# Ultex Diamond Stones



## custard (8 Sep 2016)

There's a retired engineer lives nearby, he helps me with metally stuff and I help him with woody bits and pieces.

He'd been looking out for some affordable diamond stones, so when I read on this forum about the Ultex offers I passed the information along and he bought the 300, 600, and 1200 stones on a deal. 

He brought them around recently to see how they compared with my eight or ten year old DMT stones. Here's the sharpening station with the Ultex 300 and 1200, alongside the 300 and 1200 DMT equivalents.







It's not exactly replicating how I sharpen, because I normally use an even finer DMT diamond stone for the secondary bevel, I can't remember what grit it is but it's an XX Fine DMT stone. Sometimes I'll then take a couple of swipes on the pink 3M abrasive paper on a flat surface (again I can't remember the grit) and, if it's a particularly delicate job, I might even have an additional swipe on the yellowy/green 3M paper (also unknown grit but it's finer still), often times however I'll just stop after the XX Fine diamond stone and get back to work.

No matter, we decided to use the 300 stone for the primary bevel (on both Ultex and DMT), the 1200 stone for the secondary bevel (on both Ultex and DMT), and then bring the secondary bevel and the back of the tool to a polish on the pink paper. We broke all the Ultex stones in by first sharpening half a dozen plane irons.

I was working on some half lapped dovetails for cabinet sides at the time, so we decided I'd do the tails and pins, top and bottom, on one side with an A2 steel chisel freshly sharpened on the DMT stones, then repeat the exercise for the other side of the cabinet using the Ultex stones. I'd normally use a router to clear most of the pin board waste, but for this I chopped everything with a chisel.

Here's one of the tail boards with a DMT sharpened chisel,






And here's another tail board with an Ultex sharpened chisel,






Bottom line is I couldn't tell them apart. The stones sharpened in pretty much the same way, taking a similar number of strokes. The chisel looked pretty similar after being sharpened on both brands of diamond stone. It seemed to hold an edge the same. And most importantly the chisel performed pretty much identically with both stones in terms of feel and action in the wood.

I guess the real test will come in ten years time, when you could start to see how the Ultex stones held up after use, and also we had no insight into sample variation. But, there's no denying, initial impressions were very favourable. Harry (the engineer) also checked the Ultex stones for flatness and reckoned they were better than a thou, which also compared satisfactorily against the DMT stones.

At the deal prices those Ultex stones seem like an incredible bargain!


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## D_W (8 Sep 2016)

This is only my opinion, being a real perv when it comes to buying sharpening stuff - I just can't help myself sometimes. I've had the following of things in the diamond world:
* two atoma 400s (love them, not cheap anywhere)
* two dmt duosharps, and a large 220 grit bench stone (black) style - the one with the raised plastic base
* two chinese two sided steel types that "best sharpening stone" sells in the us, they are 8x3 stones 400/1000 with the normal diamond pattern on the surfaces, steel core about 8mm thick. 
* two chinese types that were sold as "DMD" tools on alibaba, ebay, and banggood sales sites. marked 300/1000 - 8x3 stones with steel core, came with a nice rubber base and were $20 each -with shipping!!
* two ezelap stones 
* two other cheap diamond devices (one from harbor freight, four sided block, and a 2x6 double sided diamond from ebay - chinese source - booth of those were about $10 each)

Of all of those, I found atomas to be the most durable in staying constant, and they're dead flat. The DMT duosharps are dead flat, so is the bench stone (the dia sharps are not, i was able to see that in person at a local woodworking store and avoided trying them). The remaining chinese stones weren't that flat, but for a skilled sharpener, none of them would be a problem for anything other than back flattening (even then, in skilled hands, you can still make do with them as long as you don't just blindly wipe a wide iron back and forth on a long concave surface). 

the chinese stones have lasted as well as the DMTs did, one of them from "Best sharpening stones" has let a small patch of plating loose entirely, but the stone still works otherwise. They all cut very slowly compared to what they were like when they were new. 

The best bargain among all of them is the ezelap stones - they are the only polycrystalline (or partially polycrystalline) stones of the bunch, so as they get finer, they get a nicer feel rather than a dull or sparse feel, and they make a better edge without huge strays scratches like you get with DMTs and the chinese stones. 

