Dressing Columbia Gorge Stoneworks resin bond diamond stones.

Here I wish to show how to do the initial dress on the stones I make. I explain in detail how to do it on the Use and Maintenance page of my website so this is more a visual supplement to that.
For more information please visit my website at www.cgsw.us/

[@EDCandLace]

I love my CGSW plates. The 3x8s are so nice, with the Russia thing Venev stones are to costly to try and get now and your stones preform amazing. I really wish you would add a 200 micron stone and a 1 micron stone to the progression then I would very likely only use your stones. I have 2 full sets of Venev Dragon series (just bought a new set in 100/240, 400/800 and 1200/1500 as a back up to my set that's about a year old) and a set of Metallic bonded diamond stones that are more less new along with a set of your stones, 8x3s in all 6 grits, i just wish you did a 200 mic and a 1 mic and your set would be imho the best resin bonded stones on the market. The 160 cuts fast but on hard ZDP189, K390 and a couple other hyper wear resistant steels they leave me crying for a 200 micron, the 5 micron starts a nice mirror but with a slightly noticeable scratch pattern that on customers knives that want full mirrors i have to switch over to different stones to get. I wish I could go 5 micron, 1 micron and then strop 0.5, 0.1, 0.025, 0.01 and have a full mirror with no visible to naked eye scratch pattern. Again I believe your stones are at current the best bonded stones on the market. They leave the most consistent scratch pattern telling me your diamonds are very close in sizing with very few larger particles if any in the matrix something that can not be said about venev and most other bonded stones on the market at least that I have tried. Is there any chance you may be releasing a more course stone and a finer stone possibly now that 100% the demand for your stones will increase due to the Russia thing and Venev stones once current stock is gone will be very hard to impossible to get at least for a long time? If only one was possible I would rather see a 200 micron stone then a 1 micron stone but ideally you can do both!?!? One more thing I will say about your stones is the binder is the slowest wearing binder of all the bonded stones I have used. My plates have sharpened A LOT AND I MEAN A LOT of knives and been lapped plenty of times and the abrasive thickness looks like it's Unchanged. I mean I know it has thinned but it's so little that after a quick lapping the plates look exactly like they did after the first lapping and would require a micrometer to tell a difference. My dragon series plates that have less sharpenings on them and less lappings have lost more abrasive. Yes they start out with more but they no doubt wear faster. For someone that sharpens 30 to 50 knives a week your stones wear at such a slow rate it's kinda hard to believe. A quick lapping and they are cutting as good as they have ever cut and with so little binder loss it's like the stones haven't been touched. Please, pretty please give us a 200 and a 1 micron plate please please please.

[@CGSW]

I am so glad you like them! I agree with you about the scratch pattern with the Venevs. I don't think it is just the different bond, which does make a difference, but that the diamond must not be sized as uniformly. EP also sharpens around 50 knives a week and for the first few years I tracked the wear to their Matrix stones. They would only get .0005"-.002" a year of wear on the 2300 and 4K stones, with a little more on the coarser ones. I figured the finer stones should be good for 60-80,000 knives if properly used and maintained. I have made stones using 4, 2.5, and 1.5 micron diamond. The 4 micron stones worked on Maxamet and ceramic but little else I tried them on and the 2.5 stone only worked on ceramic knives. On most knives they would leave a bunch of random deeper scratches. Between those random scratches the bevel was better polished but overall they only harmed the bevel. My take is the coarser the abrasive the harder the bond, the finer the softer and my resin is only good down to 5 micron. After that you need to change bonds, in other words switch to strops. So far I like hard veg tanned cowhide but one day will get to trying out 3m paper surgical tape. I like it but it doesn't come off the aluminum blank easily. I need to try soaking them in alcohol to see if that helps. Over Christmas I made a bunch of aluminum mounts for all my stones but left off the grit size so they can be used for strops, I just need to add them to the website. Same for a buch of diamond and Alox sprays. Strops and sprays are a great solution to sharpening ceramic knives. While you can rough them on stones you need a softer bond to finish them on as they are sooooo prone to chipping while sharpening. I started playing with phenolic resin for my stones back in 2006 but for what I was using my stones for my current resin worked better. This is the same type of resin the Venevs use. More recently I was hesitant to put the work into finishing that project because the Venevs were proven, accepted, and made in a country with far lower labor rates so they would be very hard to compete with. Due to current events I figure it's now or never so I started it back up a few weeks ago. I think this harder resin family would be a big improvement for the coarser stones. Unfortunatly I have too many irons in the fire to get it done quickly, but I am too curious about it to not see it through. While I like my current 160 micron stone I do understand how it could be improved for others needs. In time I expect I will have improved coarser stones to offer.

