ST101: Diamond Stone Buyer's Guide

[dipstik]

New post is up at www.SkiTuning101.com

This blog is becoming more successful and popular by the week, and I have a lot of you to thank for that.

The new post talks about 4 popular options for diamond stones, and there are some great deals to be had with the cheaper stones.

Check it out, and as always, let me know what you think!

[Vorda]

Compared to the $16 Swix option, these are definitely worth the extra $13 for the serious tuner or racer.

This is a weird statement for 2 reasons:
1) you don't say why
2) in the end, you choose the moonflex as best option if you disregard price, and the cheaper Swix if you go for performance/price. This implies that the more expensive Swix isn't really worth the money, since a slightly cheaper Moonflex is better.

'Ok' review, I liked the previous one more, but that's probably because the other items are easier to compare than these.

[dipstik]

This is a weird statement for 2 reasons:
1) you don't say why
2) in the end, you choose the moonflex as best option if you disregard price, and the cheaper Swix if you go for performance/price. This implies that the more expensive Swix isn't really worth the money, since a slightly cheaper Moonflex is better.

'Ok' review, I liked the previous one more, but that's probably because the other items are easier to compare than these.

Good point, I will have to edit that. Like you said though, it's pretty hard to review something like diamond stones. I have no scientific or even remotely accurate way of telling which stone produces the best results. It's totally subjective.

The next review (base edge guides) should be a bit better because there are clear differences between the various tools.

[El Chupacabra]

On using & cleaning the stones -- you said in your blog to use soapy water. I've read that the commercially-sold cleaners are a mix of alcohol and water.

I've just used water alone. Should I use soapy or alcohol-y water?

[Mofro261]

I use soapy water, but also got the "stone cleaner" which seems like just 50% isopropyl alcohol. I apply both pretty liberally, but still get build up on the stones especially after using them on the base edge with a Beast base edge guide where the file surface contacting the edge is small.

[oftpiste]

small brass brush and a little water seems to clean mine out pretty well.

[Core Shot]

Funy you do not like the DMT - that is my fav, but I only have that and some SWIX versions you dont show.

They both work, but the DMT works well dry and does not seem to clog as easily.
I have abused it dry for prolly 15 years and it still cuts and polishes quite well.

I always travel with a diamond stone - its in my ski bag (all the file guides and other bs is back home on the bench).

A quick and dirty hand job is nice when you have burrs and rock hits to smooth out.

I laughed when I saw the Doug Coombs quick and dirty tune.
Been doing that for years.
Diamond stones cut so little metal that you can even file the base edge to take the burrs down there also.
I just run it back and forth until its not so crunchy and scratchy sounding.
By bracing your thumb on the base or sidewall respectively, you can actually hold a pretty good alignment for a quick edge touch up.
Any mis-allignment will be removed by one or two passes of the file on the bench.

You get a better smoother edge than doing nothing at all to the burrs and nicks

[XtrPickels]

On using & cleaning the stones -- you said in your blog to use soapy water. I've read that the commercially-sold cleaners are a mix of alcohol and water.

I've just used water alone. Should I use soapy or alcohol-y water?

I'd like a follow up on this as well.

When i use my diamond stones (the red swix 400grit and some DMT's) I feel like they aren't doing anything. I've been wondering if they're gunked up and I need to clean them better.

[JayPowHound]

I always travel with a diamond stone - its in my ski bag (all the file guides and other bs is back home on the bench).

A quick and dirty hand job is nice when you have burrs and rock hits to smooth out.

I laughed when I saw the Doug Coombs quick and dirty tune.
Been doing that for years.
Diamond stones cut so little metal that you can even file the base edge to take the burrs down there also.
I just run it back and forth until its not so crunchy and scratchy sounding.
By bracing your thumb on the base or sidewall respectively, you can actually hold a pretty good alignment for a quick edge touch up.
Any mis-allignment will be removed by one or two passes of the file on the bench.

You get a better smoother edge than doing nothing at all to the burrs and nicks

I ski with a Medium Swix stone (like the black one to the left in the pic above) in my pocket all the time. If I clip something on the way down and pull up a burr, a few swipes in the lift line takes it right off and prevents any nasty catching/hooking that would be likely to happen. Works well for me!

[mountain_man]

The next review (base edge guides) should be a bit better because there are clear differences between the various tools.

Easy, three winds of electrical tape around your file for .05 and six winds for 1.00. All you do is hold the taped side of the file to the base and press the file on the base edge.

[skibum93]

On using & cleaning the stones -- you said in your blog to use soapy water. I've read that the commercially-sold cleaners are a mix of alcohol and water.

I've just used water alone. Should I use soapy or alcohol-y water?

I just use rubbing alcohol and it works great.

[Wild4umlauts]

I have all these stones and many, many years of experience with them. Hands down the Moonflex stones are by far worth the extra money. They last twice as long [if not longer] and cut so much more easily while producing a superior edge finish.

[dipstik]

I've received a lot of emails about the things you guys brought up here. Soapy water vs. polishing solution, etc. So I decided to just do a follow up blog post.

Here is the text from the post:

Diamond Stone Review - Follow Up:
01/26/2010


A lot of you have been asking about polishing solution vs. soapy water. This seems to be an ongoing debate, and to be honest, I have no idea what's actually in the commercially available polishing solution.

Some of you have said that you just use water, or you own concoction of isopropyl alcohol and water. I'm not a chemist, but in my experience the store bought polishing solution produces better results than soapy water, which may or may not produce better results than just plain water.

That being said, the polishing solution might be overkill for non-racers. Personally, I just use soapy water, and find no reason to try something else, because the results are great.

When I raced, I would use a progression of diamond stones (200 grit -> 400 grit -> 800 grit), which is something I don't do for my powder/mid-fat/all-mountain skis. When tuning race skis, I would always use a polishing solution, and there is no doubt that it produced superior results compared to the soapy water. But again, if you're not racing, don't sweat it.

On soapy water, and keeping stones clean:

While the soapy water solution acts as a lubricant, it also has another important advantage: keeping your diamond stones clean!

Every time you run your diamond stone down a ski edge, a weird black gunk starts to accumulate on the stone, and on the ski edge. When I tune, I run a wet paper towel down the edge of the ski every 10 passes of the diamond stone. You will be amazed at how quickly that paper towel goes from white to black. I also dip the diamond stone in a cup of warm soapy water, and wipe off any black gunk that is building up on the stone.

If you don't continuously wipe down the edges and the surface of the stone, you won't get a good tune. All that build up will prevent the very tiny diamond surfaces of the stone from coming into contact with the edge. In effect, you will just be grinding around dirt, and not actually sharpening anything.


When to replace a diamond stone:

This is, again, a very un-scientific thing. Some of you have written saying your diamond stones have lasted for years. Personally, I have seen stones last for many seasons. It just depends on how well the stones are cared for. If they are rust and dirt free, they should easily last a few seasons. We're talking about diamonds don't forget; a soft steel ski edge is not going to wear down a diamond. What will happen is that the diamond dust, or whatever it is on the surface of the stone, will get scraped off over time. This is why it's important to use aggressive grit (100 to 200) stones on heavily burred or damaged edges, otherwise the cutting surface of the stone will just be scraped off. Again, think sand paper.

[El Chupacabra]

Thanks dipstick -- I really like your tuning blog. The photos and step-by-step description are very helpful.

I don't know whether this is wise or not, but what I generally do for tuning the edges: I start with a cheap coarse stone like this, freehand, to knock down any burrs:
http://www.artechski.com/tokopocketwhetstone.aspx

Then I'll go over the edges, again freehand, with an arkansas stone, which seems to polish the edges a bit nicer:
http://www.artechski.com/arkansasstone.aspx

I use both these stones wet (dipped in water).

When it seems like the edges are getting too dull from my deburring "tune", I'll use the proper side edge tool and diamond stones, or a file and then diamond stones, to do a proper tune up. I get to this point rather infrequently, like once or twice a season.

^^^ Curious as to what others do. I ski around Tahoe mostly, and rarely see real ice conditions. Most of my edge "tuning" consists of removing burrs from rock hits. Almost all my skis are wider and made for soft snow conditions, where having a really sharp edge isn't that important.

[Driver]

Thanks dipstick -- I really like your tuning blog. The photos and step-by-step description are very helpful.

I don't know whether this is wise or not, but what I generally do for tuning the edges: I start with a cheap coarse stone like this, freehand, to knock down any burrs:
http://www.artechski.com/tokopocketwhetstone.aspx

Then I'll go over the edges, again freehand, with an arkansas stone, which seems to polish the edges a bit nicer:
http://www.artechski.com/arkansasstone.aspx

I use both these stones wet (dipped in water).

When it seems like the edges are getting too dull from my deburring "tune", I'll use the proper side edge tool and diamond stones, or a file and then diamond stones, to do a proper tune up. I get to this point rather infrequently, like once or twice a season.

