Advice on sharpening system for Mora, kitchen knives, etc...

[JonathanR]

I'm new to sharpening and am looking for an easy to use system for sharpening my Mora knives, kitchen knives, and other random knives. From the research I've done, it seems like freehand is the way to go for the scandi grind knives. However, I would like something guided for the kitchen knives. The Edge Pro and KME systems look awesome but at $165+ and $140+ respectively they are pretty pricey. Plus, would they even work well for scandi grind knives? Are they worth it? Systems like the Lanski, GATCO, and DMT aligner & magna-glide seem like they could work well, (although maybe not as nice as the Edge Pro or KME), but will they work well for longer kitchen knives? If I got a system like the DMT aligner or magna-glide, would it be practical to use the stones for the scandi ground knives, or would I be better off with a dedicated bench stone for those? And then there is the popular Spyderco Sharpmaker which seems very popular. But is that really much different than freehand sharpening? I should also add that I have never sharpened my kitchen knives (they are 8 years old) and they are in really really rough shape! So I'll need something that can re-profile the edge quickly. I'm trying to keep cost down to a reasonable level; I don't need my knives to be ridiculously sharp - they just need to work well. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. If this question has already been asked then please send me a link to the relevant thread.

 

[jinmo]

A cheap course stone would take care of keeping your knives sharp as long as you are not looking for polished edges. It also would be a good idea to pick up a few junk knives to practice with.

 

[Jason B.]

The nice thing about the scandi ground knife is that it will teach you to sharpen. With it's wide bevel it locks into the stone and forces you to follow that bevel which in turn shows you how to move a knife on the stone. It's the same technique for every knife so if you can sharpen one then you can sharpen them all.

I would recommend the Shapton Pro 1000 and 5000 grit stones. Hard and fast cutting stones that will make sharpening easy. The stones will need to be flattened and the 400 Atoma diamond plate is the ideal option because it can also double as a coarse stone. It's a bit pricy so a cheaper alternative would be wet/dry sandpaper.

 

[cchu518]

Lansky diamond turnbox is the easiest bar none. I keep one on my kitchen counter and a fine Ark. Stone.