Recently I have been learning how to freehand sharpen on Bench stones.
In the process I began with a hardware combo stone, then progressed to a Lansky soft Arkansas stone along with a separate hard Arkansas stone. I liked the case that the stones came in which allowed a platform to sharpen your knife, but even knowing next to nothing about stones, I was disappointed with the quality of the stones themselves. The edges crumbled off, there were voids in the surfaces, and they were not level at all. They would put a workable edge on my knives, but I didn't like the feel of them.
I used a friend's stone, that had been passed down from his father, and the difference was amazing. So I decided to upgrade my stones to Dan's Whetstone Co. I purchased a soft Arkansas 8x2, and a hard black Arkansas 8x2. WOW what a difference quality makes. Flat, no voids, crisp square edges, and the feel of them in use is very good.
So if you're new to sharpening, please learn from my mistakes.
Randy
In the process I began with a hardware combo stone, then progressed to a Lansky soft Arkansas stone along with a separate hard Arkansas stone. I liked the case that the stones came in which allowed a platform to sharpen your knife, but even knowing next to nothing about stones, I was disappointed with the quality of the stones themselves. The edges crumbled off, there were voids in the surfaces, and they were not level at all. They would put a workable edge on my knives, but I didn't like the feel of them.
I used a friend's stone, that had been passed down from his father, and the difference was amazing. So I decided to upgrade my stones to Dan's Whetstone Co. I purchased a soft Arkansas 8x2, and a hard black Arkansas 8x2. WOW what a difference quality makes. Flat, no voids, crisp square edges, and the feel of them in use is very good.
So if you're new to sharpening, please learn from my mistakes.
Randy
Last edited: