A quick sharpening question

[streak]

I have owned a Sharpmaker for many years and it has been my only method of sharpening until I did not have one for some time.
I then bought the Smith's DCS4 4-Inch FINE & COARSE Diamond Combo Sharpening Stone which while small gave me a feel for non guided sharpening.
Roll on many years, I have my Sharpmaker back but got intrigued with stropping. I got some nice leather and made a few strops of different smoothness levels,one of them covered in green compound.
So, now I figure it's time to get a bench stone. I have a whole bunch of Spyderco and other folders that I carry and I like keeping the kitchen cutlery sharp as well. I'm not look to split hairs right now but want something to get me going. Given that I have the course diamond plus diamond sleeves for my sharpmaker I guess I have the course end spoken for. I was thinking along the lines of a 400/1000 whetstone to start with.
If I am not happy after 1000 followed by stropping (assuming my technique is right) I could always look at the finer grit stones.

This whetstone seems very highly rated and comes with a guide and at $16 shipped seems like good value.

Makes sense or do you suggest a different approach?

 

[lex2006]

I have that stone , its not bad and I am just learning myself, I recently got the King 1000 -6000 and like it better.

 

[maximus83]

Hey there, it would help to respond with a couple of starter stone options if you could clarify what kind of steels are you trying to sharpen. Are they all conventional carbon and stainless steels, or do you have some 'super steel' blades with high vanadium carbide content (such as S30v, S35vn, S90v/S110v, M390, 20CV, Elmax, CPM 3V, M4, etc.)? If you have super steels, you'll want diamond or cbn abrasives to get the best sharpening results. If you don't have super steels, you have a huge choice of abrasives to use. Most of us have steels of both types, so if that's you, as a practical matter, you could just get diamonds and use those to sharpen everything. Which saves a few $$ on sharpening gear. Or you can get a couple of different types of abrasives and use the ones that work best on a given type of steel. That's what I prefer to do--use diamonds on steels that require it, but on other steels, I use Aluminum Oxide, Silicon Carbide, ceramics, or others.

If you have super steels, for an all-purpose diamond sharpening stone--to get started and learn freehand without breaking the bank--you can search the string 'sk11 diamond' on the big river site, they have 400/1000, or 150/600 dual-grit diamond stones that are pretty good. I own the 150/600 and would recommend that as a low-cost starter. You can use those to learn freehand sharpening and they can sharpen super steels or anything else you have. If you want a little nicer starter stone that costs more, the DMT duosharp extra-coarse/fine is a really nice stone that could sharpen anything.

If you have all or mostly conventional carbon and stainless steels, I'd start with the Norton Crystolon Jb8 dual-grit stone. It's hard to beat as a general purpose stone and to learn freehand sharpening. If you want a higher-grit aluminum oxide stone, try the Norton India combination bench stone.

 

[streak]

Thanks.
Most of of my knives use the older traditional steels. My EDC is ZDP-189 which I sometimes alternate with a nice flipper made out of the easy to sharpen 8CR13MoV.

That King 1000/6000 does look like a nice product for not much more than the one I linked to.
Likewise the SK11 looks like a very reasonable diamond option.
I get great results from my Sharpmaker but would like to challenge myself to go to a higher level of sharpness using freehand techniques.

As a kid growing up in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) I still remember my Dad's dual sided carborundum oil stone that I used to borrow from time to time so besides the challenge there is an element of "for old times sake" in my current quest.