# King Deluxe 300: What kind of binder?



## Knife2meatu (May 22, 2019)

I've been operating under the assumption that the King Deluxe 300 is a resinoid stone; despite never actually seeing this specified anywhere, as best I can remember.

Is this actually the case?


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## M1k3 (May 23, 2019)

I believe fired clay?


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## CoteRotie (May 23, 2019)

I have that stone and fired clay SEEMS correct, though I don't have any definitive info. Doesn't seem like a resinoid stone.


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## Grunt173 (May 23, 2019)

Humm,I thought I had it written down in my notes.I have the King Deluxe 300 and my notes say to use as Splash and Go and do not soak. Also in my notes,for some reason,I wrote" Abrasive>Emery/Corundite =Aluminum Oxide."


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## CoteRotie (May 23, 2019)

Grunt173 said:


> Humm,I thought I had it written down in my notes.I have the King Deluxe 300 and my notes say to use as Splash and Go and do not soak. Also in my notes,for some reason,I wrote" Abrasive>Emery/Corundite =Aluminum Oxide."



It's definitely splash and go, though I don't really know for sure what the composition/abrasive is.


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## M1k3 (May 23, 2019)

I think the 4k and up King stones are resinoid. Below that fired clay. I'm not 100% sure though.


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## galvaude (May 23, 2019)

From what I have read 800/1000/1200 are clay, 4000/6000/8000 are resin

As for 300 no way it is clay. It is so much different from the others. Doesn’t seem to have much binder and abrasive density seems quite high. Would love to now more about the manufacturing of this stone. So much good for the money.


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## Barclid (May 23, 2019)

300 is definitely not resin. You can torch a resin stone and it will burn/melt. The King 300 does neither. You'll also get a burning plastic smell from resin stones. Torch method doesn't really tell you whether a stone is MgO or vitrified however.

I also realize that most of you probably don't want to torch your own stones, so I took the liberty of doing it myself:  King 300..  Sigma 400..  Gesshin 400.


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## Knife2meatu (May 24, 2019)

@Barclid : Hero.

Looks like it's between MgO or Clay, then.


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## Grunt173 (May 24, 2019)

Oh Jon,where are you?


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## Barclid (May 24, 2019)

I asked Jon, too. He's not sure either.


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## Grunt173 (May 24, 2019)

Barclid said:


> I asked Jon, too. He's not sure either.


Well,if he doesn't know,nobody knows.


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## zizirex (May 24, 2019)

Barclid said:


> 300 is definitely not resin. You can torch a resin stone and it will burn/melt. The King 300 does neither. You'll also get a burning plastic smell from resin stones. Torch method doesn't really tell you whether a stone is MgO or vitrified however.
> 
> I also realize that most of you probably don't want to torch your own stones, so I took the liberty of doing it myself:  King 300..  Sigma 400..  Gesshin 400.




Hi, are you the guy from MTC Kitchen?


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## Barclid (May 24, 2019)

zizirex said:


> Hi, are you the guy from MTC Kitchen?


Yeah.


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## psfred (Jun 1, 2019)

My guess is vitrified, it's far too hard to be anything else. I find I need to refresh the surface periodically to keep it cutting, it tends to "blunt" in heavy use. Otherwise a great coarse stone.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 1, 2019)

psfred said:


> My guess is vitrified, it's far too hard to be anything else. [...]



It's much less porous than other vitrified stones I can think of, though. And all the while, it does take on significant weight in water after being permasoaked for months; which it is then very slow to relinquish in turn if set out to dry.

I usually think of vitrified -- which I believe describes something distinct from "clay" stones, as the King 300 is suggested to be here, but I'm not certain -- as being a kind of porous stones which absorb water quickly, making bubbles when submerged, and dry relatively quickly in turn. Rough estimates I've seen here place the weight/volume of water absorbed at around 30% for the kinds of stones I think of as vitrified from Suehiro, Imanishi. etc. (e.g. Rika 5k, Bester 1.2k, etc.)

King 300 takes on water not nearly as fast as those, and not in nearly as high a proportion; topping out at around 10-15% -- or what I assume is topping out; unless some amount of the stone in fact slowly dissolves in water, in which case I suppose that number would slowly climb until the stone either falls apart or all the soluble components of its binder are removed.

edit: but perhaps my notion of how porous a "vitrified" stone must be, by definition, is entirely too narrow?


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## M1k3 (Jun 1, 2019)

Whether clay or vitrified, it's definitely not resinoid or magnesia bonded.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 1, 2019)

@M1k3 : As I said in the OP, I used to think it was resinoid -- now I'm quite satisfied that it cannot be.

