Knife Sharpening Stones
 

Looking for general thoughts on Knife sharpening stones - what size, grits, number of progressive grits each person uses and any other general thoughts on stones.

My stones are getting old and wanted to get a slightly larger profile stone (like a 3"x7" size or bigger and wanted to see what others have been using and what they like/dislike. Also any brands and where you can find them.

Most of my stuff is high quality German and Japanese kitchen steel, but also do a fair amount of fillet and hunting/utility knives.

I bought the belt sharpener thing last year and it's great for restoring a old knife from a rough state but this is definitely not for getting a fine edge. It's just to hard to de-burr and finish a fine kitchen blade.

A couple years ago I picked up a set of DMT bench stones, extra coarse through extra fine. I bought them to sharpen chisels and plane irons, but now I use them for everything from axes to straight razors. I wish I had bought them years ago.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

ARG

If I was only buying one stone it would be this one. The 325/600 (course/fine) 8” DMT with the base. It’ll run you about $90-100 on Amazon if you catch it at the bottom of its price swing.


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I use steels that necessitate diamond to cut their carbides but even on normal steels you’ll cut faster and have less issues sharpening blades on diamond. If you take care of that stone it’ll last many, many years.

You should try and stay within no more than doubling your grit like 60/120/240 and on. Obviously you only ever need to go to the lower grits really when making a knife or completely re-establishing a bevel on a badly damaged knife when lots of material needs to be removed. Sharpening knives that are really bad (think mini chips on edge) I go all the way down to 220 or so depending on the type of stone I use. Most often though I start around a 600 then go up just under double grit jumps up to between 4000 for corse work knives and all the way to 13000 sometimes on a cooking knife or razor. I even finish on a horse hide strip charged with green paste and then bare leather last. Really 4000 is extremely sharp as it is but when you become a sharpening geek you tend to go overboard.

What type of stones depend largely on the knife steel. Some stainless or powdered steels need diamonds or or Japanese water stones while standard high carbon steels are fine with oil stones. Softer steel will sharpen on the diamond stones but super hard steels will not sharpen, or sharpen very slowly at best, on oil stones. I have many varieties and use them all on different occasions, but the most all around for everyday corse use I find a diamond plate simple and portable. For things I want razor sharp I go Japanese water stones every time. Oil stones are great for high carbon steels though and last a lot longer than Japanese water stones. A guy could go on and on. It just depends what you want. Super fine tune sharpening or just regular workaday. Convenience is always a factor too. Cost as well is always something to consider.

For cooking knives that are used instead of sharpened and looked at...
750/1000 water stone.

If you guys have any questions about sharpening knives or stones, etc - there is a member here, goes by Angler.... the grand master of sharpening! Drop him a line.

DMT continuous grit stones, and wet/dry sandpaper.

I'd go for the extra coarse, fine, and extra extra fine.

Check these guy's out. They have stones and do sharpening also.

https://knifewear.com/

It definitely is a sickness... lol!

I have some Ken Onion shun knives that I took in for a "tune up" sharpening there...they came back worse than when I took them in. Took me several days to get them back to sharp. YMMV

X 2....Single best sharpener made....

I ordered a set of these. They came within a day or two and have sharpened up a couple knives and they did a very nice job. Thanks for the lead.