^^^ Curious as to what others do. I ski around Tahoe mostly, and rarely see real ice conditions. Most of my edge "tuning" consists of removing burrs from rock hits. Almost all my skis are wider and made for soft snow conditions, where having a really sharp edge isn't that important.

I start with a 200 grit aluminum oxide stone to smooth out rock damaged areas on the bottom edge. I use the beast base bevel guide for this.

Then for the bottom edge I just give a pass or two with an arkansas stone to hone it a bit but not remove any edge, again with the beast base bevel guide.

On the side edge I follow the aluminum oxide with a 400 grit diamond stone (moon stone) and finish up with the Arkansas stone, using the SVST fixed side edge tool.

I also have a hand held gummi stone for quick deburring and rust removal. I repeat the above process as needed from running over rocks or every few weeks.

Dipstick, this process doesn't seemt to produce the razor sharpness of an actual file, but i've been scared to break out the file in the past b/c I don't want to remove too much edge.

Should I pick up a file for an occasional side edge refresh? My process cleans up my edges but doesn't seem to produce razor sharpness like a file might. Maybe i'm not applying enough pressure, but I think the cutting action from my tools is just much more minimal.

[Driver]

Also curious to know if people think a 400 grit diamond stone cuts enough to increase a bevel angle by a degree.

I have a shim to increase my fixed side edge tool by a degree and am thinking about uping my firmer snow skis to 3 degrees from 2 degrees. It doesn't seem like my diamond file will do the job, anyone try this with a diamond file?

[dexterq20]

Along the same lines as Driver's and El Chup's posts, I've got another question: can I get away with using a 120-grit diamond stone for initial deburring, followed by the gray pocket stone that came with my basic Dakine tuning kit for final polishing? (Not sure what to call it... Arkansas stone? Whetstone?) Seems like the stone, when used with a file guide, would be comparable to a fine-grit diamond stone.

[AlpiNord]

Also curious to know if people think a 400 grit diamond stone cuts enough to increase a bevel angle by a degree.

I have a shim to increase my fixed side edge tool by a degree and am thinking about uping my firmer snow skis to 3 degrees from 2 degrees. It doesn't seem like my diamond file will do the job, anyone try this with a diamond file?

A 400 grit and above is considered a polishing diamond and adjusting edge geometry is not the best use of your 400. A mill bastard or 2nd cut file or 100 grit would be better. Having said that, a 1° change is small and can be done quickly (you can bang it out with a file in a few minutes):

[AlpiNord]

Along the same lines as Driver's and El Chup's posts, I've got another question: can I get away with using a 120-grit diamond stone for initial deburring, followed by the gray pocket stone that came with my basic Dakine tuning kit for final polishing? (Not sure what to call it... Arkansas stone? Whetstone?) Seems like the stone, when used with a file guide, would be comparable to a fine-grit diamond stone.

Sounds fine. Some of the questions and uncertainty stated in this thread are addressed in my son's school video:



Hopefully a shit storm won't start here as it did at Epic because....heaven forbid....his bases were facing up! Oh no!

[AlpiNord]

The initial diamond image which included the Swix Fx black diamond file appears to be similar to the SVST diamonds which uses replaceable 3M diamond strips. Can anyone confirm this?:



Here are some other diamond file images:



Rigid Backed:


In general, as I understand it, Diaface makes Moonflexes and Rigid Backed moon faced diamonds (Briko-Maplus). SkiMan makes the Swix, Maplus, Holmenkol, etc, diamonds with their proprietary diamond patterns and colors. Both are Italian companies. The conventional wisdom is that the Diafaces, due to their moonface pattern releasing the debris better, last longer than the others, the SkiMan are also very durable. The 3M paper 'may' be less durable but I haven't seen this to be true yet on my SVST files. The DMTs are less durable than any of the above.

Depending on ski or snowboard radius, the diamond (like a carving file) can make contact and cut in varying lengths along it's face (ie, different diagonal angles). A Moonflex can flex a bit to increase contact. A rigid backed or aluminum backed diamond seems to give better 'feel and feedback' to cutting and polishing than the flexes, IMO.

A 100 grit is for cutting, geometry and deburring. 200 for cutting and polishing and general maintenance. 400 and above for increased polishing and smoothness.

If you keep your diamonds clean and lubed (50% denatured alcohol or SVST Secret Sauce) and adjust wear locations, they will last a long, long time, are more forgiving than metal files and extremely easy to work with to quickly keep your edges smooth and sharp.

Good thread and info dipstik.