Thread: Two Shapton 8000 Glass Options?

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

do you mean the very abrasive particles are softer?

As far as I know the GS as well as the Pro use white Al2O3 as abrasive.
Al2O3 is splintered and will always have the same hardness.
Or are you talking about the bonding, that will certainly effect the sharpening sensation
and the depth of scratches

According to Harrelson Stanley (Shapton USA rep) the glass stones are a different formula than the pros. I have always wondered about that . The abrasive may very well be the same stuff while the binder may differ ?

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

do you mean the very abrasive particles are softer?

As far as I know the GS as well as the Pro use white Al2O3 as abrasive.
Al2O3 is splintered and will always have the same hardness.
Or are you talking about the bonding, that will certainly effect the sharpening sensation
and the depth of scratches

I thought they were ceramic particles which have a wide variation in hardness. It might be a geometry thing either way. It would be interesting to get to the bottom of it. I think the problem Shapton has that other companies don't is they offer more options and inquiering minds want to know. Too much of the info gets dummied down. If they are not clear and offer more accurate information, they may end up victims of their own success, kind of like the original Lancia car company(before FIAT took over) or like Studebaker.
Mike

I believe the difference is most related to the shape of the particles, with some very likely fine tuning of the binder's releasing properties.

Originally Posted by kevint

I believe the difference is most related to the shape of the particles, with some very likely fine tuning of the binder's releasing properties.

Old Dr Flanagan told us 1rst year Chem students 30+ years ago on day one "it is all about shape" then he started to teach and I fell in love with chemistry. He was into Nano before I knew what it meant.
Mike

There seems to be a misunderstanding:

Naniwa, Shapton, Norton... they all use the same abrasive!

White Al2O3.
Al2O3 IS a ceramic material. It is THE ceramic material when we speak of hones.
There are others like SiC, but those are uncommon amongst the big brands.

So I never really understood why some of these stones are called
"ceramic hones". Of course they are ceramic. The abrasive is ceramic.
It´s always... (except some naturals and exotics)



Al2O3 always comes in splinters, whereas Chromium Oxide, iron oxide and some garnets can appear in round shape.
Diamonds are splinters as well.

There are two things that seperate the shaptons from the naniwas

Its the binder (that´s what is referred to when it is spoken of "mixtures")
and the purity of particle sizes.

The latter is quite obvious.
There is no way a shapton 16k can consist of 100% particles with 0.92µm in diameter.
You will always have like 10% above 1µ, 10% below 0.92µm and so on
The grade of purity will have impact on the quality of the surface and sharpening results

The binder is what we will actually feel.
If a stone is "hard" it´s not the Al2O3 we are talking about,
it´s the binder.
White Al2O3 will nearly always have the same hardness.
But if these hard particles are bond very very loosely
the sharpening experience as well as the results will be very different
from a stone with a harder binder.

I belive the binder will most certainly have impact on the size, depth and occurance of scratches a stone produces
even with the exact same type of abrasive in it
(wich is the case in naniwa, shapton and norton)


Kingfish I totally understand what your doctor meant,
studying chemistry myself
But, it is the nature of the sedimentary selecting process
that prohibits influence on shape, so either the particles will naturally form
round crystalls, or they will be splinter-shaped, I believe

There is no misunderstanding on my part

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

There seems to be a misunderstanding:

Naniwa, Shapton, Norton... they all use the same abrasive!

White Al2O3.
Al2O3 IS a ceramic material. It is THE ceramic material when we speak of hones.
There are others like SiC, but those are uncommon amongst the big brands.

So I never really understood why some of these stones are called
"ceramic hones". Of course they are ceramic. The abrasive is ceramic.
It´s always... (except some naturals and exotics)



Al2O3 always comes in splinters, whereas Chromium Oxide, iron oxide and some garnets can appear in round shape.
Diamonds are splinters as well.

There are two things that seperate the shaptons from the naniwas

Its the binder (that´s what is referred to when it is spoken of "mixtures")
and the purity of particle sizes.

The latter is quite obvious.
There is no way a shapton 16k can consist of 100% particles with 0.92µm in diameter.
You will always have like 10% above 1µ, 10% below 0.92µm and so on
The grade of purity will have impact on the quality of the surface and sharpening results

The binder is what we will actually feel.
If a stone is "hard" it´s not the Al2O3 we are talking about,
it´s the binder.
White Al2O3 will nearly always have the same hardness.
But if these hard particles are bond very very loosely
the sharpening experience as well as the results will be very different
from a stone with a harder binder.

