Has anyone used any of the 10K diamond stones as finishers?

[ORkaisersoze]

I was just wondering if anyone had used diamond whetstones as finishers. I know Naniwa has a 10k resin bonded stone. NSK makes a 10K, then there is the nano hone resin plates which seem weird(unclear if they would work well for razors?). Diamond sprays/compounds are commonly used for stropping. The Naniwa one seem to get good reviews for knives. Of course 300 dollars is nothing to sneeze at but people pay far more for Jnats etc.

 

[JPO]

I was just wondering if anyone had used diamond whetstones as finishers. I know Naniwa has a 10k resin bonded stone. NSK makes a 10K, then there is the nano hone resin plates which seem weird(unclear if they would work well for razors?). Diamond sprays/compounds are commonly used for stropping. The Naniwa one seem to get good reviews for knives. Of course 300 dollars is nothing to sneeze at but people pay far more for Jnats etc.

In my opinion these are not good for razor.
Naniwa might produce better plates then Venev, which I have.
The finest Venev plate I have is rated between 0 and 1 microns.

I don't think Naniwa offers anything close to these.
They cut deep and produce random micro chips, probably because of an wide particle distribution.
They are also quite slow compared to e.g. Shaptons.
This is from the latest test I did with the 0/1 micron Venev plate. It does produce an ok edge. It is also difficult to know if the deeper striations are caused by oversized diamonds or steel particles released from the edge. The binder is quite hard, so any hard loose particle may cause problems.

 

[Herrenberg]

I was just wondering if anyone had used diamond whetstones as finishers. I know Naniwa has a 10k resin bonded stone. NSK makes a 10K, then there is the nano hone resin plates which seem weird(unclear if they would work well for razors?). Diamond sprays/compounds are commonly used for stropping. The Naniwa one seem to get good reviews for knives. Of course 300 dollars is nothing to sneeze at but people pay far more for Jnats etc.

I've played with this, only because I had to. In general, a big thumbs down on buying a diamond stone for razor purposes. If you do everything perfectly, you wind up with a very keen edge, but not a particularly comfortable one.

The Method is already about as perfect as you can get: very fine grits, applied sparingly to a soft substrate that a stray particle will tend to sink into, rather than stand proud and make a nasty scratch.

The reason I went down this path was that I have a razor made of CPM-M4, lots of hard carbides, and it became clear that diamonds or CBN, which can cut those carbides, needed to have a role.

Like @JPO I quickly gave up on resin-bonded diamond stones, which seemed to produce nasty toothy edges, and deep rogue scratches along the bevel, at any pressure. I would not expect the Naniwa, which is generally an excellent, high-quality resin-bonded diamond stone, to be significantly better than the Venevs for this purpose.

What did work, with caveats, were two types of stones that do not generally release diamonds: metallic bonded and those Nanohones you mentioned.

The Nanohones are some sort of strange material, almost as if woven out of fishing line with diamonds embedded into it. They have holes, and I was not able to consistently use them edge-leading without getting something caught in those holes. So I used them edge-trailing, with an occasional set of to-the-right strokes to take off the fin edge.

Metallic bonded stones hold the particles in metal, so while you may get a stray particle loose, it happens very seldom. Once you need to expose fresh particles, they are a pain. I've been using ferric chloride, with baking soda to neutralize, but it is the very devil to protect the metallic base on which they sit. I plan to play with electrolysis soon.

And with all of that, the results were not so wonderful. Yes, I was able to get a shaving edge by alternating Nanohones with JNats to clean up the toothy edge, then a 15K metallic-bonded CBN stone to get a shaving edge, then a bit of roughing on a coticule for comfort.

But it was swimming against the tide, and I can recommend no part of that process if your purpose is to shave rather than play around with stones. On any normal steel, my usual Shapton Glass -> JNat -> wide variety of natural finishers is a far superior process.

 

[buca3152]

I have the venev and they don't recommend them for plain ole carbon steel. Something about clogging the stones. I never tried it so I would defer to the people who make them.

 

[RayClem]

The problem with diamond plates is that diamonds are extremely hard and their octahedron shape provides multiple sharp edges which make diamonds ideal for cutting, but not so ideal for final polishing. They can be used for setting a bevel or for lapping another stone, but I would avoid them for finishing razors. You need abrasives that are less aggressive.

Ultra fine diamonds are often used with pasted strops for polishing of razor edges. The substrate used is often balsawood. The wood is soft and the diamond crystals imbed in the grain of the wood with only the tips of the crystals exposed. Even then, you do not want to apply a heavy layer of diamond spray or paste.

 

[JPO]

I have the venev and they don't recommend them for plain ole carbon steel. Something about clogging the stones. I never tried it so I would defer to the people who make them.

They clog/load up with carbon and stainless steel. You can use a soft jnat nagura to keep it clean during honing. You just need some trace slurry that is not abrasive enough to affect the binder. They cut quite fast even with load up.
They produce incredible edges on soft stainless. Mirror polish with enough "bite".
The red binder also seems to load up more then the yellow/beige.

 

[Gamma]

I don't think Naniwa has a 10k diamond stone. They do have a 6k. I've used the 1k, 3k, and 6k at this point. They are expensive, which is understandable but I do not find them to be joy-inducing stones. You can hone razors on them, but one needs to understand that 1k diamond is not 1k Alox. Particle size is, at best, a theory anyway. No one measures a particle, they're all different sizes and shapes. JIS specs list two scales, for two methods, each yielding different numbers. A 1k SIC stone is not at all like a 1k India or 1k vitrified Ceramic, or a 1k resinoid ceramic binder stone (Super Stone).

At any rate, I don't know that even if Nani made a 10k diamond stone that it would be a contender as a finisher for a razor. I doubt it, to be honest. The polish off the 6k Nani Dia is good but better suited for heavier blades and harder steels IMO. Very ductile steels will fin/burr too fast. Make sharpening Blue Steel blades a breeze tho...

DMT makes a 4k and 8k Dia plate that some guys use.... different type of thing really but to make a point I wouldn't want to shave off the 8k plate.

 

[Steve56]

I haven’t found a 10k synth to be equal to a finer synth, like the 0.85u Shapton G7. Or to a decent natural razor finisher. Good slates can beat a 10k synth.

Best 10k synth so far, the Kouseki 10k - the Naniwa 10k isn’t far off in performance. The 12k Naniwa Super stone is ubiquitous, relatively cheap, and gets you to a very nice edge.

 

[steveclarkus]

I was just wondering if anyone had used diamond whetstones as finishers. I know Naniwa has a 10k resin bonded stone. NSK makes a 10K, then there is the nano hone resin plates which seem weird(unclear if they would work well for razors?). Diamond sprays/compounds are commonly used for stropping. The Naniwa one seem to get good reviews for knives. Of course 300 dollars is nothing to sneeze at but people pay far more for Jnats etc.

A simpler and much less expensive option would be diamond pasted balsa. I've used it for years with superb results.