recently I've started testing a new company sharpening stones and I'm coming to the conclusion that these are the best sharpening Stones you can buy now I've tested pretty much everything on the market as far as sharpening Stones go at least every version or every type of sharpening stone and resin bonded Diamond Stones have been my favorite that's what's been my favorite for a long time now there is another Stone that's similar to resin bonded diamonds but it's bonded by metal so it's a metal bonded CBN Stone so what's the difference between CBN and Diamond well CBN is a is technically a little less hard than diamond diamond is a little bit harder but CBN is cubic boron nitride and it's very very similar to a diamond but as as far as the grade of hardness goes it would be one level down however for knif sharpening it has incredible incredible wear resistance and then over time while it's wearing the edges tend to stay sharper so they tend to cut a little bit faster and to my understanding for sharpening purposes you know and also uh things that create a lot of friction or a lot of speed or heat cbn's tend to do a little bit better than diamonds now diamonds you know and the cbn's you're going to be hard pressed to really see much of a difference um you might see a little bit difference as I have in how fast they wear which you if you have good Diamond plates they don't wear incredibly fast anyways but they eventually do wear out and same thing with a CBN but the cbn's tend to seem like they hold on to the bite longer meaning because all diamond plates as you start using them they eventually wear into like a finer and finer grit and they just kind of get finer and finer until they wear out uh these guys will will keep that aggression for a bit longer so when you take CBN or diamond and mix them in a bonding agent like these a metallic bonded or resin bonded they are basically mixed throughout the bond so as you wear off the top layer you only get into more and more diamonds you know and that's why you resurface them you know and condition them a little bit to basically expose the diamonds out of the surface but the entire bond is filled with diamonds so that's another reason why they can be a little bit more pricier um but another reason also why they last so so long now the metallic bonded ones are I think it's a bronze uh mixed with CBN it's like a copper and a zinc I think mix and then the the you know the plate is an aluminum plate and then the resin I'm not sure the recipe here uh but you know it it's uh a very durable very wear resistant uh Stone so it's nice and hard Cuts fast and it lasts a very long time and that goes for both of these but the metal Bond CBN will definitely wear slower so it'll last a lot longer I've tested metal bonded CBN stones in the past but didn't really like them because they didn't cut they were just such slow cutting Stones however this company has extremely extremely high concentrated Stones these cut like a beast now they have resin bonded Diamond Stones and metal bonded CB end Stones now another thing is that they are going to have or they have sorry they have all different sizes I have freehand stones on the way and I have thin stones for recurves coming as well so they're going to have all different sizes you know just depending on what you want right now I've only tested the 1x6 I'm waiting for the freehand Stones now we'll do another video on that I want to talk about these new stones and the the bond thickness versus the competition so the price versus the bond is the bond thickness is basically the life of the stone so if we move to venes which have been my favorite resin bonded Diamond Stones for a long time for years they have two different versions of their 3x8 Stones this is the dragon series which are about $26 you're getting 2 mm thick bonded resin on each side so it's a double-sided stone 2 mm thick resin bonded diamonds and like I said $260 a piece so each one of these are 260 now now if you go to their Phoenix which is the same size same everything except for the resin bed diamond is only 1 mm thick they're about $135 a piece now the the ones from these guys um you know depending on if resin or metallic bonded CBN they are and I have them on the way they have the 3x8 at 3 mm thick so 3 mm thick Bond so way more life than you're going to get even on the the uh the dragons and they're going to be about the same price so about two between 250 and 260 for the um the same size Stone uh 3x8 Stone but you're going to get more life out of it because you'll have 1 mm thick extra um resin or metallic bonded CBS Nano are 1 mm thick and this is a resin bonded Diamond Zone 1 mm thick for $135 a piece um so you can see obviously you know you're getting quite a bit more for your money in you know compared to these guys now as far as the 1x6 in stone so this is a 1x6 Centaur it's double-sided so there's you know it's a double-sided Stone these are 2 mm thick per side and there's three stones Al together which are six stones basically cuz three double-sided 2 mm thick on each side and if you get the whole pack of three and you buy it together it'll be 130 bucks or $51 a piece so $51 a piece or 130 if you get them all at the same time now if you get the single sided these stones but single sided very similar to to what you're getting right here just single-sided just like this they are $63 a piece so $63 for the single-sided and uh $51 for their double-sided but you don't get the metal blank with The Ridges not that it matters always you know I I've just used these you in most uh systems you can just clamp them just fine uh but as far as these guys they are so for the resin bonded diamonds you're talking $64 a piece now you can get seven stones I think for like 5113 they range between $342 for seven stones for the whole set up to $640 just depending on which version you get because the metallic bonded CBN stones are a bit more money they are um they don't wear as fast as the resin bonded they're still 3 mm thick uh but they are $93 a piece or $81 a piece just depending if you get the light or or the premium so $81 or $93 for these and then these ones like I said um $64 a piece or like $513 for the whole set so you know it does range in price just depending on which one you get but you're getting more Stones uh because with you're getting actually an extra Stone all the other companies it's basically a six Stone setup these guys have seven now you can get two more on top of it which will be nine technically um if you buy the extra Stones uh because they do have two more that are like um super super fine you know the the the what is it the like they they have a five a 10 and a 15,000 I think um I don't have the 10,000 but I I'm pretty sure they have that if not they have the 5,000 then the 15,000 so to compare them to hapstone yeah so Hab stones have um metal bonded CBN stones for wa 3 mm thick very similar to these well one big difference though is these guys cut fast these guys don't now this might have a finer polish in the end um while this might have a really good polish with a little bit uh more of a scratch pattern or a little bit deeper scratch pattern which does result in more bite but they are um different in that way that these are much finer than these even at the same grit the 80 grit versus 80 grit there's like no comparison these cut these ones uh don't seem to cut nowhere near as fast now for the hapstone premium CBN because there's the premiums they are $468 for six stones or $79 a piece now you can get the diamond uh half Stones um resin B of diamond I think for $67 a piece so right around uh the same price but like I said from my experience I haven't tried hapstone uh resin bonded diamonds I think that's what it is but either way they're they're metal bonded CBN stones or maybe it's metal bonded Diamond I'm not sure that that winds up being $67 a piece but either way their metallic bonded uh CBN I personally you know I love everything from hstone I think they're a great company and I highly recommend getting their stuff I I link them all the time I talk about them all the time definitely uh get sharpening supplies from hapstone awesome awesome company but as far as the metal bondage Stones um I like them but they don't cut nowhere near as fast so I don't like them for reprofiling or really even sharpening I I like them more for like just Edge finishing um like if I want like a a nice polish or something this just gives you a general idea of what you're expecting from the amount of time it's going to take to wear them out which is an incredible amount of time like these could last Poss they could last you forever um just depending on how much you sharpen these are in my opinion a must for anybody running a sharpening service or anybody doing a lot of sharpening because you know you could buy diamond plate after diamond plate after diamond plate or you could just buy these which will last a very long time and give you the ability to get up to super fine edges that diamond plates don't always allow you to get to without putting in other stones but it gives you an idea of the thickness of the bond and the price I want you guys to get an idea of what these are like to use so we're going to talk about what they're like to use how they work and then also the differences between them cuz you do use them a little bit different and we're going to compare them to other stones on the market you know to really give you an idea of what they're like compared to those if you've tried those or maybe you know just to give you an idea we're going to start off with the resin bonded diamonds now the resin bonded diamonds you can see there's a lot of stones uh but I don't know if you need all of them I mean it's cool to get all of them but you have an 80 a 160 a 240 uh 325 650500 3,000 5,000 and a 15,000 now as far as the stones go with concentration these are high concentration Stones they have a lot of diamond uh they cut extremely fast um in my opinion they have amazing amazing feedback so when you're using them like you can really in my opinion I think you can get a really good feeling of how to hold your angle uh but that's from my experience my experience is is the more I can feel the abrasive in the stone it seems the more the the easier I'm able to hold my Angle now these are like I said lots of feedback they work really well feedback is basically just the feeling you have when you're going across the stone and like how it feels when you're changing angles and things like that and just you know how well they cut so these cut extremely fast now as you move up through the stones through the medium grits if you're going to want the polishing stones to really really work you want to make sure you use these medium grits you know um maybe a little bit extra just because you know these are aggressive so you're going to want to get the the scratch patterns out you know and get it really refined before you move up to something like the 15,000 now like I said we'll compare these in just a second um to other Stones the you have to use soapy water so what I do is I take dish soap just standard dish soap uh liquid dish soap and a water bottle or just a bottle period And I squirt some some soap in there put some water in there shake it up and when you're shaking it up you'll know the the recipe is right if the bubbles expand to the point to where you stop hearing the water go back and forth in the bottle when you shake it because they expand so much that they're not making any sound so that's when you know your recipe is good so as long as you have that then you got enough soap and water you have enough concentration as far as the metallic bondage Stones they comes with the exact same grits so exact grits that we just went through over there we have right here now these you can use dry you do not need soapy water you can just run them dry just like a diamond plate which is pretty awesome no mess no no no nothing now the other ones all you got to do is Splash and Go so these are really easy to use too you just splash and go it's not like you have to keep soaking them or anything um you know they're Splash and Go Stone but let me pull out the this because unlike other metallic bonded stones that I've tried on the market this is aggressive this is very aggressive it cuts