I belive the binder will most certainly have impact on the size, depth and occurance of scratches a stone produces
even with the exact same type of abrasive in it
(wich is the case in naniwa, shapton and norton)


Kingfish I totally understand what your doctor meant,
studying chemistry myself
But, it is the nature of the sedimentary selecting process
that prohibits influence on shape, so either the particles will naturally form
round crystalls, or they will be splinter-shaped, I believe

No offense taken. I don't hink people working in the Ceramic industries today would look at the simplistic notion that all Al2O3s are the same. I am not in that industry and don't claim to be an expert in it but can understand it if explained. Ceramics from each company are not all the same. The diffences could be in the starting point of the ore to the addition of lighter metals during processing. Are we not talking about the modern ceramic industry? Is it that simple?
As far as x-tal shape not to get into a pis*&^ng contest are there not eight major x-tal systems and many many variations of each? The slightest introduction of any adulterant in processing is going to change the crystal lattice.
Mike

That´s a good point Mike,

you are right. There will be differences in the very abrasives.
But because these particles are oddly shaped,
even in one stone you will not find two matching particles.

You could however take the same ceramic abrasive from naniwa,
put it into the shapton binder and get a shapton stone,
not a completely different one.
There will be tiny differences but nobody would notice.

Ceramic industry is a huge field.
And of course there are several kinds of Al2O3 (ruby is one!)
but we use synthetic alpha-corundum only
Corundum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
or
Aluminium oxide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What you get at the end of the bauxite process would be white powder of Al2O3
IDK if there is some kind of grinding or refining process,
where those powders will be broken down more,
but all they get is splinters, I think.

Those splinters now will be taken into a sedimentary process.
Big particles sink, small particles float.
The big, sunk particles will be taken away
and you can make a stone out of them.

The rest will get more time and smaller particles will sink.
You take them, and make a stone... and so on.

I had to do something similar during my studies,
and it sucks.

All that matters is the right timing
and making sure you only get the desired particles to sink or float.
This is why stones always have tolerances
and these should be taken into consideration.

So there is not much for Shapton or Naniwa to do
except for the binder.
Don´t get me wrong, this makes a huge difference
and will have impact on sharpening and polishing results

greetings,
Benny

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

You could however take the same ceramic abrasive from naniwa,
put it into the shapton binder and get a shapton stone,
not a completely different one.
There will be tiny differences but nobody would notice.

greetings,
Benny

Benny
Are you so sure on this? I don't know and you could be totally right. If sorting and binders are the only differences it makes you wonder why companies like Norton have not expanded their line by now. I will say, I don't know but would very much like to find out. I was not under this impression at all but I am not at the cutting edge of the ceramic industry.

M
Mike

The binder is something that is quite hard to get right.
There are many things to be taken into consideration.

The first question is:
What binder do I use? The most common one is resin.
Resin is very easy to be used, you just mix in the abrasive, add the hardener,
maybe heat it up and voilá. You can even do this yourself!
(I did, unsuccesfully I might add)

Resin is just a word to describe a liquid that will harden under certain circumstances. It can have properties that are widely spread.
It can be very hard, soft, brittle, elastic... anything you want.
You just have to choose the right resin.

But you have to make sure you have the means to make sure the abrasives will be evenly spread in the resin.
Things like decomposition come into mind.

So you will be forced to choose very carefully.

Another question is;
what type of stone should it be, generally?
Should the stone be porous or should he be "closed".
Should the sharpening particles be surrounded by the binder
(at the sharpening surface) or should the particles stick out?

Next thing will be adding the abrasive,
that already has a tolerance

How much abrasive will I put into these stones.
If it is too much, the stone will crumble and break.
If it´s too little, well it won´t cut right.

There will be experiments made on how the amount of abrasive per cm²
affects the result on a given object and with given binder properties.
This takes a lot of time.


As far as I know the cutting edge of ceramic industry are cermic fibres.
Those are really nice. I just had to do a test about special ceramics.
I will explain this on TiO2 because it is more simple,
if you wish to know. If you don´t, just overread it =)

You take TiCl4 wich is a water solvant salt and put it into water.
You drench some cellulose fibres in this solution.
The water TiCl4 mixture will get caught in the fibrilles.
You heat up the stuff and the salt will turn into it´s oxide form,
being trapped inside the fibres.
You heat up a bit more and the fibres will burn into carbon wich will turn into CO2 and disappear.
What stays is the TiO2 wich now has the appearance of a fibre.

Those fibres, wich can be produced out of Al2O3, are being used in very,
very expensive honing device in automobile industries.
These are literally cutting fibres.

The reason I explained this is to show, Al2O3 like any crystall can follow a givin form.
But normaly you can not change the way a crystall will grow,
unless you change things like temperature or pressure
during the crystallisation process.
Adding tensides or silicone (thats a patent) and many tiny seed crystals will make the particles
smaller but still, oddly shaped with a given hardnes of Mohs 9.0
(unless you have undesired polycrystalls)

I may, as always, be wrong
Benny