Spyderco CBN Benchstone Double Sided Sharpener Cubic Boron Nitride

Product Information

Sharpening stones can be divided into two categories. Natural sharpening stones and synthetic sharpening stones. Natural sharpening stones are just that, natural stones. These stones were taken from a quarry. Synthetic sharpening stones can be comprised of different materials. The synthetic materials used most often for sharpening stones are ceramics and diamond. Of course each material has its pros and cons. Natural sharpening stones Please note, images shown on Spyderco.com may be of Production Prototypes. Modification of products, materials, measurements, technical specifications and availability can occur. The Sharpmaker and Spyderco ceramic bench stones are excellent and I have used them for almost 30 years. Be careful not to press to hard and use too long or you will easily form a tough small burr, then complain it does not work very well on the newest tool steels. The Al Oxide and SiC abrasives are softer than the vanadium carbides and will wear away the steel surrounding the carbides resulting in chunks of vanadium carbide tear out. Only diamond and CBN are hard enough to actually abrade and sharpen the vanadium carbides.

Start by reading this thread carefully with regard to sharpening your super-hard steel folders using the Spyderco ceramic rods. There's a ton of useful info in this thread. The basic takeaway: the ceramics in the SM are not the best option for sharpening your super steels, though they will probably work in the short run. Poltava Metallic CBN Sharpening Stones are used for sharpening knives using Hapstone, TSProf and Edge Pro sharpeners. CBN (Cubic Boron Nitride) is the second-hardest material after diamond. Metallic CBN stones utilize copper-tin alloy bonding for high endurance and low wearing rate. The problem with them being soldered in place is that when you are sharpening the diamond's are so hard they dig and hook into the steel and get torn out when you sharpen and then you do not have many diamonds left on the diamond stone.Where as with Metallic Bonding the CBN stone's I have the CBN particle's are better anchored in and are much harder to tear out. I'd personally start with the SiCs to do any heavy reprofiling or chip repair due to their lower cost. The 50 and 100 gold stones aren't much faster than the 140 honestly and the SiC should be a similar speed. Then I'd move to the 600 and 1500 kme gold stones which I've found to be very nice and high quality. After that I'd microbevel on the sharpmaker rods of your choice, depending on whether you want a toothy or fine edge. Metallic CBN stones may have tone imperfections. Metallic CBN may become darker over time due to natural metal oxidizing, it does not affect the sharpening.Woodcarving Carving Sets Full Size Carving Tools Sculpture Tools Palm Carving Tools Carving Knives Carving Accessories Power Carving Tools Burrs & Accessories Kmesharp.com sells diamond "Gold" stones from 50 grit to 1500 grit, then diamond lapping films down to .1 micron, as well as kangaroo leather strops and CBN emulsion down to .1 micron. They are expensive but will do the job. Good lighting and 10x-15x loop will easily show the small burr which is very difficult to see unaided. You can basically use any stone in nature to sharpen your knife. The results, however, differ per stone. From all stones you find in nature there are only a few fine and hard enough to actually function as a sharpening stone. Ever since the dawn of time tools are sharpened on natural stones. As such humanity has centuries worth of experience and knows which natural sharpening stones are best and why. There are two main natural sharpening stones to be mentioned here: Novaculite and Coticule. Novaculite

There are many different types and sizes of sharpening stones. In this topic we discuss what materials are used to produce sharpening stones and what the (dis)advantages of these materials are. As such you can decide which material will suit you best. Let's start with the short version. Are you interested? If so continue reading to find out more in the extended version! In a nutshell: Next, as somebody who's used the diamond SM rods, I wouldn't rely on those, they don't work that great either. They're terrible for any serious metal cutting/profiling work, and they're not even really that great at straight-up sharpening, although they WOULD in fact work on your hard steels. There's no reported significant difference between those and the CBN, performance wise.Woodturning Turning Sets Bowl Gouges Spindle Gouges Scrapers Skew Chisels Parting Tools Beading Tools Sovereign Micro Tools More Woodturning Metallic CBN Sharpening Stones from Poltava Diamond Tools are used for sharpening knives using guided knife sharpeners (Hapstone, TSPROF, and other Edge Pro-compatible sharpening systems). CBN (Cubic Boron Nitride) is the second-hardest material after diamond. Metal bonded CBN stones utilize copper-tin alloy bonding for high endurance and low wearing rate. Can you use ceramic stones,,,, yes, but they will mainly burnish and not cut the carbides like diamond and CBN. Small tough burrs will be formed too easily with poor apex formation. This is where the fixed abrasives are a god-send as you can trivially bring knives to very high sharpness with even coarse plates such as the Spyderco CBN assuming you use 1- lubricant, 2 - light pressure, - edge forward strokes at slightly higher angle to grind a micro bevel, 3 - alternating strokes from one side to other/ crossing scratch patterns. All of this will tend to avoid forming a burr when actually directly grinding on the apex.

I'm personally not a fan of reprofiling very wear resistant steels on the sharpmakers diamond or CBN rods, but there are many folks here who have done it and it works for them. Its a very slow process and your angle selection is limited but it can be done. CBN's qualities include high levels of high hardness, strength, abrasion resistance, and thermal and chemical resistance. These characteristics exceed the values of synthetic diamonds and conventional abrasives such as silicon carbide and aluminum oxide. In particular, CBN's high thermal stability and chemical resistance make it suitable for sharpening in conditions where synthetic diamonds are not normally employed. Sharpening to a burr is counterproductive and works against sharpness. Most ceramic waterstones (1200 grit or below) have no trouble with many common 'supersteels' as the vast steel matrix around the carbides is soft comparatively and thus, easily cut by these ceramics. CBN offers excellent performance in sharpening knives of any steel. Due to its high resistance specs, CBN can be used dry without lubricant. This makes CBN the cleanest of the available sharpening stones. How to use

Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener Mk.2 UK Version

Some threads at Spyderco forums are relevant to this discussion. It wasn't talking specifically about super steels as the OP is, but the question was how to incorp the diamond/cbn rods into your sharpening strategy. Linked below are several threads that have interesting info about all this, including comments from Sal Glesser, Cliff Stamp, and others. And Cliff's testing results on CBN. Lot of interesting info in there, for folks trying to understand the various options that you have on Sharpmaker, and how to get the most out of your Sharpmaker. CBN’s qualities include its high levels of high hardness, strength, abrasion resistance, and thermal and chemical resistance. These characteristics exceed the values of synthetic diamonds and conventional abrasives such as silicon carbide and aluminum oxide. In particular, CBN’s high thermal stability and chemical resistance make it suitable for sharpening in conditions where synthetic diamonds are not normally employed. The main advantage of natural sharpening stones is that in general they last longer than synthetic sharpening stones. In addition, natural sharpening stones slowly remove material. These stones sharpen slowly which means that the end result is a little more refined and controllable. And you sharpen your knife on a completely natural product. That could also be an important advantage to many. The biggest disadvantage is that sharpening takes a little longer than when you use synthetic sharpening stones. And no natural sharpening stone is the same. The grain size and the coarseness of the stone cannot be accurately determined per stone. That is why an estimate is given of, for example, 6000 to 8000 grit. Especially when it comes to the higher grain sizes this isn't something you prefer. Ceramic sharpening stones Also the other thing that most people don't realize is that although diamonds are harder then CBN at room temp when diamonds get hot from friction they also get softer then CBN and that's why a lot of big company's from what I have read prefer CBN grinding wheels better for large scale production when using steels that need to be ground down and are difficult to work with. That is interesting but perhaps you could share more information and someone aside from Cliff may have some insight?