What are diamond plates used for?

• Flattening Stones

Diamond plates are often used for flatenning stones. One of the primary reasons why beginners fail in sharpening is using worn and dished stones from usage. A dip that is as thick as hair or even smaller is good enough to slow down your process and result in poor outcomes. How regularly flattening should be done depends on the hardness of stones and how hard and quickly you use. We recommend flattenning the stone every 10 to 20 mins of usage. 

• Sharpening Tools

They can also be used as sharpening stones. Many sharpening stones are made of aluminium oxide abrasives and may not cut very hard steels efficiently while diamond abrasives can. The Atoma diamond plates eat so fast, so be cautionous for removing too much of steel. They can also leave deeper scratches than aluminium oxides abrasives for the same grit. What is also good about diamond plates is that they maintain flatness for longer time than stones, so you don't need to flatten them. 

Why We Recommend Using the Atoma Diamond Plates for flattening?

The Atoma diamond plates manufactured by Tsuboman Japan are highly regarded due to its slow-wearability, consistancy in abrasive sizes, and fast-cutting performance. Budget flattening stones on the market are made of silicon carbides as opposed to diamond plates like Atoma and can get clogged very quickly during flattening and slow down your flattening process.

Appropriate Size for Flattening?

Inexpensive flattening stones tend to be too small that can leave the sharpening stones dished. The Atoma plate size is very similar to the majority of sharpening stones and large enough to achieve very good flatness. 

Why The Custom Detachable Handle?

The sharpening stone and the flattening plate often stick very hard together by vacuum effect during flattening. They are both edgy and tricky shapes to hold and won't separate easily even by a strong person. With a handle on the plate, this is not an issue. It also allows an easier and safer operation. Tsuboman produces the plates with fixed handles limiting the usage. When you need a very coarse stone to remove defects like chips and broken tip of your blade, just unscrew the handle and use the Atoma diamond plate as a stone. You can kill two birds with one diamond plate.