[@kevinfitz3721]

Awesome video I definitely need to check these out!

[@chrisolenick953]

the 120 kuromaku stone makes quick work of the resin bonded diamond stones i make on that settled diamond side. it will also true it up really well really fast i just dressed about 20 various sizes using a 120 sic stone to dress the kuromaku every couple of stones. i love sic powder but i found this method to work well where normally it might just burnish this seems to keep abrasives rolling and cut into that little bit of resin at the bottom

[@toddburdick1]

I just bought the dragon venev 400/800 stone. I also have BBB's super resin bonded CBN stones that are 400 and 1500. I'm having troule understanding how your grit rating and BBB's match to those in tbe grit rating chart on the gritomatic site.

[@CGSW]

That confusion is why I chose to use micron ratings. When using grit ratings you need to know what rating it is to know how big the grit is in size, while microns are microns. If possible try convering theirs to microns and keep in mind that the size of the abrasive is maybe half of the equation. The rest is the quality of the abrasive, the abrasives used, the consistency of size, concentration of abrasive, and the bond. A good way to save money when manufacturing these stones is to use cheaper abrasives as filler and looser grading so the size of the abrasives range more. The only way to really compare stones is to use them and compare the results, every thing else is just estimating.

[@malakov5]

I have an ignorant question and I hope you don't mind educating me. I'm looking at your 1x4 resin bonded stones- 5mic -160mic, but the abrasive bags cover a wide range. the fine abrasive is used for the 5-40 micron stones and so on up to the 160. I assume that when dressing the stones, the difference is that you dress longer for 40 micron than you would 5? How do I know when to stop?

[@CGSW]

Once they have been dressed a few times then the difference in time to dress doesn't change much between the coarser and finer stones. The coarser ones do take longer but only a few seconds. If dressing my stones for the first time then you will need to do it for around 45 seconds to remove the excess resin skin off. I suggest dressing for 10-15 seconds and they try sharpening a knife, then dress again, and use them again, until you don't find any benefit from dressing. This will teach you how long it takes to dress them, how they should look after dressing, and how the stones should work when properly dressed. It takes around 45 seconds to dress off .001" of stone thickness so your not going to harm them over dressing a few times and you will learn a lot from it. I think this is true for all stones that need to be dressed occasionally. Learning how to properly dress is critical for all stones, I have been pleasantly surprised at how much better my old aluminum oxide stones worked after dressing them with loose grit. The times I quote here are for the 1x4 stones, the bigger the stone the longer it takes to dress them.

[@jamesincharlotte]

If I order your stones from gripomatic for KME do I need to dress them too. And do I need to flatten them after use every so often ? Thanks new to sharpening

[@CGSW]

For the most part my stones are shipped needing to be dressed, for many good reasons. in use they rarely need to be flattened but ocasionally will need to be dressed to "refresh" them. I go into much more detail about using and maintaining these stones on the Use and Maintenance page of my website.

[@D00MTR33]

What kind of sand would you recommend? Is there anything on Amazon (ant farm sand, decorative or play pen sand) that would work or do you just get sand from the side of the road? Do you need to make sure there isn't any big stuff in it? Would 36 grit SiC work for the 80 and 250 grit or is it too fine? Lastly, I bought a set of stones from edge pro, do they need to be dressed before using as well? Thank you for your time.

