Years ago, Fallkniven's DC4 diamond/ceramic stones had the ceramic face machined flat. The ceramic was a fine grade (still dark brown, but comparable to the white ceramic used by Spyderco). Then as now, Spyderco did not machine the faces of their pocket stones (Double Stuff), which results in metal glazing the surface in distinct stripes. This alone has been enough to keep me from buying a Spyderco ceramic stone (I have their slip stones as well as their Sharpmaker and despite their small size, all exhibit this striping effect too).
The DC4 has been through a couple of changes in ceramic. By 2011 they had ceased machining the face flat, and there were complaints about lumps on the face that left deep scratches, it was stated the stones required a breaking in period before working at their best. More recently, the ceramic has changed again to a much coarser grade that grinds off material, rather than polishing it. To me this defeats the purpose of the DC4, grinding done by diamond and polishing by ceramic.
To re-balance matters, Fallkniven came out with the CC4, same dark ceramic as current DC4, but now faced with a finer, white ceramic in place of the diamond. To me this is a great improvement over current DC4s. The white is still a little coarser, I think, than the old machined sapphire ceramic, and while flatter than Spyderco stones, it still exhibited striping.
Enter a cheap diamond bench stone (thin metal on a plastic backing) that I bought for grinding out chips in chisels and such. While the white ceramic shrugged off 120g silicon carbide (it polished the surface, but didn't flatten it) the diamond stone made short work of removing the high spots and refining the face of the CC4.
The finished result gave a polish to my M2 HSS marking knife, and about the sharpest edge I have ever achieved on it. As can be seen, metal is now being deposited much more evenly on the stone's face.
Might not have done my diamond stone much good, but I have been using the CC4 a fair bit lately, and the diamond stone hasn't been used in months, maybe a year, so it seemed a good job to try. Not sure where I got the diamond stone from, but it looks just like this, but only single sided, know it was about that price.
https://www.toolstation.com/trend-craftpro-double-sided-bench-stone/p41604
CC4 Flattening by Last Scratch, on Flickr
Happy flattening.
The DC4 has been through a couple of changes in ceramic. By 2011 they had ceased machining the face flat, and there were complaints about lumps on the face that left deep scratches, it was stated the stones required a breaking in period before working at their best. More recently, the ceramic has changed again to a much coarser grade that grinds off material, rather than polishing it. To me this defeats the purpose of the DC4, grinding done by diamond and polishing by ceramic.
To re-balance matters, Fallkniven came out with the CC4, same dark ceramic as current DC4, but now faced with a finer, white ceramic in place of the diamond. To me this is a great improvement over current DC4s. The white is still a little coarser, I think, than the old machined sapphire ceramic, and while flatter than Spyderco stones, it still exhibited striping.
Enter a cheap diamond bench stone (thin metal on a plastic backing) that I bought for grinding out chips in chisels and such. While the white ceramic shrugged off 120g silicon carbide (it polished the surface, but didn't flatten it) the diamond stone made short work of removing the high spots and refining the face of the CC4.
The finished result gave a polish to my M2 HSS marking knife, and about the sharpest edge I have ever achieved on it. As can be seen, metal is now being deposited much more evenly on the stone's face.
Might not have done my diamond stone much good, but I have been using the CC4 a fair bit lately, and the diamond stone hasn't been used in months, maybe a year, so it seemed a good job to try. Not sure where I got the diamond stone from, but it looks just like this, but only single sided, know it was about that price.
https://www.toolstation.com/trend-craftpro-double-sided-bench-stone/p41604
CC4 Flattening by Last Scratch, on FlickrHappy flattening.
