DMT vs. Suehiro, sharpening mania and "True grit"

Why can't we all just get along?

Some kids just can't play well together.

Not just scratches, but specks too! Zoom WAY in.

I don't know what the deal is but these two just don't work together. HUGE scratches nearly every time I use the DMT diamond stone to flatten the  Suehiro 3000. Even worse are the occasional spec of whatever. I'm not sure if it is diamond or just a metal shard. Whatever they are, they DO chip blade edges.

This is a real bummer because I use the DMT quite a bit. In less than a year, the surface has become feathered out at the edges, with just base metal remaining. The thing never was particularly flat to begin with, being bowed along its length and slightly undulate. I use it to flatten the backs of irons, chisels, waterstones, pretty much anything that needs to be flat. Oh yeah, the DMT is also making the"Thunk!" of death which signifies incipient delamination. Before I resort to buying an Atoma diamond stone, I'll probably try a kannaban as I definitely have a thing for the old and obscure. You can't get much more oldschool than grit on a piece of steel. Yeah, kannaban and a chunk of cement....... that's the ticket!

I broke out the  artificials so that I would best know where any scratches were coming from. That is always a trick when testing a new set of stones. Say what you will, the man made stones are consistent in grit...... or are they? Even the artificials make their own distinctive pattern of marks caused by the relative size range of the particles used. Yeah, range. Not all one grit size. OR......the type of binder. A different binder will cause the abrasives to release at different rates, leaving a different finish.

I am testing out the new Siletz river shale and the finish that it left on a chisel was pretty good, but not perfect. Just a trace of scratching, but is it REALLY coming from the shale or somewhere else? I also wanted to see how it would finish a plane blade made using wrought iron as the base iron, so back to work I go..... but I keep getting these random but very distinct scratches, like something is imbedded in the stone/s. I had a nice, fast progression but would be left with a near perfect smoky mirror look.... with just the trace of scratches remaining.

Now this is COMPLETELY immaterial, it was a VERY good edge, but my curiosity ya know. Did I need to spend more time at the lower grits (like 2000)? Was the scratching from natural/synthetic/diamond? Back and forth, one stone at a time using contrasting indicator scratch patterns, using known (haha!) stones to polish up the edge, then back to square one again. And again. And again....

Suffice it to say that even MY mania has limits, and for the time being ALL stones are being put away....

Time to build something.