"DMD" still sells the $20 stone I bought, but I think it's more like $30 with shipping and no base now, so it's not quite so much of a bargain. It looks exactly like the ultex stone you show, and is just fine for working bevels. Initial flattening of tools can always be done with sandpaper more economically than it 

(I also had a dia flat for short period of time as i was horse trading with Stu Tierney at tools of japan - he wanted to have one for examination - it didn't look like $180 worth of gear to me, but maybe it would be to some others. I also never had an urge to buy any of the very expensive other brands of rebranded chinese stones out there, as electroplate and monocrystalline diamonds pretty much means the same thing in any decent quality stone - in terms of wear and life. I won't be buying anything more from DMT - they do make a decent product, but in the long term, diamond hones are disposable because none lasts forever cutting well. they might as well be bought for a disposable tools price).


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## deema (8 Sep 2016)

I bought the double sided stones from ITS when it was highlighted last year on this forum. I think they were £15 each, or £7.50 a side. A year on and their still like new, i would have still been happy if they were now showing signs of ageing for the price. I originally wanted one to have a go at flattening my Arkansas storms with which the course stone does rather well!


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## D_W (8 Sep 2016)

We don't get the "ultex" brand over here. Other than having the brand imprinted in it, they look just like the ones that "best sharpening stone" or whatever the retailer is called sells for $45 over here. 

You're getting it for a better price!! I always suspected the ones sold for $45 were a fairly good deal for the retailer given the origin.


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## D_W (8 Sep 2016)

If you like lots of them, the stone with a rubber base is $5-$6 on alibaba. It's the style of base with threaded plated rods that cost about $18 here, with some woodworking retailers charging closer to $30. 

... 

minimum order................................................................500 

i'll gladly give $20-$25 for a single one instead. Reminds me of a relative who bought a partial truckload of bananas because the per pound price was spectacular. He was a salesman and thought he would find enough people he knew locally to buy a box each. You can imagine that most people don't want an entire box of bananas, and he learned that pretty quickly and found he couldn't eat the rest faster than they could rot.


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## D_W (8 Sep 2016)

Oh my...here's the same thing, not sure who faithfull is:

http://www.faithfulltools.com/p/FAIDWKI ... ng-Station

(42 pounds before VAT, 51 after)

!!

Over on aliexpress, one of the vendors of stones didn't use a blank one as their example, they used the one with the faithfull mark on it!!

Kudos to ultex, of course, for passing the stones along to consumers without so much markup.


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## No skills (8 Sep 2016)

Obviously the longer these things last (assuming their still effective) the better, but you do have to take the view that these 'budget' items are a disposable - interested to see how the lifespan compares to the premium diamond plates but I spose we won't know for a while  

If I ever get enough of my life back to start making things from wood with pointy bits of metal again I think I'll get a few years out of them, I'm a bit heavy handed (not deliberately so - I'm just ham fisted) so we'll see if I start stripping the coating off or if their a better build quality than some of the other tat I've used.

I have a double sided fallkniven 'stone' that I've only really broken in, I have no idea what sort of grit the fine side is - I'm going to compare the results to the 1200 ultex see if their similar.


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## D_W (9 Sep 2016)

No skills":zylckgqz said:


> Obviously the longer these things last (assuming their still effective) the better, but you do have to take the view that these 'budget' items are a disposable - interested to see how the lifespan compares to the premium diamond plates but I spose we won't know for a while
> 
> If I ever get enough of my life back to start making things from wood with pointy bits of metal again I think I'll get a few years out of them, I'm a bit heavy handed (not deliberately so - I'm just ham fisted) so we'll see if I start stripping the coating off or if their a better build quality than some of the other tat I've used.
> 
> I have a double sided fallkniven 'stone' that I've only really broken in, I have no idea what sort of grit the fine side is - I'm going to compare the results to the 1200 ultex see if their similar.



I've had one of my budget hones for about 8 or 9 years, my oldest dmt duo for about 10 or 11. They've held up similarly, I'd say the budget chinese hone is faster cutting (still use it for kitchen knives) than the dmt duo, but the duo hasn't lost a plating spot yet and the chinese hone has lost one. The dmt duo lost its cutting power more quickly. 

What was less than impressive to me at the time was that I paid about $70 for a duosharp and then found, just like the cheap ones, that it was disposable because the diamonds are easily ripped from the electroplate. Never lapped coarse stones with either one. 

the really cheap recent $20 DMD milled steel plate hones seem similar in durability thus far. They are all a party to use flattening the backs of something for the first couple of weeks and then they're all similar after that (which makes for a good honing stone, but not so great at fast removal).

