Why We Created a Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone
Why We Created the Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone
Our Double-Time Flattening Stone has been a customer favorite for many years, it has always been a personal favorite of mine. In 2017 we set out to make the best flattening stone on the market. I had a few requirements if we were going to put our name on a flattening stone. It had to be made in the USA, it needed to be very flat, it needed to be large, and it needed to be double-sided.
When we designed the original, we decided on green silicon carbide abrasive. The choice was based on its hard and sharp abrasive grain. This makes it ideal for fast cutting, which for a flattening stone is obviously very important.
Testing the Original to the Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone
We tested the new Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone to the Original Double-Time Flattening Stone to compare the performance of the two flattening stones.
Why would we decide to make another version of the stone that is already working? Quite simply, we wanted to see if a different abrasive would give it different properties. While silicon carbide is a very hard and sharp abrasive, it is more prone to wear than aluminum oxide. Pink is an even tougher version of aluminum oxide abrasive. In theory, the pink aluminum oxide would be a tougher abrasive than the green silicon carbide. The goal would be to create a super long-lasting flattening stone, even longer lasting than the original. Why fix a problem that doesn’t exist? Because we wanted to try.
Same Construction as the Original
The new pink version uses the same mold as the original.
Because we’re able to use the same mold as our original, we were able to produce a limited run of the pink aluminum oxide version. We could have simply done our testing and kept the original, but wanted to make a production run and let our customers decide.
The new flattening stone uses the same vitrified bonding process as the original. We tried to keep everything as close to the original as possible, with the exception of the pink aluminum oxide grit.
The Results
Dan and I tested the cutting speed of the new stone to the original.
Based on our testing, the original cuts 20% faster. This result makes sense based on the properties of the abrasives. We have been pleased to say that during our testing, both stones stayed completely flat.
In our testing, we were reminded that a flattening stone is more than the properties of the abrasives alone. A flattening stone needs to stay flat, and the durability of a stone has more to do with the hardness and the binder. The job of the flattening stone is to break down the binder in the water stone to flatten it (rather than abrading the abrasives). So careful construction of the flattening stone is important. The abrasives do the cutting, but the binder is what keeps the abrasives in the stone.
Is the new Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone for you? It is possible that over years of use, the pink version may wear longer. If you do a lot of flattening, it may be a good option. If you’re an occasional water stone user, the original will never wear out, so you’ll likely not notice a difference.
We’ve done an initial run of the new Pink Double-Time Flattening Stone. We expect to sell out. If the feedback on the new stone is positive, we may decide to add it to our flattening stone lineup. But don’t worry, the original is here to stay.