Phillip, thanks for the detailed response, plus karma to you.

In short you answered my questions. I had planned to go "back" 1 grit in Chosera's after the diamonds. It is good to hear they are not a "dripping mess" all over the WEPS.

I did not mean to imply I want a perfect edge at 30x, just that I would only inspect at 30x or so with a loupe but not go crazy with a micro scope. I would like the best finish possible to the naked eye.

I have read all 3links word for word. Thanks for posting it again. It is a great study. The photos help a lot too. These studies lead me toward Chosera's due to the feel and smoothness. Since I don't plan to go to 10k or 30k stones it doesn't really matter to me who has the finest polishing stone. Plus I get good results now with stropping.

Thanks again for the help.

Philip,

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was very interested in what you said and I am somewhat inclined to believe that there is a place in the line up for Chosera stones, with or without the ceramics for those like me who are more interested in the trip than in the destination of sharpening.

I am still curious if someone can address the question of which set of the Chosera waterstones fit best in between the 1000 diamond stones and the micro fine ceramic. This is especially relevant in light of your comments regarding the grit measure not reflecting the actual results in real life.

At this point I figure in for a penny, in for a pound. I can just see Clay smiling broadly as we sell his Choseras for him. Again, I think this website and forum are brilliant on Clays part. It not only serves the knife sharpening community, but keeps interest and motivation at peak. It's win - win for all.

Phil (or anyone interested), here are some Youtubes showing the Chosera stones for WE in use along with results in progression if you haven't already seen them. Hope this helps.

Just curious. Did you look at the links in my last post. The videos you posted are done by Tom B, as were the blog posts that I linked. He has more detail in the blog posts. Take a read of them when you have time...

"I am still curious if someone can address the question of which set of the Chosera waterstones fit best in between the 1000 diamond stones and the micro fine ceramic. This is especially relevant in light of your comments regarding the grit measure not reflecting the actual results in real life."

I hope that you get something on this. Not sure how many are using the Ceramics and the Choseras. I can't directly answer it, as I have none of the ceramics. I plan to remedy that soon. I plan on talking to Kyle about it in the morning.

I would think that Clay feels like the super fine ceramics fill the gap. Only by guessing would I say that the 800/1000 and the 2000/3000 would get you there nicely. The 5000 is a nice stone, but I often skip it and the 10K for a great useable, resonably agressive and still real pretty edge. I am not sure what adding the microfiine ceramics to that progression will do as far as the mirror edge is concerned. Possibly dull it (not the edge, the shine), as the Choseras are great polishers, even in the coarser grits. By grit size, you could get some edge refinement, but stropping can get you there as well.

It is all so complicated


Don't obsess about getting a progression that covers every 500 or 1000, or even a few thousand grit sizes. There are lots of folks that will tell you going from a 1000 grit Norton to an 8000 grit is just fine.
Results is what you really want, not engineering continuity...

I was exactly where you are with the WEPS a couple of years ago. I bought stones in pursuit of the goal of absolute grit continuity that I seldom use "in real life" these days. I read Tom taling about the Shaptons, so I had to have some of them, only to find that they made things really sharp, but left more scratches.... Damn, what do I really want??


I will see if I can find some of the external threads where people swear that 600 grit and stropping is the absolute best way to go. Check the sharpening DB here. You will be amazed at how many stop with the 1000 grit diamonds... and maybe a bit of stropping.

I know well that is not what you want to hear...
Been there, done that!

Keep in mind something I said before... basically, You will never know until you try... I didn't!
Buy them all !! You won't be happy until you do.


Phil

I did read the linked sites you referenced. They are great and very informative, thanks for that. I only wanted to show anyone interested what the Choseras looked like in use. I thought that a "water stone" had to be dripping and messy and the slurry was difficult to deal with and so forth. These Youtubes seem to show that they are really not that big a deal. So I thought it might be interesting to some.

I have to remind myself that this is still new and I get pretty enthusiastic when I start doing something new and interesting. I am pretty sure that in time I will go out to the garage and see all my stones boxed up and wonder what I was thinking at the time. But for now and hopefully quite awhile longer, I will still enjoy all this fun stuff and not break the bank in the process.

cbwx34 wrote:


These are mine after only a couple of knives.

(1600)

(1200)

I'm guessing the final layer will appear after the white dots join?
At the edges, some of the white dots are chips.

One of the 1600 sides has a depression.

Also the stones have gaps at one end compared to the micro's.



Apologies for picture quality. (iPad 2)

My only reference at this time is my micro ceramic stones which you showed in the photo. I wonder what might the life of the super ceramic be in relation to the micro? Say half as many blades as a reference or 3/4 as many or might it be just as durable as the micro once the surface of the stone matures? Just going by the pictures it looks like it would disintegrate or wear away much faster than the micro ceramic. (which by the way is twice the price).

Scott Sherman wrote:


I would like to see some pics of Clays set he has used for ever.
As now I have no idea what to expect.

edit - Perhaps also some pics of the new (improved) ones after a couple of knives?
Do they still look like mine?

Chris,
The question is... the important thing, how did they work on steel? How did they leave the edge? Are you happy with the results so far?

Phil

BTW... I am thinking about buying some of these...

Billabong wrote:

Billabong wrote:


I don't think mine ever looked like that...
but I don't think this is the answer. Mine are still dotted, but they don't "smoke", at least not that I can see.
Maybe it's when all the white dots are visible? Your 1600 stones look like they have a coating over them, or at least areas that show no dots.
Have you ever tried rubbing them together or lapping them a little bit?

Here are mine:







The old set is on the left and I've been using them a lot for the last three years, have used them on literally hundreds of knives. The new set on the right has been used on four knives now - 1x 4" hunting knife, 2x 14" scimitars, 1x 3.5" EDC. I've cleaned the old set many times, both with the Superaser and by lapping them with my fine diamond plates. I haven't cleaned the new ones yet. Measured the thickness of the new set vs the old and got the following values in the middle of the stone which actually includes both stones, the handle and platens: New=1.155" Old=1.143" for a difference of 0.012" so not much wear for all that use. I measured the old stones along their entire length and they are very consistent so I think the reduction in thickness has come from the little bit of lapping I've done and not from sharpening, otherwise they'd show more loss in the middles.