The really really cheap ones (like the two sided cards that are five dollars and then 10 dollar four sided box that they sell at import stores here) are not as promising. The diamonds come off of those even as new, and they contaminate fine hones. They also seem to have some really big strays in them, Other than those two types, though.


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## matthewwh (9 Sep 2016)

D_W":tm07xdme said:


> Reminds me of a relative who bought a partial truckload of bananas because the per pound price was spectacular. He was a salesman and thought he would find enough people he knew locally to buy a box each. You can imagine that most people don't want an entire box of bananas, and he learned that pretty quickly and found he couldn't eat the rest faster than they could rot.



If you go out into the woods in PA there's probably a man with a very big kettle who would take half a truckload of bananas off you.


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## rafezetter (12 Sep 2016)

After being reminded in another thread that the ITS single sided stones were "on sale" again I bought the 300, 600 and 1200 stones just a few days ago and I am kicking myself I didn't do it sooner.

Even though I am a fan of wet n dry scary sharpening, there is something very annoying about the facts that the wet n dry loses it's cutting action very quickly and once you've torn it, you have to replace that piece. Oh and there's issue of once it's been used a few times it gets wrinkles that won't flatten out again even in use. (or that could just be me)

So the £10 worth of wet n dry paper doesn't take that long to use up.

The ultex stones have made sharpening a pleasure again - I'll keep the scary sharpening for the 1200+ grades up to 5,000 but below that for reshaping / flattening it'll be the ultex from now on - so much so I'm already looking at a 220 diamond and an 8000! oh dear... how much?

Edit: I have now learned that 2 of the 3 stones I bought are NOT FLAT - please read this thread:
ultex-diamond-stone-owners-please-read-help-required-t100361.html


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## Phil Pascoe (12 Sep 2016)

Using decent quality w&d and white spirit I don't have any problem at all with wrinkling. Are you using water?


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## D_W (12 Sep 2016)

matthewwh":1ujea9cv said:


> If you go out into the woods in PA there's probably a man with a very big kettle who would take half a truckload of bananas off you.



This may be too obscure of a reference, but aside from the guy who was cooking people on Hawk Mountain and serving them to guests...(Mathias Schambacher for the curious)

....if you find someone in PA with a kettle in the woods, they're probably making scrapple!


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## rafezetter (12 Sep 2016)

phil.p":229krzc3 said:


> Using decent quality w&d and white spirit I don't have any problem at all with wrinkling. Are you using water?



No, window cleaner. Maybe because it still has a water component that might be causing it, I guess I could use white spirit instead for the W & D.


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## JohnCee (12 Sep 2016)

custard":rt5wiiye said:


> Harry (the engineer) also checked the Ultex stones for flatness and reckoned they were better than a thou, which also compared satisfactorily against the DMT stones......
> 
> At the deal prices those Ultex stones seem like an incredible bargain!



I've a couple of these Ultex stones and am very happy with them. But I had to return them twice before I got flat ones. 
ITS were very efficient at sorting this out, however.


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## MIGNAL (12 Sep 2016)

Time will tell. My Ezelap 1200 is still cutting like it's . . . . 1200G, 3 months on. I was hoping it would turn into 2,000G by now. My cheaper Trend combo, after 3 years, is cutting much finer than it's stated grit. In fact it was doing so just one month after purchase.


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## xraymtb (16 Sep 2016)

How important is it that they are flat? I've just checked mine and the 1200 has a hollow along its length. Flat side to side.


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## D_W (17 Sep 2016)

Flat side to side is more important. Hollow along the length is fine for bevel work, use sandpaper on a flat surface if you need to do work on the back of something (that's hard on a diamond hone, anyway).


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## xraymtb (17 Sep 2016)

That's what I suspected and I'm moving from wet n dry on float glass so have that covered.


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## mr edd (18 Sep 2016)

Hi 
I was wondering if anyone had used the DMT Dia-flat for the purpose of flattening Waterstones for any significant length of time and if so how they hold up? 
I currently use wet and dry 220/40 on glass to flatten my workshop water stones.

Cheers 
Edd


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## MIGNAL (18 Sep 2016)

Carry on using the wet/dry. Perhaps a coarser grit, 180 or even 120.


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## Beau (18 Sep 2016)

Been using an old DMT 12" diamond stone for must be 10 years for occasional flattening waterstones and it's still perfect.


