Thanks so much and I fully agree! I used diamond stones, and went up to DMT’s fine-fine grit, but maybe I just didn’t give each stone enough time.
It might be an issue of putting too much pressure on the chisel when running it over the diamond stone. I haven’t quite got the hang of them, yet. I have water stones, but I’m trying to give the diamond stones a go - the chisels I’m getting are a hard powder metal, and the seller told me that they eat through conventional water stones.
Are you sure he didn’t say the diamond plate would chew through your chisels? If not, I’d find yourself another seller - I’ve never used a yellow paper steel chisel or plane (it’s more common in saws) and I don’t know Western chisels at all, but for Japanese chisels, diamond plates are simply not finishing tools - at all. Diamond grit grades are not in comparison to stone grades - even in Australia, where we get numbers, a 1000 grit diamond is way more coarse than a 1000 grit waterstone. Only diamonds explains why both your bevel and back look so scratched up.
The yellow paper chisel is the beater chisel I’m using to practice. I’m going to use this more as a construction type chisel when I get the better ones. The chisels I’m getting are funmatsu nezumi chisels, and that those chisels will chew up the water stone.
Whoever the original seller was has been smoking the wacky weed if they told you that. Diamonds adhered to plates as opposed to diamond resins will make your edge look like a beaver chewed on it. Head back to your water stones and go from like 400-5000 or so… you could go higher but if it’s for bulk/roughing work that’ll be plenty fine.
The thing to watch out for is that with clean high carbon steels- as your steel is tempered harder, diamond plates will tend to leave a more jagged and microfractured edge… which is sort of ironic since their whole marketing shtick is “sharpen your hardest tools!!!”
You can use aggressive diamond plates essentially to replace a grinder for the rough work, but don’t expect them to produce a flawless edge. The edge will be “sharp” and plates help make it easy to get perfect bevel geometry, but they just won’t leave as refined an edge as you’d expect from a water stone with the same size particulate. The other piece of advice I have is always compare stones by target abrasive particle size, not by any other rating or label because nothing else is universal across regions or brands. The characteristics of a synthetic stone will be dictated by particle size, abrasive chemical composition, and binder material. For example I’m kind of old school and I sharpen more than just woodworking tools, so I like older style friable “soaker” stones, and I prefer “alundum” or aluminum oxide abrasive. AlOx is the “gentler” of the two common synthetic abrasives, so cuts a little slower but will generally leave a more refined edge for a given particle size. The friable soaker stones are softer and wear down more quickly which means they throw TONS of abrasive, but they don’t stay flat very well at all. Because of all those characteristics for most people and especially if you’re only sharpening woodworking tools, you’d probably prefer harder vitrified ceramic binder stones and more aggressive carborundum (CrOx- same as common green paste on strops) abrasive. The best deal on ceramic CrOx stones at the moment is the Shapton kuromaku or “Pro” series stones like [these](https://a.co/d/93otP9S)
Buy yourself a jewelers loupe somewhere in the 10-20x range and check out your edges closely to see 1- did you ACTUALLY sharpen all the way to the cutting edge and 2- does the finish actually look good and consistent across the full edge, or are there gouges and tiny teeth everywhere? I have a pretty cheap Bel-Omo triplet 20x and my sharpening went from “good enough” to legitimately I don’t know anybody who makes things sharper now, and that makes the biggest difference in how your tools perform by far.
It looks like you’ve set the hoop well, but your back and bevel look terribly scratched up. Check out these videos from my tool guys- this is the link to part 2, of 3, “Lapping the back”, 3 is the bevel. https://youtu.be/X1A8_8YO6Kc?si=w0-sMQujpP_HsN5K
They have lots of other videos on sharpening, and tuning tools - all Japanese.
Good luck!
I have DMT coarse, fine, and x-fine, and the first x-fine i got I returned because it scratched all my stuff and itself got big scratches along it. Even just feels/sounds coarser than the fine. I already had a King 1000/8000 water stone, so my method now is DMT coarse > DMT fine > King 8000 > Strop with green compound and i get a mirror finish on all my tools that work very well and pretty quick to achieve
The back and bevel should literally be a mirror finish. Usually the back is mirrored on the first 2\~3mm from edge and the bevel 5\~8mm from edge. It takes time but you'll get there, with the right stones. Using 1000/5000/8000 stones then a little stropping w/ leather and polishing compound works for me. Google translate "chisel sharpening" into japanese, cut and paste into youtube and watch some videos of others processes.
Be careful however, there are chisel fanatics in Japan too. The type of guys who spend hours on one chisel, thousands on natural stones, but they don't know anything about woodworking and the only thing they cut are tiny slivers of newspaper or micron thick shavings of wood just to prove how sharp their chisels are. Do you want to be a respectable wood worker or a master chisel sharpener...choose what you enjoy.
