No more water stones for me. Diamond plates are the dogs kahunas.

[Lemwise]

A while ago I bought the Atoma 1200 diamond plate and I've been very satisfied with it. It sharpens fast and consistently and produces a very good edge. I decided to also try the 6 inch DMT extra extra fine (8000 grit) to take it to the next step and I'm glad I did. This plate produces the best edge I've ever seen. It's a highly polished (not that that matters) and durable edge and it takes no time to get there. I bought it just after the Atoma and it's breaking in nicely as you can see in the picture. It hasn't yet reached its end grit but it won't be long now. The only down side is that you have to use soapy water. With just plain water the back of a chisel just glides over the plate and nothing happens. You really need to break the surface tension of the water. The plus side is that it keeps the plate nice and clean. And of course it will never dish.

 

[rst]

Having finally, after 46 years of hacking wood, I finally decided to try finesse.  I've been buying and using Lie Neilsen planes and buying good chisels for the last year or so.  I bought the Veritas sharpening system and all the DMT diamond grits from XXtra coarse to the XXtra fine.  I'd been using a 1 x 42 stationary belt sander with up to 2000 grit belts but these diamond stones are unreal.

 

[Lemwise]

They really are, aren't they. I especially like the XXF because it puts such a good edge on my tools.

And here's a little tip the speed up the breaking in of the extra extra fine. Get a small extra fine DMT pocket stone and move it over the plate for 5 seconds with no pressure and under a running tap. Just let it glide over the plate. That will knock down the high spots of the diamond coating.

 

[Svar]

I started using diamond plates years ago and never looked back. Can't understand why would anybody mess with waterstones.

 

[Lemwise]

Now that I'm using them myself I no longer understand either. And I never thought a diamond plate could be so fine as the XXF. It truly surpassed my expectations.

 

[ear3]

I would just like to say that a year into investing in a sharpening system, specifically the DMT duo-sharp stones (two sided mesh), I would not get them again nor recommend them to anyone.  The coarse (black) and xtra-fine (green) sides are not cutting nearly as well as they did at first, which accords with my usage pattern of relying on those sides most heavily, the black for cleaning up chipped edges or re-setting primary bevel, and the green for initially establishing the microbevel.  I'm kind of shocked at how quickly they've worn out.  I'm eventually going to switch over to diamond plates or shapton glass stones (I have an 8000 shapton which I like a lot).

EDIT: I do still like my 4000 grit Dia Sharp plate, however.

 

[HarveyWildes]

I would just like to say that a year into investing in a sharpening system, specifically the DMT duo-sharp stones (two sided mesh), I would not get them again nor recommend them to anyone.  The coarse (black) and xtra-fine (green) sides are not cutting nearly as well as they did at first, which accords with my usage pattern of relying on those sides most heavily, the black for cleaning up chipped edges or re-setting primary bevel, and the green for initially establishing the microbevel.  I'm kind of shocked at how quickly they've worn out.  I'm eventually going to switch over to diamond plates or shapton glass stones (I have an 8000 shapton which I like a lot).

I had a previous generation of DMT Duo-Sharp stones that I was never quite happy with.  Now I'm using a combination of sandpaper on granite for coarser grit stuff (up through 1200 grit) and shapton glass for honing.  After going through about five different systems over the years, this one is working the best for me now.  I never had an XXF plate, but my experience with diamond plates wearing too quickly matches [member=37411]Edward A Reno III[/member] .

 

[Lemwise]

I'm kind of shocked at how quickly they've worn out.

What I'm hearing from other shipwrights who use DMT plates is that they last many years. Last year we had a shipwright with us for a few weeks and he was using the DMT Diasharp extra fine and it was 9 years old and it still cut well.

 

[Svar]

Perhaps I don't use diamond plates too much, but they last years. They do become less aggressive over time though. Even if you need a replacement they will save you time and hassle over water stones or other systems to get your money's worth.

 

[ear3]

Yeah -- I think the Duo-sharp mesh surface must be inferior to the dia-sharp in this case.

I'm kind of shocked at how quickly they've worn out.

What I'm hearing from other shipwrights who use DMT plates is that they last many years. Last year we had a shipwright with us for a few weeks and he was using the DMT Diasharp extra fine and it was 9 years old and it still cut well.