Diamond stones come in a great many versions. The type of industrial diamond used in them has been manufactured since 1953 and is based on a Swedish invention by Erik Lundblad for ASEA! Today there are production plants around the world. The base plates the diamonds are bonded to also come in a wide variety: round ones for kitchen and other knives, various rectangular and square ones for gouges and other shaped tools, and flatter types on a backing of plastic, glass or metal, often aluminium but also stainless steel.
We now have a number of diamond stones in our range. Since we mainly serve customers interested in woodworking, it is mostly the wider ones we sell: Dianova's stones on a glass backing, and the new ones from Trend UK, which are larger and have very high flatness accuracy, ±0.013 mm. That, together with the larger 200 × 76 mm surface, gives a big working area and a long life, at an attractive price we should add!
The versions we started with were:
DWS/W8/F: diamond stone 200 mm, single-sided, fine, 1000 grit (15 µm)
DWS/W8/C: diamond stone 200 mm, single-sided, medium, 340 grit (45 µm)
DWS/W8/X: diamond stone 200 mm, single-sided, extra coarse, 220 grit (75 µm)
DWS/W8/FC: diamond stone 200 mm, double-sided, 1000 and 300 grit (nominally 15 and 50 µm)
All come with a storage case, a non-slip mat to rest the stone on while you work and an "eraser" for cleaning the surface.
Using diamond stones
The stones can be used to sharpen the edge of everything from plane blades, chisels and knives to router cutters and razors. They also work very well for flattening Japanese water stones, especially the extra coarse DWS/W8/X or the double-sided DWS/W8/FC.
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