And back to what we bought...
Last night I finally succumbed to a long standing temptation, well, three actually.
I wanted a better way to flatten my water stones, but also to dress some ceramic stones, and maybe a hard Arkansas. At the same time, I wanted something fast cutting in the 300-500 grit range. After much review reading and soul searching (plus some checks of exchange rates and suspicion that availability will fall and prices rise ) I ordered an Atoma surface plate and Atoma two diamond surfaces from Axminster. 140 grit and 400 grit.
These diamond coated sheets come from a Japanese manufacturer specialising in diamond-coated products. They have a worldwide reputation for quality and durability. Each sheet is 210 x 75 x 1mm thick steel, with one side coated in evenly distributed...
www.axminster.co.uk
In addition, I ordered two saws from ClassicHandtools, a David Barron dovetail saw, to go with the saw guides that I have had for years, and a KnewConcept 5" basic fretsaw, because I am totally fed up with trying to learn cutting joinery with a £10 jeweller's saw that won't put enough tension on the blade.
The screw tension saw was the origin of the Knew Concepts Fret saw line. It is the economy model. It provides extremely precise blade tensioning simply by turning the knurled tension nut at the top of the frame. Saws come with a dozen Pegas Skip #7...
www.classichandtools.com
Last week I received a pair of Spyderco Ceramic stones from a chap on Edge Matters, Fine and Ultrafine, for the price of a Fine new.
I know I have somewhat too many sharpening tools for the amount of wood work I actually do, but they have been collected over the course of more than 25years and it is interesting seeing how different stones and abrasives work for different steels and different jobs.