extremely fast uh you know it cuts just like you know regular diamond plate which is awesome I love that and you know these are 3 mm thick um Bond so the resin Bond and the metallic bond is 3 mm thick that's three times the amount as some other Stones now I found that their concentration is even better um just you know they cut so super fast now with any resin bonded or metallic bonded Stone the first time you use them first few times you use them they are the scratch pattern might be a little bit heavier than you think or that than it will be moving forward so like after you've used them you know uh half a dozen times or more the the the mirror polishes will start coming out better and better so just saying it's just you know the the the diamonds get a little bit more refined now you do want to with both of these get a conditioning Stone so basically a conditioning stone is just a stone that you use to knock down the bond and reveal the diamonds cuz the diamonds are mixed in the bond kind of like like chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie right so you knock down the bond that's holding the diamonds and the Diamonds are so hard this isn't going to affect them so what it'll do is it'll allow the diamonds to come out of the surface so then they're more effective and you just do that every once in a while you do that with the resin bonded and the metal bonded Stones now these are more wear resistant than these so the metallic bonded are going to last longer and they they are much harder like you know it's metal right so with these if you want to to make conditioning very fast and just make it go quick and you can do this with both of these you can get silicon carbide powder a piece of glass and then just put the powder on there put a little drip of water and then flatten them and then what that'll do is it'll resurface the entire Stone don't have to do that often but you know like I usually do them with some of my other resin bondit like once a year sometimes sometimes not even because if you use the conditioning Stone you sometimes don't even have to do that because you know you just use this to uh to basically bring out the diamonds and resurface it and if you're doing this every so often you pretty much um are re flattening it too at the same time now the metallic bondage stones again cut very fast they have great feedback once again you um you're not going to get as much feedback with any of these Stones when you get up to the finer grits however for finer grit Stones I personally love them I and there's a few reasons why one I I love them because they they one they get you that that that luscious mirror polish but two these guys seem to give me the most amount of bite from any Stones meaning after I've sharpened my Edge and my you know I got a polished Edge the scratches if you really really look at it under a microscope or if you get it in the right angle you'll see scratches the scratches seem to be a little bit deeper as far as right now goes but like I said that will break in you know you know the more and more and more you use it but regardless what it does though is it it leaves back a an incredibly sharp edge like I don't know if maybe it's just me I don't know but I have found that these leave the most nippi the most heaviest bite to a polished Edge I'm talking about like extreme levels of sharpness with these stones and maybe it's because they you know they're they're nice and flat they're hard in the diamond concentration I don't know exactly but I know that these just man they they cut fast they um you know they they work obviously really well they're long lasting these are going to last you years and years and years some of these you may be able to pass down to your children or grandchildren that's how long they could last for you just depending on how much you sharpen but the amount of bite that these Stones leave behind with their polished edges is just insane like just an incredible amount of B resin bonded Diamond Stones period do that especially with the right Steels you know certain Steels are going to do better than others at finer grits and the heat treatment is also very important so depending on you know the heat treatment and all of that can determine you know how the edge is going to come out uh but so far using it on steels that take a pretty good mirror polish uh these are just absolutely insanely insanely sharp uh but like you know I do think there might be a slight bit of contamination with the finer grit Stones which are kind of leading to that uh but you know I I can't you know I'm not 100% yet but uh but either way I'm loving it now any stones or any sharpening stone you know can leave an incredibly sharp edge but edges like this you know are even more to the extreme so as far as like how dangerous they are you know if you make a mistake steak or anything like that you do have to be careful because you know if you do slip and you you cut yourself or something it's going to do a significant amount of damage with this level of sharpness um now depending on the steel the heat treatment and all that will also you know determine on how far to the extreme that will go but you know like I said and these just these are incredibly sharp edges so you know just be careful you know when you sharpen a knife this sharp um you know you don't want to make a mistake with it you know these Stone also work really really well for honing and I love using my favorite honing Stones period usually are the finer grit resin bonded diamonds uh but these um are also really really really good um you know you don't even have to go all the way up to the to the finest one you can use like the resin bonded 3,000 that is plenty this is actually probably the best one to hone on the 3,000 for either the the CBN or the resin bonded it just works so good it's got that perfect amount of hardness where it's very easy because anytime you get to the finer grits technically it's a little bit harder to hold your angle because there's not as much feedback but the 3000 has just enough feedback that you know you can hold your angle really well plus it's really really hard so your bevels are nice