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## rafezetter (19 Sep 2016)

I had made a post about how I found 2 of the 3 stones I bought to be hollow and asking ultex owners if they found the same, but reading through all the posts I now see a hollow along the length is not uncommon.

My advice to any prospective owners would be to check them thoroughly out of the box.


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## custard (19 Sep 2016)

I passed the comment about stone flatness on to my engineer friend, he's happy with his 300 and 1200 stones but said the 600 is a fraction off, he didn't mention if it was in the length or width.

Beau, my DMT's have been in use for maybe 8 or 10 years, but I can definitely see that the 600, which is probably the grit that's had the most use, is getting past its prime. Even after cleaning it up with some Ajax or Vim scouring powder and a stiff brush, it cuts more slowly. I might retire it and try DW's suggestion of an Atoma 600 grit, Dieter Schmid stocks them in Europe.


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## Beau (19 Sep 2016)

custard":15ce9q5d said:


> Beau, my DMT's have been in use for maybe 8 or 10 years, but I can definitely see that the 600, which is probably the grit that's had the most use, is getting past its prime. Even after cleaning it up with some Ajax or Vim scouring powder and a stiff brush, it cuts more slowly. I might retire it and try DW's suggestion of an Atoma 600 grit, Dieter Schmid stocks them in Europe.



Yes its not as new but that initial very fast cut is soon gone but cant say it's changed much since then. Think it's safe to say I don't do as much work as you either. I don't use it for sharpening much as prefer the water stones. It's main work is flattening the backs of new blades and dressing the water stones.


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## D_W (19 Sep 2016)

custard":7bi4iqcr said:


> I passed the comment about stone flatness on to my engineer friend, he's happy with his 300 and 1200 stones but said the 600 is a fraction off, he didn't mention if it was in the length or width.
> 
> Beau, my DMT's have been in use for maybe 8 or 10 years, but I can definitely see that the 600, which is probably the grit that's had the most use, is getting past its prime. Even after cleaning it up with some Ajax or Vim scouring powder and a stiff brush, it cuts more slowly. I might retire it and try DW's suggestion of an Atoma 600 grit, Dieter Schmid stocks them in Europe.



I like the ezelaps better for honing, but the atomas are probably the most durable of the regular priced hones. 

Some of it depends on price, too. For quite a while over here, ezelap 8x3 hones were really cheap, but they have gone up and not come back down. Not sure, but maybe that's attached to the positive press they've received.


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## mr edd (20 Sep 2016)

Hi,
Thanks everyone for advice, much appreciated. I have heard diamond stones cut fast to begin with but then ''settle'' down, seems like from the responses they all keep on going after. 
I use my Waterstones pretty hard, nearly every night when back from site work and very often during any workshop day. 
The Atoma is new one to me so will check those out.

Thanks again

Edd


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## woodenstx (20 Sep 2016)

What kind of fluid should one use with these Ultex stones?

I'd read about water with detergent, but that just promotes the fellas to rust (even if they have been cleaned with the Trend eraser)


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## paulrockliffe (20 Sep 2016)

What I read said to use glass cleaner, which I'd just bought to clean my car windscreen on the inside, so I've been using that. I forgot to wipe it off and all the filings turned to rust, but it cleaned up immediately when I washed it off. don't know if there's anything better though!


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## D_W (20 Sep 2016)

woodenstuart":3cafsizf said:


> What kind of fluid should one use with these Ultex stones?
> 
> I'd read about water with detergent, but that just promotes the fellas to rust (even if they have been cleaned with the Trend eraser)



Anything that doesn't damage nickel should be fine when the stone is just a nickel plated piece of steel. 

Stu Tierney said a while ago that he would recommend against anything oil based on an atoma because the atoma's are a diamond sheet bonded to a milled bar and he wasn't sure if things like penetrant would weaken the bond.

But for all of the one-piece items, no problem. 

I have used water for somewhere around 10 years (though sometimes diamond hone use is very infrequent), and the rust has never been a significant issue.


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## MIGNAL (20 Sep 2016)

I suspect that glass cleaner is 95%+ water. It's what I use but I keep a bit of kitchen paper handy. A quick wipe just after using the diamond stone keeps them clean and rust free. Literally takes two seconds.


