# Does anybody do thinning with Atoma 140?



## krx927 (Jul 2, 2015)

Any reasons not to use it for thinning?


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## Von blewitt (Jul 2, 2015)

I have done in the past, it can be a pain to remove the scratches, especially from Monosteel blades.
I have also read that there is a danger of gouging the edge if going right to the edge ( I think both Jon & Dave have mentioned it) edit: yep found it

Post #15 Dave takes about what "could" happen
http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/14204-I-ve-been-learning-about-and-sharpening-knives-the-past-few-months-and-I-have-quite-a-few-questions/page2


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## mark76 (Jul 2, 2015)

I do. It works fine and fast. Just make sure you use little pressure.

I use a Shapton 320 to remove the Atoma scratches and then continue with other water stones.


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## krx927 (Jul 2, 2015)

Thanks for the info. I will try thinning with Atoma when it is delivered next week.

Should I use some water or just dry plate?


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## chinacats (Jul 2, 2015)

I hope you have a light touch.


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## Asteger (Jul 2, 2015)

Water, for sure.

As said, deep scratches, but fast. Scratches might stay there for quite a while.


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## XooMG (Jul 2, 2015)

I stopped thinning on diamond plates because of the gouges. If you're finishing with a coarse kasumi, it isn't too bad, but I'm not a fan.


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## daveb (Jul 2, 2015)

I would not use a plate for thinning unless (a) you have no low grit alternative AND (b) you want to take a lot of metal off the blade, e.g. thin a Euro knife. It will do the job but it won't be pretty and potential for getting it eff'd up is large.


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## Asteger (Jul 2, 2015)

daveb said:


> It will do the job but it won't be pretty and potential for getting it eff'd up is large.



Good point. If you're not on the mark, you'll mess things up to a much quicker extent.


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## panda (Jul 2, 2015)

dont waste an atoma for that, use a dmt xxc instead. it feels HORRIBLE but is faster than a stone.


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## psfred (Jul 2, 2015)

Very coarse grits will do serious damage to the edge if you hit it, requiring quite a bit of work later to fix, but if you think you can keep the knife flat and stay away from the edge, it's OK. One slip onto the apex, though, and you will have to grind the gouges out. 

I've only seriously thinned a couple knives, and in those cases a 140 grit diamond would have been handy, but decent quality knives should not need that much metal removed (I ended up using a bench grinder on one of them because I didn't have a belt grinder yet). 

Unless a knife is badly manufactured, you should be able to do any needed thinning on a 300 grit waterstone or similar diamond plate. This makes cleanup of the scratches much easier, and you are much less likely to do enough damage to the edge to make a lot of work for you.

Speaking of edges and coarse stones, I tend to avoid pulling a bit burr on a 300 grit stone -- I prefer to get close, then draw the initial burr on a 700 grit Bester. It seems to be easier to get a nice edge on my Bester 1200 that way, with less time. Could just be my imagination though. 

Peter


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## jimbob (Jul 2, 2015)

I use the atoma for flattening pronounced secondary brvel like on intinomonns and a tanaka deba. Water and light pressure as said here works fast, scratches cleaned up pretty easy with 300 then 1000 stone. Def keep away from edge though!


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## Butters (Jul 2, 2015)

I prefer to thin over multiple sessions with a 400 stone rather than attacking with my Atoma. It's good for fixing broken tips and the like but super aggressive and needs lots of work to remove the scratches afterwards.


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## krx927 (Jul 3, 2015)

As I am currently thinning my nice Miyabi 7000 MCD with damascus pattern. I will probably stick with Naniwa 250 super stone. The scratches are not that bad. The only problem is that it is really slow. And with the current heat wave here in Belgium it quite an effort 

I will experiment with Atoma first on my cheap Tojiro to see the result and the effort of getting the scratches out...


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## Keith Sinclair (Jul 3, 2015)

krx if you do it with your tojiro try this. After each draw stroke lift the knife off the plate. Do not go back & forth potential for scratching the blade face much higher. Do not angle all the way to the edge just thinning behind it.

The diamonds cut fast no need much pressure. Just keep spine angle constant when resetting for next draw stroke not hard to do at all.


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## Tall Dark and Swarfy (Jul 4, 2015)

The Atoma 140 is great for wear resistant stainless. Not sure I would take one to a hard and thin blade though.

Use Astroglide on the plate as a lubricant. Laugh all you want it works.

Truth be told I sold my DMT and Atoma as well as my coarse stones under 1K. When metal needs to be removed I use 3M 125u diamond film on float glass. Cuts even faster than the Atoma without the deep scratches.

Cheers,

Rick


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## gregg (Jul 7, 2015)

Tall Dark and Swarfy said:


> The Atoma 140 is great for wear resistant stainless. Not sure I would take one to a hard and thin blade though.
> 
> Use Astroglide on the plate as a lubricant. Laugh all you want it works.
> 
> ...


I like the sound of 125u film; where do you get yours? (I've got some fairly serious stainless thinning looking me in the eye at the moment!)


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## Tall Dark and Swarfy (Jul 8, 2015)

Precision Surfaces International. Great folks. The only problem with the films is that they aren't very cost effective if you have a great number of blades to thin. 

Cheers,

Rick


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