[@CGSW]

I got a bag of "Play" sand at the local lumber yard and have picked it up from the side of the road too. The important part is the size of the grains, the more even in size the better and hopefully they are the right size. 36 grit is the finest I think works for the 80 stone so you can't let it ground up very much before you need to refresh it, 24 grit is better. 36 is a little coarse for the 250 but will work. The size of the loose abrasives do make a difference in how they expose the diamonds. If you don't get it right the stones don't work as well. All Edge Pro Matrix stones are dressed before they sell them so you are good to go.

[@D00MTR33]

@@CGSW Great, thank you. That helped answer a lot of questions. I got some 60 grit SiC, would that be better for the 250 grit stone?

[@CGSW]

@@D00MTR33 The 60 grit Sic is perfect for the 250, it's just not as "sustainable" as sand, but it is a whole lot more consistant! I like to find the lowest cost solutions to any problem and sand is as cheap a solution for this problem as there is. For the 80 grit stone the pool sand is simply the best abrasive I have found, no matter the price, and it lasts a very long time. I just wish I could find it in a 60 grit.

[@kevinfitz3721]

Are these phenolic resin or regular type resin? And enjoyed the video!

[@CGSW]

It's a softer resin than phenolic. They don't rough quite as well as phenolic, like re-profiling, but are better for maintenance sharpening where a finer, more even scratch pattern helps when progressing through the grits. And they are easier to dress!

[@kevinfitz3721]

@@CGSW nice. Yeah these seem really interesting

[@anteck7goat]

How do you ensure that they are parallel with the backer in addition to being flat?

[@CGSW]

If doing freehand sharpening it shouldn't matter, I think it only matters if you are using the stones in a guided sharpener, which would be the Matrix stones. Keeping the thickness consistent isn't a problem when doing maintenance dressing since you only remove .0002"ish of resin. It does become an issue when you are trying to flatten a dished stone, which already has issues that you are trying to fix. I have a pair of calipers that I use to measure the thickness when flattening.

[@TheDistantChaos]

I bought a 6x2 5m from gritomatic and they were out of 240 grit aluminum oxide, so I bought 400 grit. I dressed the stone the same way as in your video but the stone seems to be loading up and maybe glazing and won't come clean afterwards. Should I look elsewhere for 240 and buy it or will the 400 work and I just have to do something different?

[@CGSW]

The 400 grit is just fine for that stone, but will take longer to do the first dressing. I am hopeing that you are just not getting your stone dressed well enough. If you reflect light off your stone are there any shiney areas?

[@TheDistantChaos]

@@CGSW so I lapped it again for 1.5 min and it's working alot better. Maybe with the higher grit powder it just needed more for the initial prep. It also cleans a ton easier.

[@CGSW]

@@TheDistantChaos Yes, the finer powder will take longer to dress, especially with a new stone.

[@erich9882]

Would something like a silicon carbide flattening stone work?

[@CGSW]

Not really unless it sheds grit easily. It is the loose abrasive rolling between the stone and flat plate that does all the work. It is a completely different process than bonded abrasives.

[@madlok9114]

is there any reason to buy these over venev? they're double sided and cheaper and a thicker diamond layer

[@CGSW]

That depends on several things. If properly taken care of I am pretty sure mine will last longer and they perform a bit better than the Venevs so I don't think you can say Venevs are cheaper in the long run. Yes some of the Venevs are thicker but the resin is heavily filled to get it to wear some in use and be easier to dress. I think this also improves the "feel" when sharpening. It really comes down to the two lines of stones are different, and it is up to the user to decide which they like best. I think of the Venevs as a bit rougher and more universal where mine are more refined and suited to blades that you have to have diamond to properly sharpen them.