What makes you say it definitely isn't magnesia bonded? Whilst I can think of plenty of quite non-absorbent magnesia stones, I cannot say the same for clay or vitrified bond -- not saying there can't be any, just that they're not the norm, by any means.


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## M1k3 (Jun 1, 2019)

Knife2meatu said:


> @M1k3 : As I said in the OP, I used to think it was resinoid -- now I'm quite satisfied that it cannot be.
> 
> What makes you say it definitely isn't magnesia bonded? Whilst I can think of plenty of quite non-absorbent magnesia stones, I cannot say the same for clay or vitrified bond -- not saying there can't be any, just that they're not the norm, by any means.



Magnesia bond breaks down in water. See Chosera and Super Stones.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 1, 2019)

M1k3 said:


> Magnesia bond breaks down in water. See Chosera and Super Stones.



Super Stones are resinoid, based on the information I've gleaned -- then again, I started this thread because I used to believe something similar about the King 300 -- so, grain of salt -- but that's not the point.

Whether the King 300 does break down in water or not, is what motivating most of my questioning, in the end. I had one in water for a few months, and I felt like the mud production was getting to be a bit too generous for my taste, so is that breaking down? Unfortunately, I didn't record any measurements to guide my inquiries, so I'm looking for opinions at this point.

But I'm not convinced by the rationale which says that it cannot possibly be magnesia because magnesia breaks down in water; given that I'm not convinced the stone doesn't break down in water.


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## Barclid (Jun 2, 2019)

I'm still waiting on a reply from Matsunaga. Maybe soon we can all stop guessing. I've not perma-soaked mine and only use it splash-and-go, but if you're noticing significant softening from permanent soaking that would lead me to believe it's something other than vitrified.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 2, 2019)

@Barclid : In a way, the softening was exactly the point, and that worked a treat -- but it's probably just as important, if not more, that it stop softening at some point.

And I feel like maybe it had been getting even muddier in the last month or two than it had been during the prior period; when I remember really, really enjoying it. It could just be memory playing tricks though.

I'm looking forward, once it finishes drying completely, to finding out if it's still as stubborn in give up some mud when used as splash-and-go; now that it's possibly been softened up, for a few months -- maybe.

Hopefully Matsunaga is more receptive to inquiries from somebody working in commerce pertinent to them, than Suehiro was to my own emails.


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## M1k3 (Jun 2, 2019)

@Knife2meatu maybe I'm wrong about the SS, but, magnesia bond breaks down in water. That's the reason Chosera's can't be permasoaked.


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## psfred (Jun 2, 2019)

The type of bonding has very little to do with how much water a stone absorbs -- that is determined by the density of the stone, and hence the amount of open space around the particles and binder for water to enter. Bester stones are notorious for taking half an hour to completely hydrate as they are quite porous. However, since they are vitrified stones -- the grit is held in place by partially melted silicates -- leaving them permanently in water has no effect on them.

One of the reasons I bought my Deluxe 300 is that it doesn't make mud, at all, for me -- it stays flat for a very long time, perfect for a coarse stone I use to restore chipped or poorly sharpened plane blades and chisels, and works very very well for flattening the backs of those tools. I don't want or need mud, I need a flat, coarse stone to set bevels and generate a planar back on tools so I can easily polish them up. I personally thing this is why the Deluxe 300 is made the way it is. If you want a muddy coarse stone there are at least six I can think of that are easy to get. A real pain to use as they wear very quickly, but muddy. In my experience, the slightly faster cutting action is more than overcome by the hassle of trying to keep them flat enough to get a linear edge on woodworking tools with true flat bevels -- doesn't take much of a radius near the edge of the bevel to cause the edge to "fly" above the work surface. Not really an issue with knives so long as they don't wedge, but a real problem with woodworking tools.

I've never soaked mine, I just splash water on it and go to work. Needs refreshing once in a while as it burnishes in use because the grit won't come loose, but that's the flip side of very little wear and I know how to manage that. 

I'd guess a fairly hard vitrified bond, and if not a hard magnesia binder. The stone is quite dense with plenty of binder and low porosity, which is why it works as a splash and go -- doesn't absorb much water.

