Which EDM stone works best on Magnacut? Let's find out!

REK Knives

REK Knives

Well-Known Member
I called Boride abrasives and they were kind enough to send a sample pack of 3 of their recommended stones for tool and stainless steel. I requested 400 grit as that's what I finish at on my belt grinder and I wanted to see which stone would remove the scratches quickest. They also included a bottle of their cutting oil that was recommended.

The blade I'm testing these stones on is magnacut at 63-64hrc.

i-gTnq8qn-X4.jpg


You can check out the application chart here

The 3 stones I got are: PC, CS-HD, and the T2.

i-qHs9KZt-X4.jpg
i-F5wPcN5-X4.jpg


The PC cut terribly but the other two were great. The CS-HD was AMAZING, you could actually feel it cutting as the stone abrasives break down. I am confident in saying it will remove all 400 grit scratches by hand in under 10 min on a small blade.

The T2 was a little slower but seemed to leave a nicer finish... I think this would be a good stone to maybe finish with as a last step before the paper finishing strokes.

Here's the finish after the CS-HD

i-TG3st8f-X4.jpg


What I really wanna do now is order one of their air profiler... I think I will in the near future. That could be really nice!! It's pneumatic and basically vibrates the stone incredibly fast and does the work for you.
 
Last edited:
mike miller said:
I have always stepped the use of stones. 220 then 400 then 600
You can truly find how many coarse scratches you miss
Click to expand...
True, but when I know I'll be hand rubbing I'll alternate the grind direction on the belt slightly so I make sure it's a true 400 grit finish.
 
J. Doyle said:
Nice. Probably last awhile.

I checked out the website. The set was pretty affordable. And I noticed they're only an hour from me.
Click to expand...
Yep... I think they have a sample set of all the grits of the same model stone which seems perfect as I think they would last a while.

The ones I got here are 1/4"x1"x6" so plenty of abrasive.

If you try some keep us posted on your thoughts!
 
I have used the dark grey in big grits and the orange ones i think in fine. So you are saying that the green ones worked best for you I need some more and i use them on CruForgeV which is not an easy steel to hand sand. IIRC, I had some 1 x 1/4 x 6 and maybe some 3/4 wide ones.
 
ive been using a cheap set of stones i got on amazon. they work fasted , easier and i like this system. i use wd40 as a lub.ill have to look at these stones, might be an upgrade. thanks for the post n pictures.
 
bubbas55 said:
ive been using a cheap set of stones i got on amazon. they work fasted , easier and i like this system. i use wd40 as a lub.ill have to look at these stones, might be an upgrade. thanks for the post n pictures.
Click to expand...
If you want to save yourself some money, you can use kerosene instead of WD-40.

Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
 
jmforge said:
I have used the dark grey in big grits and the orange ones i think in fine. So you are saying that the green ones worked best for you I need some more and i use them on CruForgeV which is not an easy steel to hand sand. IIRC, I had some 1 x 1/4 x 6 and maybe some 3/4 wide ones.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the CS HD stones seem to be pretty amazing... I'm gonna order an air profiler soon hopefully and see what time I make with it and these stones
 
REK Knives said:
Yeah, the CS HD stones seem to be pretty amazing... I'm gonna order an air profiler soon hopefully and see what time I make with it and these stones
Click to expand...
I've been trying to remember the name of the company, but they make something similar to the air profiler. Might want to hold off on that purchase till I post a link to them.

Edit: Nevermind! I'm pretty sure it's the same thing you're already looking at. I'm glad that only took me half an hour of searching LOL

Check out the Diprofil website (if you haven't already) they have a few models to choose from.

Polishing Machines – reciprocating and rotary motion | Diprofil

DIPROFIL/Diamantprodukter AB offer a wide variety of handheld polishing machines with both reciprocating (back and forth) and rotary motion.
diprofil.com diprofil.com

Looks like they use a TINY amount of air. You could probably run it off of an 1/8" or 3/16" hose. That'd be pretty sweet.


Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the informative thread Josh! I ended up buying some of these stones and a cheap air tool. I have used stones manually before and I can say that the tool is 100% worth it. I tried it on some milled blades and it worked pretty good. So far I have just tried the 320 grit stone. It takes about 10 minutes per side to remove the tooling marks. I would say they are about equivalent to an 80 - 120 grit grind off the grinder. 1F8FBA1D-187B-4695-845A-5DA769867983.jpeg18F400B3-781A-4FDF-B304-EDADE9D76BFD.jpegB930F5FB-E5A9-40F6-B784-9FC5B6807F00.jpeg916E0E3E-A149-49C6-9285-3AA1429F5541.jpeg
 
I just used some EDM stones for the first time this week! Wife got them for Christmas for me last year. I tried to use them flat on a blade (120 grit), but it didn't do all that well, so I put them back in a drawer. I have some Gesswein blue and white ones, but they are around 1/2" wide. I also got some thicker reddish brown ones from CBright too. They are listed as Sharpening stones. I tried all 3 on a 4" Magnacut hunter I was working on this week. I used them properly this time (at an angle using the front edge, and even using the longer edge to even things out) with some Windex and they worked incredibly well! I had flat ground the blade and went to a X45 Norax belt on a hard felt platen, so it had a pretty good satin finish, but I could see deeper belt scratches. For a 4" blade around 1.25" wide, it was around 10-15 minutes with the reddish 400 grit CBright to get the belt lines removed! I sharpened the end with the belt sander and used it to get into the plunge cut area as well. I tried the white and blue stones and they worked, but the red one seemed faster? I gotta get more of these stones! I laid the EDM perpendicular to the edge of the knife at an angle and used it like I would when pulling towards me for a hand rub finish with sandpaper and got pretty good results, too! So much nicer to use to remove the belt sander scratches before going to sandpaper!
 
Stang Bladeworks said:
Thanks for the informative thread Josh! I ended up buying some of these stones and a cheap air tool. I have used stones manually before and I can say that the tool is 100% worth it. I tried it on some milled blades and it worked pretty good. So far I have just tried the 320 grit stone. It takes about 10 minutes per side to remove the tooling marks. I would say they are about equivalent to an 80 - 120 grit grind off the grinder. View attachment 81604View attachment 81605View attachment 81606View attachment 81603
Click to expand...
Nice! Where did you get the air profiler?
I've been using boride cs-hd stones for awhile (silicone carbide) cuts these high alloy steels, I have some cbn resin bonded stones that work even better.
 
Stang Bladeworks said:
Thanks for the informative thread Josh! I ended up buying some of these stones and a cheap air tool. I have used stones manually before and I can say that the tool is 100% worth it. I tried it on some milled blades and it worked pretty good. So far I have just tried the 320 grit stone. It takes about 10 minutes per side to remove the tooling marks. I would say they are about equivalent to an 80 - 120 grit grind off the grinder. View attachment 81604View attachment 81605View attachment 81606View attachment 81603
Click to expand...

What air tool did you buy and where? I'm only finding expensive ones...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top