EamonMcGowan wrote:


Bob is right about the arms... they make things a bit easier when changing stone thickness. That being accepted... If I had the coice between a set of stones and the new arms... I would go with the stones every time. Bob pointed this out too, but I will say it with emphasis... I used the original arms for over two and a half years, and never found using them to be a handicap. I agree, the new ones are incrementally better, but you can get as good an edge with the original arms...and the arms don't sharpen the kinife, the stones do.

The newer arms set will not get you a mirror edge, but the right stones will.

It is all a matter of priorities (unless one has unlimited funds, then get it ALL ), mine would definitely be with the additional stones.

Phil

PhilipPasteur wrote:


+1 on that - thanks for the emphasis Phil (and for sharing all your experience with the Choseras), couldn't agree more

Ok guys, a lot has been thown out in this thread. What I am wondering is since the 5 and 3.5 diamond paste are ( 5 and 3.5 are microns) and the 1200 and 1600 ceramics are ( 5 and 2.85 microns) won't you get about the same finish by using either the ceramic stones or the paste as far as a mirror finish goes?

BillWood wrote:


I will look for threads later where we as a community have tossed this around before...
Now I will just say, not really.

One of the things that I really struggled with when I got back into precision sharpening several years ago was separating grit ratings from reality. ( I have been sharpening for over 50 years, and always have been OCD. Alway happpy with my results...then came the Internet and unlimeted DIS-information...damn )
The ceramics, the Shaptons, the Choseras, Atoshis... etc... and above all the the different pastes all act entirely differently when applied to steel.

I can't emphasize this enough, grit size is an extremely rough guide to understanding what an abrasive does at the edge. You need to know the shape of the abrasive, you need to know how it fractures under pressure, you need to know the concentration of the abrasive, you need to understand the binder and the stiffness of the substrate, ..Then you may begin to know what it does at the edge. Then you will have to understand how all of the previous data applies to different steels..
Then you will give in and figure out that you just can not compare abrasives by reading about them or comparing charts of grit sizes.

The ceramic stones do not have a specific grit. They are measured in surface roughness and loosely translated into a grit rating. You simply cannot directly compare them, other than using them and observing the results, to any other abrasive...period.

Clay has talked about this specifically. I can't now find the thread. I think that Syderco uses the same manufactuer as the WEPS gets the microfine ceramics from, Coorstech... here is a quote from Sal...the owner of Spyderco


www.spyderco.com/forums/showthread.php?3...ed-to-DMT-extra-fine

The pastes are also very hard to compare to anything, except other pastes in the same line. It has been well established that a one micron paste from one manufacturer will show significantly different results.. through actual photo micrographs, than that from another. The biggest difference here is concentration of the abrasives. But it goes beyond that. There are mono and poly crystaline diamonds and there is CBN. All can be rated at a specific micron size, but the break down differently. They can all be rated at the same micron size as the mean, but the distribution around the mean will be different.

Bottom line, the ceramics will do a specific thing for you, they will cut consistently. Once you know what they do, you can employ them effectively in your progression. When you try to compare a specific micron size of paste to an equivlently rated ceramic... well you can't!

The WEPS diamond pastes will give you some polish, and the will remove some scratches...given time. As Clay has shown, they will refine an edge. In any reasonable amount of time, they will not do what the ceramics do as far as removing metal.

Take a look at these links.. hopefully you will get an idea of where I am coming from.

www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=c...d=2399&Itemid=63

wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=com_k...d=4555&Itemid=63

Just a mea culpa here.. I have spent countless hours in the past calculating grit siazes of different abrasives and buying things based on that. I wasted lots of money and time. I have countless stones, slurrys, abrasive papers, coumpounds, glass plates, granite plates.... only to find I don't use much of it at all.
Better to listen and learn and sharpen more, than to compare charts...


Phil

Thanks Phil. I guess the best way to understand the intracasies (not sure I spelled that right) of knife sharpening, other than reading this forum (which is awesome) is to do some experimenting with different stones, ceramics and pastes in different combinations to see what results I prefer. I get the jist of what you were saying, just trying to reduce as many trial and errors as possible.

WE just sent me an e-mail letting me know that my PP1 was mailed out yesterday so I should receive it around Monday and that is when the fun starts. I doubt I will ever have 50 years experience under my belt as that would put me well over 100 but I'll have fun trying to get there. You and many others on this forum seem to have extensive knowledge about sharpening so I'll most likely be picking a few brains.

Thanks again for the information.

I doubt that you would have had time to look at the links I listed in my reply above by now in their entirety...
Please take the time to do that. You will learn much. Both are pretty long... but it took a long time for Clay to document the information... this micrograph thing is time intensive..
You we will be well served by going through every frame.. and every comment...and absorbing it all!
I promise!

www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=c...9&Itemid=63#2399

wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=com_k...d=4555&Itemid=63

There is no instant gratification in this art... but all of the time you take in research will be rewarded in the reduction of the slope of learning curve that you must traverse.

Thanks again Phil. I watched the second post but was unable to access the first. Then error advised me to contact the system administrator.

There was a load of good information in the second post which cleared up some things for me.

I fixed the link

The first is maybe the best...when talking about stropping..

Thanks for fixing it Curtis !!
Phil

Phil thank you so much for all of your hard work! There is so much here it is hard to take it all in and digest it all. I will however follow your lead and buy the choseras. I spoke with Bob at Oldawans again today and he is going to make up some customs stones for me. We decided on 1k/2k and a 3k/5k stones. I'm not a well to do sort of guy? But I am going to get the ball joint arms as well.
Hopefully this will hold me over for a little while? Thank you again!