[@madlok9114]

@@CGSW what do you mean by the resin is heavily filled? they're also double sided and cost 90$ compared to yours which are double the price

[@CGSW]

It sounds like you just have to use and test them to find out how long they each last to then determin what value you put on them. As for heavily filled that is as obvious to me as if I said it was red and you ask what do I mean. To further this claim take a look at this www.myabrasive.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=565&p=8609&hilit=SEM%2FEDX+%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%8F+9+%D1%81%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2#p8609 Whoever is making the Venev stones seems to me to be used to making grinding wheels from the modifiers they use. I am not saying it is wrong, just that in my opinion they modified it too much.

[@EazyPeazyMoney]

Where do we get the abrasive that you used in this video?

[@CGSW]

On my website or anywhere you can get aluminum oxide or silicon carbide loose abrasives. What the abrasive is made from isn't terribly important but the size is fairly important.

[@robertdestross1979]

I just received a 10 micron. 1x6 stone from your website. It will be used on the Kme system. What abrasive do you recommend for dressing? Throughly enjoyed your video and learned a lot. Thanks!

[@CGSW]

@@robertdestross1979 You will want around 240 grit for that stone. I sell 240 but it doesn't have to be that exact abrasive to work, say 200 to 600 grit would do.

[@trumanhw]

you didn't really give us much time to see the results ... and you called it sharp..? Either I'm def. not seeing it or don't know what I'm looking for.

[@CGSW]

You really need to have the stones in hand to see it but you also REALLY need to use them to know for sure that they are working correctly. This is true when dressing any stone, not just mine. This is my preferred method of dressing any stone. Loose abrasive works so much differently than a fixed abrasive like a diamond plate. By the way do not use diamond plates with diamond stones, you will dull the crystals in the plate.

[@trumanhw]

@@CGSW Re-reading my comment ... I'm embarrassed. Please forgive my rudeness.

[@CGSW]

I didn't read it as rude so no worries. On further thought look at the difference between the two stones in the first 30 seconds. That shows what to look for but the stone can look good until you sharpen a knife but the steel left on the stone shows where the stone didn't get dressed enough. This is all about that first dressing on a new stone. Once you have dressed it a few times then it becomes much easier as the stone settles down.@@trumanhw

[@trumanhw]

​@@CGSW Thanks. Appreciate that. I've just started dressing my Shapton Pro and it's way more challenging to do right than I thought (and certainly more than I could tell at first glance watching you). What do you think about the use of silicon carbide that I've seen others use ..? I'm guessing people also use cBN ... which, speaking of: I'd really LOVE to watch you make stones. I'm guessing you have molds. You mix the CBN with resin and use a large grid of molds, use a plate to compress the contents until it cures, and then maybe use a mill to get them shaped right. After... maybe use a glue to mate them to the AL blanks that I'm guessing you also make using the mill ..? I've looked for ANYONE who makes stones (resin bonded) but there's literally nothing to be found. If it doesn't give away secrets ... I'd just love to watch the process. I wouldn't be surprised if I were off by miles, but I wanted to jot down something ... just thinking about mfring gives me more appreciation for the world around me ... and i'm jealous I've never had access to a machine shop. Last -- I have a microscope too. A simulfocal ... with 10x eyepieces and a low ... maybe 0.7 to 4.0x main tube...connected to a pretty good HD camera with an M4/3 sensor. Do you think I could get decent images of a blade with mine..? Or would i need much higher magnification eye pieces..? Thanks!

[@CGSW]

Dressing isn't hard as long as you have a flat plate, properly sized loose grit, and the right amount of water. Too much water and the grit just washes away, you need just enough to get it to roll around and stay on the plate. Either black silicon carbide or brown aluminum oxide work fine. The colors denote they are the least friable of their type, meaning they take longer to break down when dressing stones. Yeah, not much info on making polishing stones of any sort available. Of course it's all secret since once you figure it out making this stuff isn't that hard, but can be involved. I inherited a doctors microscope and put a USB camera eyepiece in it. I don't have a clue what magnification I am using or really anything else about microscopes because this is the only one I have ever used.@@trumanhw