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## Phil Pascoe (20 Sep 2016)

After a tip here for using a very hard oilstone, I tried isopropyl alcohol as a lubricant. It works well and wipes off perfectly cleanly. No reason to think it wouldn't work on diamonds. (It works well on windscreens as well)

Just tried it - brilliant, so quick and clean. I'm converted, I'd not used a lubricant before.


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## essexalan (20 Sep 2016)

I use GT85 on Eze-Laps and also on finer oilstones seems to improve the cut, get it order and collect over the Web from Halfords. Use nothing on my Atoma plate it is only used for water stone flattening so it does get wet but I dry it carefully. Diamond sheet is stuck on to the Atoma base with double sided tape so solvents could cause a problem.


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## No skills (20 Sep 2016)

I'm currently using a mix of screenwash and Mr muscle glass cleaner, I have used gt85 as well - I'll often clean up the stone with a squirt of gt85 when I'm finished.

Aldi often have gt85, I think it's ptfe based.


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## custard (30 Jan 2019)

I've been meaning to post a little follow up to this. My friend brought around his Ultex stones recently and we had a good look at how they were holding up. 

There was some loss of diamond grit around the edges, I couldn't quite get it visible in a photo but with the naked eye there were a few small baldish patches within about 3-5mm of the edges, where he'd hung a tool over the edge, applied a bit too much pressure, and stripped the grit out from the bonding medium. Nothing catastrophic though, the stones still performed perfectly well. I've heard that some users have had problems because Ultex don't grade their diamond grit that accurately, consequently you can get the odd coarser grit fragment which leaves one or two deeper scratch marks. My friend didn't have this problem though with his stones so I don't know how common it is?

I've subsequently followed DW's advice and replaced my DMT stones with Atoma (which are now sold by Workshop Heaven in the UK as well as by Dieter Schmidt in Germany). There's no dodging the fact that the Atoma stones cut _much_ faster than the Ultex. But there's also no dodging the fact that they're _much_ more expensive too!

For the price I still think Ultex (or whatever other brand name they're sold under) represent very good value, if you were using them all day every day you might want to spend more and get something better, but for occasional or hobby use Ultex are hard to beat. Even if you replaced them after a couple of years, at the promoted price they're still an amazing bargain!


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (31 Jan 2019)

woodenstuart":fyx5mf7z said:


> What kind of fluid should one use with these Ultex stones?
> 
> I'd read about water with detergent, but that just promotes the fellas to rust (even if they have been cleaned with the Trend eraser)



I have several diamond stones over a period of 25 years or so, including DMT and Eze-laps (mainly using the latter). All I have ever used is water and a little soft soap (on water and ceramic stones as well). Rust has never been an issue. 

I am very wary about using anything that actually "lubricates" the stone since that is not what you want to do - Honing requires abrasion, and lubrication will reduce this. Water simply floats the swarf away (oil stones are different in that the stones soak up the oil).

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## D_W (31 Jan 2019)

The thinner oil based lubricants and water displacers are fine. I don't notice a difference in cutting speed with them vs. water, but they do have some improved feel in terms of action and they don't dry off as quickly. Can't flatten a water stone with one with oil on it, but it's easy enough to wash it off. 

Oil would be OK in a film - it just needs to be thin enough that the diamond will penetrate into the oil. 

I recall reading years ago that water displacers like WD40 can't be used on stones because they leave a film that will build up, but it's not the case. It may leave a film over time, but honing on a diamond hone will remove it (the rubbing of the tool will). 

re: custard's post above, I still have some of the ultex stones, and use one sometimes for setting up kamisori that I've reground. They're usually close to untempered and the hone works well for that. It's slower and more tired, but that's true of all of them. I still have the two atoma plates I bought probably 12 years ago now, they're slower, too - the only reason I'd go for the cost level of them would be for flattening stones. The ultex types can be hollow or a little bumpy, but for typical sharpening, that doesn't matter. I'd summarize them as being absolute dandy stones for what is $15 to $20 in the united states, easily equivalent to DMT's duo and dia products. If they don't hurt the edge of a kamisori, they won't hurt the edge of anything. I prefer them when they're a little worn. If an edge is too far gone for one to refresh it, crystolon or india is a better option. A good friable crystolon stone will cut anything, including the really absurd powdered wondersteels like S30V and SGPS.

At any rate, I would think a $20 two sided ultex stone would hone bevels and do minor honing on backs of tools for a decade no problem. Maybe three. For back flattening of poorly made tools or older tools, PSA al-ox paper on glass. 10 times faster, and cheaper, too.


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