DMT D8E Dia-Sharp Diamond Knife Sharpener, Extra Fine Diamond Sharpening Stone, 8-Inch, White

I've used this for sharpening dozens of kitchen knives, pocket knives, straight razors, chisels, and planes to great success and for a while it was my only stone. At 1200 grit, it puts a fine enough edge on a blade for most knives and a serviceable edge on chisels (and maybe planes depending on what you're using them for). You may want coarser grits if you have chips in the blade, as it will take quite a while to grind out anything large or even moderately sized, and you will definitely want coarser stones if you are reshaping a blade profile, changing edge angle, or flattening chisels or planes. Similarly, you may want a higher grit for refining edges; I leave some knives at this level but go up to 4000-8000 on some, and higher still on planes and straight razors.It has held up very well and after many years and hundreds of sharpenings it still works great. You may notice staining on the surface, especially after using it on non-stainless steels and the grit can sometimes get gummed up, presumably from skin cell or oils from your hands. Usually, dish soap will do a good job cleaning it, but when I notice that it's not cutting as well I will occasionally use Barkeeper's Friend to really get the surface clean. It's a pretty harsh cleaner though, so I try to keep that to a minimum to avoid shortening the life of the stone.The biggest drawback to this stone is that I do think the feedback from the surface could be better, especially if you're a beginner to bench stone sharpening. It was my first bench stone and it definitely took me a while before I felt really comfortable maintaining an angle, reliably achieving a burr, and not goofing up my blades. Fortunately it's hard to do much damage at 1200 grit, but I do think that starting with a slightly coarser (maybe 600-1000 grit) water stone and a very cheap or even thrift-store level knife would be a better way to learn bench stone sharpening.

Used already for a year , sharpening chisels and plane blades. Flatness is good but not perfect. During sharpening, I'm using no more than a quarter of the space for each blade, to reduce the error. Already I have half of it, extra-extra fine. It worn out slowly, but I've noticed, this is also depends what type of steel is used to sharpen. The one brings the stone from fine to super extra fine was a chisel made by blade taken from benchtop electric planner, and I guess it was with high percentage of nickel in it. As a conclusion I can say it is most used sharpening diamond stone among 10 other diamond and natural stones and worn part now become the area for fine finish. Reading reviews for most DMD stone brands i can see that some customers just run into bad products due to poor manufacturer quality control. So if you are lucky you will have nice tool in your workshop.

DMT makes excellent diamond bench stones. I have 6 DMT stones and several other brands that I have bought over the years. I don’t buy "cheap" stones. All of my stones flat and the monocrystalline diamond/nickel layer is durable. All stones need to be taken care of and handled with care. I question the reviews of the "terribly" non-flat surfaces and the diamond layers that reportedly come from the factory looking terrible.DMT stones are some of the best and are made in America!

I originally ordered the EZE LAP equivalent, the 81SF, for $50. The listing stated that it would show up in a couple weeks. I went back to check a week or so later, and the delivery date had been pushed back even further. Having experienced the wiles of the Scamazon before, I decided to check the listing again and it said that the product was unavailable and that they didn't know when it would be back. So I canceled my order and started shopping again.The obvious alternative was the DMT, and having owned other DMT products I figured the negative reviews we from people who just didn't know what they were doing. Out of the box the stone was very rough, as if about 1% of the abrasive particles were 10-100 times too big. Running a piece of steel across it sounded like I was dragging it on brushed concrete, no exaggeration. I was prepared for this and used a piece of scrap high-carbon steel to get to work on it. Initially the swarf was course enough to score the surface of the stone with very conspicuous scratches, but over the course of about 45 minutes, it got better and the sound/feel was much more like what a lap should be.While the sound/feel got better, the machining marks that were initially subtle were now very obvious, and rouge particles continued to cause deep scratches. Additionally, the stone felt much more like a slick chunk of steel than a lapping/sharpening stone; there just isn't nearly the amount of abrasive that one would expect on a diamond stone. And I have used a variety. This stone already cuts slower AND rougher than the competition of equal grit. The stone is also not flat. When checked against a Starrett straight edge, the face is concave by about 1/64" along it's length. Not a huge amount, but will definitely still cause potential issues if used on the backs of plane irons.I have experience with a friend's EZE LAP 71SF, and the difference is night and day. It is smooth, cuts extremely well, and has a liberal helping of abrasive. I will be going to an EZE LAP or maybe Atoma, but DMT is only getting my hand hone business from now on.

Have not used it yet but looks well made. For the price it should. Have been using a couple of other pocket diamond stones for 10 yrs on pocket knives and used on 3/4 inch and smaller chisels to hone them when using on outdoor hinge jobs in rough wood. Blown sand tends to eat a sharp edge. No good chisels abused just wally world s```. Have a few old chisels and planes inherited from GF. from turn of the century to later 20s and old stones to clean up and use. So, I thought see how old iron works on new style stones. We shall see.