[nbo10]

Hi all,
Worked on cleaning up a small bullnose plane iron tonight and decided to try out the DMT diamond stones. I have a blue, which I think is medium, and red, which I think is fine. I went through both the blue and red. The iron looks nice, but it doesn't have a reflection on the bevel, and I can't shave any hairs off of my arm. The shaving thing is how I have been determining if something was sharp. Do I need to switch over the sandpaper to finish? Or am I missing something with the DMT stones?

 

[Dave Paine]

I do not think you are missing anything, the stones you have are good for initial honing, but sound like they are not fine enough.

I would switch to abrasive paper to finish.

The finer the grit, the smaller the scratches, eventually looking polished but really just very fine scratches.

 

[amckenzie4]

I have a blue, a red, and a green. Off the blue, the bevel looks a little hazy. Off the red, it looks shiny, but not mirror-like. Off the green, I can see my reflection. I also have a strop that I use, which seems to clean it up even a little more. For most sharpening, I don't even use the blue; it's only really necessary if I've done damage to the blade.

Basically, you ought to go one further than the red, either with paper or another stone.

 

[nbo10]

I kinda figured I needed something finer than the red. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious.

 

[Hammer1]

Blue DMT stones are 325 grit, red are 600, green 1200, white 2200, tan 8000. Blue is medium coarse for removing smaller nicks, establishing a primary bevel. You need to go a bit finer than red and that can be done with any stone or sandpaper around 1000-1200 grit. With sandpaper, you have to pull back, not go ahead or back and forth or the paper will be cut. I prefer to use a leather strop charged with paste chrome polish after the 1200 and see no need to go to the 2200 or finer, unless you are in a sharpening contest and have an electron microscope. When working, I can usually hit the strop and renew the edge a few times. When it's time to resharpen, if the edge isn't nicked, I'll start with 1200.