and flat and it just gives you the ability to really really you know keep an edge going you know long term you don't need to use that much you know just a couple passes per side I probably did it too much here like literally you can just do a couple passes per side then hit the strap and you can keep an edge going for a very very long time on something like this so my conclusion with these is you know the stones from the USA Market which are made in Ukraine um they seem to be the fastest cutting sharpening stones for bonded stones that I've experienced as far as metallic bonded CBN or resin bonded Diamond now nothing will ever cut as fast as a regular just diamond plate or CBN plate now you can just get these if you want which is just fine my favorite uh Diamond plates or CBN plates are the hstone STS these things are amazing they cut extremely fast they last a very long time they're expensive but the in my opinion they're worth it now the problem is they don't come in freehand size my favorite for freehand size is atoma and atoma does make 1 by sixes as well these use Diamond clusters and the diamond clusters cut extremely extremely fast I mean very very fast and they last a long time longer than regular conventional Diamond plates because of the Clusters they use regular Diamond plates are just that it's a thin layer of diamonds over the surface spread out evenly and they work great as well you know you can usually get them a little bit more affordable than the other ones we showed um and they cut extremely fast now the thing is though is that for Diamond plates to get up to the ultra fine grits you can't use Diamond plates they just they don't really work and the ones that do go up very fine to like 3,000 grit they wear out like immediately so these type of stones are that's where they they basically Excel that's where the the the greatness of of their abilities come out is in the finer grits with super Steels or just Steels period to to have the an incredible amount of bite on a polished Edge now another thing is that for reprofiling and cutting fast these work great so if you're somebody who's doing a lot of sharpening you don't have to worry about wearing out your diamond plates if you have something like this because these will last you so so so much longer and you won't have to replace the diamond plates you know every other year or you know when just depending on how much you sharpened so in that case then that would also be a huge Plus for these Stones how long they last you know how fast they cut and their ability to to give you incredibly sharp edges because even for the medium GD edges they're they're they're amazing so all in all I I I tend to think or just one other thing compared to venive because venive has been my favorite I do find that these Stones leave more bite at the same grit and um I I I think this is possibly the most bite I've ever experienced from you know a a stone as far as from a low angle polished Edge now the the venes do tend to leave a little bit more of mirror polish and I think that's due to a little bit of contamination now I'm going to argue that it might be a good thing it just depends on how you look at it now I do notice that the more you use even with these when I first got them the scratch pattern was a little bit deeper than it was after I've used them for a while and that's probably going to happen here too and you know it'll probably uh even out you know just as time goes on but I do think that possibly these have a little bit of contamination with a little bit of larger diamonds in there because when I look at it under a microscope every so often on the edge I'll see a little bit of a deeper scratch now the reason why I'm arguing that might just be a good thing is because of the bite that it's leaving like it's almost like it's had mirror finish everywhere but then every soft and it's got a little bit of a deep scratch and for some reason man it just makes that that polished Edge just so damn toothy and so nippy um and you know like I said though that might start wearing in over time you know like how most resin bonded Diamond Stones you know go or bonded uh Stones go but you know I guess we'll see as time goes on but as far as right now goes absolutely the most amount of bite I've ever experienced on an edge I'm really really um liking them both the metal and the resin bot now between the two the the metal Bond and the resin Bond these are going to last longer the CBN CBN will last longer than the resin bonded diamonds so you got to take that into consideration that's another reason why the the price is a little bit higher and the CBN you know make it a little bit higher so either way though the resin bonded diamonds are still going to last you a very very very long time so it's not really you know too big of an issue uh but you know for those that are looking for the best of the best well then you're going to want the metal bonded if you are wanting as close to the best as possible then you want the resin bonded because the metallic bonded CBN is going to be a little bit Superior in wear resistance and things like that you know so it just kind of depends on how much it really means to you uh but you know the resin bonded diamonds are going to get you basically the exact same Edge um with the the pretty similar bite just you know they're going to they're going to wear out a little bit faster or maybe even quite a bit faster than the metal bonded ones but either way both of them are these things are beasts they cut fast and they leave an incredibly sharp edge um so very impressed with them and like I I was saying in the beginning I'm going to be featuring these in many videos moving forward I uh can't wait to test out the freehand Stones as you can see I'm freehanding on the little ones as we speak but uh but yeah I'm going to try to test them all out and then over time we'll see you know how they wear in and you know because these are stones made the last decades you know or at least years and years and years so you know it's it's difficult to to do a great test on them in a couple of months so that being said work hard stay tough until next time peace
