# First time thinning, Beston 500 or Atoma 140?



## srideout (Nov 11, 2014)

I've been making some really great progress with sharpening, and it's made me realize that by now my Shun Classic needs a decent amount of thinning. 

I was thinking since it's my first time, obviously the 500 would be the wiser choice, but is it rough enough to remove enough metal without taking all day?

What do you use for thinning?

Thanks.


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## ThEoRy (Nov 11, 2014)

Why is the 500 wiser? I go from the atoma to the gesshin 400 or beston 500.


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## srideout (Nov 11, 2014)

ThEoRy said:


> Why is the 500 wiser? I go from the atoma to the gesshin 400 or beston 500.



My reasoning was that it's my first time thinning, and the 140 can remove a ton of metal really quickly. Would it be too easy to potentially do some damage? 

I'm pretty comfortable, but I still think I'd like to stick to the 500 if it can do the job.


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## marc4pt0 (Nov 11, 2014)

Give 500 a go. If you find you need to give your arms a break, try the Atoma for faster metal removal. I've spent the past few days doing some thinning starting w/ Gesshin 220 (it's currently the lowest I have) and had to take a couple breaks. It was only a couple hours each day, but whew! Or maybe I'm just a panzy...


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## James (Nov 11, 2014)

Out of curiosity, how does the atoma handle thinning? My DMT took on quite a bit of wear after a few session.


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## masibu (Nov 11, 2014)

Atoma plates seem more durable than dmt plates. They seem to cut more efficiently as well. I use my old dmt for flattening stones now and thats about it. I have thinned with the atoma but I use it more as a gauge to check how evenly I'm wearing at a knife for high and low spots and whether my coarse stones need flattening. I love my coarse shapton pro but it wears faster than you would think for big projects


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## petercl (Nov 13, 2014)

Whenever you're done I'd love to hear how it went. I've got a shun classic as well which I feel like could benefit from some work.


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## Zwiefel (Nov 13, 2014)

Pics or it didn't happen!


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## srideout (Nov 16, 2014)

petercl said:


> Whenever you're done I'd love to hear how it went. I've got a shun classic as well which I feel like could benefit from some work.



I ended up thinning it last night. Got to test it out at work today, and it made such a difference. I feel like I need to do a bit more.

I started off on the 500, then when I realized I was pretty comfortable with what I was doing, I went down to the Atoma 140 before going back up to the 500 to try to get rid of some of the scratches. The knife is VERY scratched from the diamond plate, not that I mind with a Shun.

Which leads me to my next question, how much can and/or should you thin a blade? I feel like the Shun could benefit from a substantial amount of thinning, is there any reason not to do this?


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## rick alen (Nov 20, 2014)

I know this doesn't likely apply to the OP, but since we are talking thinning, I'm just curious why it seems most of you pros don't use belt sanders for your serious thinning.

Rick


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## Dardeau (Nov 20, 2014)

Because most of the pros I know don't have garages, shops, or anyplace else to keep a belt grinder. 

The space difference between a diamond plate and a belt grinder is make or break for me.


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## psfred (Nov 20, 2014)

For only a knife or two a belt sander is overkill. If you are thinning knives all day, I expect it would be a necessity, just like the difference between filing a blank down for one knife vs dozens or hundreds.

The other difficulty with a belt sander is that you are quite likely to overgrind the first knife unless you have been making knives, they are much much faster than a file or a stone. 

Nice if you already have one though.

Peter


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## Benuser (Nov 21, 2014)

I use automotive sandpaper on linen starting at P120 grit. Edge trailing only.


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