I normally only get grey swarf from it, consisting almost entirely of metal shavings, never any mud. I also don't use great pressure, I've found that counter-productive in every application. Works every time.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 2, 2019)

@psfred : I used mine that way for a good, long while. It's precisely the "[...] it burnishes in use because the grit won't come loose, [...]" which eventually got me to soak it. I feel like my Fine Crystolon fulfills the role your King 300 plays, particularly on plane iron backs -- I liked the stone well enough as a splash-and-go for bevels; but for backs, my recollection is of blade backs all too often skating over it, unless it was recently conditioned -- which amounts to what you said, pretty much, I know -- but I thought I'd prefer some small amount of abrasive release, despite the slight wear this implies, if it meant the stone could at least keep itself from starting to burnish; sometimes very quickly on certain irons' alloy, I found. Hence the counter-indicated experiment with soaking.

I'm curious: If you were to know unequivocally, and for a fact, that it was the dense, vitrified bond stone which you describe above, would that then suggest to you that it can be immersed permanently without deleterious effect? No more deleterious than the extra mud and wear, at any rate.

It seems to me that the stones which are said to be vitrified are also said to be amenable to being left submerged in water for the long-term, without any exceptions I can think of. And once dried again, they crucially bear no irreversible changes in their composition compared to their pre-soak condition. Would you agree with that?


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## psfred (Jun 2, 2019)

A vitrified stone has the grit bound together with melted glass (the definition of vitrification, some sort of silicate melted together) and water will have a very very minor effect on it unless the pH is very high.

If the King 300 starts to soften with prolonged soaking, it's a magnesia binder stone, just very high density.

I keep a sheet or two of 100 grit SiC wet/dry paper around, only takes a few seconds to refresh the surface of the King 300. It does indeed burnish rather quickly with things like A2, but I only really need it for initial preparation or repair of abused plane blades. Once I get them in shape, I never really need anything more coarse than a Bester 1200 for sharpening -- unless someone using one of them hits a nail or something. Even then the back won't need any real work, just the bevel.

Light pressure helps immensely with keeping that stone "sharp" -- heavy pressure seems to fracture the corners off the AlOx grit while light pressure removes steel. Softer steels used with high pressure sometimes "refresh" the stone, I assume by rolling some grit off.

I don't know of a way to tell if the binder is magnesia or vitrified though.


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## rick alen (Jun 2, 2019)

The funny/unfortunate thing about the King [I have anyway] is that it starts off kinda slow, then starts cutting great for a short bit, then goes just about instantly to slow, cut primarily slow for a 300, but easy to go right to a 1K with it. I've tried light pressure, but with only little if any affect.


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## Barclid (Jun 2, 2019)

The stone is dulling. There are a variety of ways that can happen, but keeping the stone conditioned and sharpening with some of the stone itself in suspension will help it continue to cut, or sharpening soft-clad knives and using extra pressure. After flattening with an Atoma 140 I notice its cutting action is significantly diminished so I typically condition with 36 grit SiC and a tempered glass plate and that's been working really well for me. I like how slow wearing it is. I use it as an intermediary step similarly to the Shapton Glass 500 to ensure I've gotten rid of severe scratches from an Atoma 140 or 80 grit wheel or what have you. I've taken to using the King Deluxe 400 instead, though, since it's much bigger and performs very similarly.


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## rick alen (Jun 2, 2019)

I am primarily using stainless cladding, and I believe that is where I most experience the occasional fast cutting. Thanks I'll keep the pressure on next time and see how it goes.


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## Barclid (Jun 4, 2019)

King Deluxe 300/400 and Neo 800 are all vitrified alundum (AlOx) stones according to Matsunaga, so that's that for this discussion I suppose.


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## Knife2meatu (Jun 4, 2019)

Barclid said:


> King Deluxe 300/400 and Neo 800 are all vitrified alundum (AlOx) stones according to Matsunaga, so that's that for this discussion I suppose.



That settles that, then.

I can't remember ever seeing anything indicating that vitrified bond stones could be damaged by submersion in water -- Hence, based on what I think I know, I assume there should be no way that prolonged soaking should damage the King 300.

In light of this, I'm really quite surprised at how very different it becomes after permasoaking for a while.

It showed much more change from permasoaking than other stones. Notably more than Cerax 320/1k/6k/8k; King 800/1k/1200; Imanishi Bester 220/700/1.2k; Sigma Power Ceramic 120/1k/2k; Norton India coarse/fine and Crystolon coarse/fine -- among others.


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## Barclid (Jun 4, 2019)

I can't really speak to that other than that "vitrified" doesn't necessarily seem to mean vitrified in the strictest definition of the word when it comes to sharpening stones. It seems it just refers to high-temperature baking. See below definition for vitreous ceramics from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrification

I'm far from an expert on ceramics, but that definition is certainly more narrow than the spread of what we see being called vitrified in the world of sharpening stones. See: Cerax 1000, Norton Crystolon, King Deluxe 300/400, etc.


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