usd) so $470 in Canada.

    I prefer the glass stones for wood working tools but I do own a few PRO stones (the 5K and the 8K). The PRO stones are harder and formulated for blends of stainless and carbon steel (the 30K was developed for suhi knivse and razors I think, the Yellow 12,000 / 15,000 was developed for wood working tools).

    The Glass series is considered Softer and releases abrasive faster allowing them to cut faster. This is where the density difference comes in, the Glass stones are more dense than the pro stones making them seem harder yet still called "softer" because they wear quicker. The Glass stones don't have the same specific stone to steel formulation as the Pro's, they are simply made to be able to sharpen very hard and highly alloyed steels. These stones were originally made for the specific purpose of sharpening high end wood working chisels and that is why they are hard and promote flatness so much in the advertising.

    My notes on the 30K PRO stone states:
    The Purple #30000 is a truly one of kind stone. Each stone is individually crafted, requiring more than 20 hours of processing. With a .48 micron particle size, the #30000 is the finest sharpening stone in the world. It is dense and hard, and takes sushi knives and razors to the ultimate level.
    My notes on the 30K glass stone list this as excellent for razors, not recommended for chisels (I assume specifically narrow chisels, not my 2" wide monster chisel), and good for pretty much everything else (scissors, knifes, planes, etc).

    If you are good with a strop (like my friend Steve who posted previously in this post), the 30K stone is probably not of much use to you. I have been working hard on my stropping and some others helped me in the carving forum to get a handle on stropping for my chip carving knives; I think that my angle was too steep and I am not getting decent results while stropping my chip carving knives. Historically I have had better results from a 16K stone than a strop.

  9. #24
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    David Weaver used to post about different sharpening strategies on other forums. His take at times was in a different direction to using the highest grit or the most expensive stone, more of a goal oriented view as opposed to brand review. His web site currently has several articles on experiments he has conducted on different media, https://ofhandmaking.com/.

    If you are interested in super fine honing, he's made some postings on using lapidary diamond powder. You can buy particles as small as 0.25 microns. If 30k has 0.48 micron particles, would this powder be like 60k grit? However, lapidary powder is only a few dollars instead of hundreds. https://www.ebay.com/itm/322345149590

    My focus is on woodworking tools and my wife's kitchen knives when it comes to sharpening. If someone offered me a 30k stone, I'd say I'd rather get something else. If I wanted to experiment, I wouldn't mind buying some diamond powder and see what I get.

  10. #25
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    If you want to try Really fine sharpening media, this is the cheapest way. Only pull back with the edge though, because if you go forward, after a few strokes it becomes so sharp that it goes right down through the film. I keep this, and the next coarsest one on a small granite surface plate on the drainboard of my sharpening sink. It lasts almost forever because if you take an already sharp edge to it, only a couple of strokes are required.

    https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop...m?item=54K9601

  11. #26
    I think we get too caught up in degree of sharpness, myself included.

    You can take it to an ultimate edge, the first couple cuts in some oak sets you back to where? Maybe 8000 grit? 4000 grit?

  12. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by James Pallas View Post
    I keep the strop out and do a mindless strop when I stop to think.
    Jim
    How does that work?

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Engel View Post
    I think we get too caught up in degree of sharpness, myself included.

    You can take it to an ultimate edge, the first couple cuts in some oak sets you back to where? Maybe 8000 grit? 4000 grit?
    I don't think it goes down that quick. I don't plane Oak a lot, but sometimes plane Cypress all day. I sharpen first thing in the morning, and when we come back from lunch. My starting grit is 6k those times. I like to start as sharp as I can, because the whole setup is right there, and going up only takes a few seconds each.

    edited to add: I don't think any of my smoothing plane irons have touched anything coarser than 6k in years.
    Last edited by Tom M King; 01-27-2022 at 12:23 PM.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Jenness View Post
    How does that work?
    It becomes like scratching your head or taking a sip of coffee. Plane irons are different but carving tools or chisels are mostly by feel anyway, not much to see where the edge hits the strop.
    Jim

  15. #30
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    I decided to run some tests of my own and then throw them under a bit of magnification to see what things looked like. I also did a simply fast subjective test with news print.


    My simple tests indicate that the 30K makes an easy to see difference for me.




    My Lie Nielsen 40V Butt Mortise Plane had some serious chips in the blade. I purchased it used and have never bothered to do much with the blade other than to simply use the plane. I decided that it was time to sharpen a bunch of blades (13 or so).


    Note that for these images, I would remove the burr then free hand the bevel. I did not try to chase he burr. Well, until the end.


    Also note that the backs had been previously flattened, at least for the chisels.


    With the plane blade, I started on a Washita stone, which very quickly raised a burr, but there was too much steel to remove to get past the chips, so I pulled out my Norton IM313, which has a Coarse Crystolon (120 grit), Medium Crstolon (180 grit), and a a Fine India stone (400 grit).


    It is difficult to tell, but much of what you see off the coarse stone is a burr.


    use_01_crystolon_coarse_2022-01-27-170001.jpg


    The medium crystolon leaves a huge burr


    use_02_crystolon_medium_2022-01-27-170729.jpg


    The Fine India left a pretty good cutting edge. This is the bevel on the A2 blade


    use_03_India_Fine.jpg


    And that brings us to the Norton Washita stone. Probably did not need to add this into the mix, but again, this felt sharp after this.


    use_04_washita.jpg




    Next, There is the A2 plane blade as well as an old Stanley Sweet Heart Chisel off a Shapton 2000 glass stone.


    use_05_Glass_2K.jpg


    The A2 plane blade off the Shapton 4000 glass stone


    use_06_Glass_4K.jpg


    Shapton 8000 PRO stone. The rougher area is off the Tormek since this has a hollow grind. Seeing a slight mirror and you can still see the burr. The image says glass, but this was actually off the 8K PRO stone, not going to change the text on the image. The blades are pretty sharp at this point.


    use_07_glass_8K.jpg


    The Shapton 16000 Glass stone. This still leaves s small burr. I can chase it and I usually do. This will reduce it. Chased or not, this does a good job cutting news print, which is not what really matters for a chisel. This next image also shows the results on the chisel off the Shapton 30000 Glass stone.


    use_08_glass_16K_30K.jpg


    I can clearly see that the burr is smaller.


    I did tests against newsprint, and I could do a decent job off the 16K, but but off the 30K stone there was an easy to distinguish difference. It was not even close.


    Now, do you really need this level of sharp? Well, if I am paring I want it. This level is almost always better to have. Can I get this off a strop? I have never had any luck with strops until recently so maybe you can. Those of you with decent stropping skills you probably can. If you want to know, just test your blade and/or take a few pictures with a scope. I took images at 40X, I did not even bother to take it to 100x to see differences.

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