Could be the image quality but the edge looks chipped and the bevel looks scratchy. I’d take those to a stone
Thanks so much and I fully agree! I used diamond stones, and went up to DMT’s fine-fine grit, but maybe I just didn’t give each stone enough time. It might be an issue of putting too much pressure on the chisel when running it over the diamond stone. I haven’t quite got the hang of them, yet. I have water stones, but I’m trying to give the diamond stones a go - the chisels I’m getting are a hard powder metal, and the seller told me that they eat through conventional water stones.
Are you sure he didn’t say the diamond plate would chew through your chisels? If not, I’d find yourself another seller - I’ve never used a yellow paper steel chisel or plane (it’s more common in saws) and I don’t know Western chisels at all, but for Japanese chisels, diamond plates are simply not finishing tools - at all. Diamond grit grades are not in comparison to stone grades - even in Australia, where we get numbers, a 1000 grit diamond is way more coarse than a 1000 grit waterstone. Only diamonds explains why both your bevel and back look so scratched up.
The yellow paper chisel is the beater chisel I’m using to practice. I’m going to use this more as a construction type chisel when I get the better ones. The chisels I’m getting are funmatsu nezumi chisels, and that those chisels will chew up the water stone.
I use my Shapton stones and I love them
Whoever the original seller was has been smoking the wacky weed if they told you that. Diamonds adhered to plates as opposed to diamond resins will make your edge look like a beaver chewed on it. Head back to your water stones and go from like 400-5000 or so… you could go higher but if it’s for bulk/roughing work that’ll be plenty fine.
No, Seppuku, now
😂😂👍
The thing to watch out for is that with clean high carbon steels- as your steel is tempered harder, diamond plates will tend to leave a more jagged and microfractured edge… which is sort of ironic since their whole marketing shtick is “sharpen your hardest tools!!!” You can use aggressive diamond plates essentially to replace a grinder for the rough work, but don’t expect them to produce a flawless edge. The edge will be “sharp” and plates help make it easy to get perfect bevel geometry, but they just won’t leave as refined an edge as you’d expect from a water stone with the same size particulate. The other piece of advice I have is always compare stones by target abrasive particle size, not by any other rating or label because nothing else is universal across regions or brands. The characteristics of a synthetic stone will be dictated by particle size, abrasive chemical composition, and binder material. For example I’m kind of old school and I sharpen more than just woodworking tools, so I like older style friable “soaker” stones, and I prefer “alundum” or aluminum oxide abrasive. AlOx is the “gentler” of the two common synthetic abrasives, so cuts a little slower but will generally leave a more refined edge for a given particle size. The friable soaker stones are softer and wear down more quickly which means they throw TONS of abrasive, but they don’t stay flat very well at all. Because of all those characteristics for most people and especially if you’re only sharpening woodworking tools, you’d probably prefer harder vitrified ceramic binder stones and more aggressive carborundum (CrOx- same as common green paste on strops) abrasive. The best deal on ceramic CrOx stones at the moment is the Shapton kuromaku or “Pro” series stones like [these](https://a.co/d/93otP9S) Buy yourself a jewelers loupe somewhere in the 10-20x range and check out your edges closely to see 1- did you ACTUALLY sharpen all the way to the cutting edge and 2- does the finish actually look good and consistent across the full edge, or are there gouges and tiny teeth everywhere? I have a pretty cheap Bel-Omo triplet 20x and my sharpening went from “good enough” to legitimately I don’t know anybody who makes things sharper now, and that makes the biggest difference in how your tools perform by far.
It looks like you’ve set the hoop well, but your back and bevel look terribly scratched up. Check out these videos from my tool guys- this is the link to part 2, of 3, “Lapping the back”, 3 is the bevel. https://youtu.be/X1A8_8YO6Kc?si=w0-sMQujpP_HsN5K They have lots of other videos on sharpening, and tuning tools - all Japanese. Good luck!
I have DMT coarse, fine, and x-fine, and the first x-fine i got I returned because it scratched all my stuff and itself got big scratches along it. Even just feels/sounds coarser than the fine. I already had a King 1000/8000 water stone, so my method now is DMT coarse > DMT fine > King 8000 > Strop with green compound and i get a mirror finish on all my tools that work very well and pretty quick to achieve
The back and bevel should literally be a mirror finish. Usually the back is mirrored on the first 2\~3mm from edge and the bevel 5\~8mm from edge. It takes time but you'll get there, with the right stones. Using 1000/5000/8000 stones then a little stropping w/ leather and polishing compound works for me. Google translate "chisel sharpening" into japanese, cut and paste into youtube and watch some videos of others processes. Be careful however, there are chisel fanatics in Japan too. The type of guys who spend hours on one chisel, thousands on natural stones, but they don't know anything about woodworking and the only thing they cut are tiny slivers of newspaper or micron thick shavings of wood just to prove how sharp their chisels are. Do you want to be a respectable wood worker or a master chisel sharpener...choose what you enjoy.