arkansas or diamond stone

15mtyler

15mtyler

Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
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I'm wondering if I should get a arkansas or a diamond stone for sharpening. Also. Should I get it in fine or medium for sharpening. I will be using it in 1095 croc an if that helps. Thanks.
 
I bought one of these at a local walmart for only 15 dollars. It was well worth the money. It has a rougher course side (yellow) as well as a fine side (orange) for finishing. Then I hit my knife with a croc stick. It'll get your knives sharp enough to dry shave hair and cleanly cut paper without breaking the bank. I also have a german ceramic stone for my more expensive knives. I would definitely stick with diamond sharpeners as opposed to Arkansas stone. It just creates a better edge. If you choose to go the route of an Arkansas stone, definitely pick up some good honing oil to go on the stone.
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if 1095 is the only steel you will be working Arkansas are fine. If you will be working any of the crucible steels in the future you will want diamond. It is always best to use both a medium and a fine stone to get the most out of your steel.
 
Diamond.


You never know what your next purchase could be.

CPM M4, D2, S30V, Elmax, M390 or other common steels take forever on an Arkansas stone
 
Here is a section dedicated to this topic, General Knife Discussion is for the knives themselves and not necessarily the sharpening of them.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/794-Maintenance-Tinkering-amp-Embellishment

1095 is a somewhat soft steel, it rarely gets used in the higher end of the 50Rc scale. You can strop it to sharpness with little effort. The stones you inquire about will be more than adequate. Make sure you practice your technique.
 
1095 is quite soft and if it behaves anything like my other carbon steels I would argue that diamond is too aggressive for it. It can be done but it's extreme overkill and takes an extremely delicate hand and precision to not remove more steel than necessary. Personally I would go with either a Norton Crystolon or India combo stone, they can be had for around $20. The Crystolon is far more abrasive but still works quite easily with softer steels in my opinion, India leaves a finer finish and doesn't remove as much metal as the Crystolon but probably more abrasive than the Arkansas from what I hear.

I currently have the norton economy versions of the Crystolon (silicon carbide) and India, and I have some small DMTs in C/F/EF. I find the diamonds are far too abrasive for the softer steels in my SAK's and carbon steels but they work extremely well with the India and pretty good with the Crystolon. If I had to get one it be the Crystolon so I have the ability to quickly reprofile a blade on the coarse side no matter what the steel. Though if I knew I was going to be working with mostly softer steels I go with the India. Or the other option pick up the India and than hit up home depot and pick up the economy Crystolon for when you need to reprofile a blade or need something more coarse (just have to flatten it first) as it will only set you back around $6-7.
 
So diamond is useful but not necessary if using a softer steel like 1095, Crystolon is also useful for quick reprofiling in case of extreme dullness or chipping, India will give a finer finish, and Arkansas stone will polish it nicely. Did I get that right?
 
I like to use each of the different abrasive mediums for different grit ranges, as I find that they seem to give the best results within a particular range. Files are excluded from this list for simplicity's sake--we'll stick to stone-style bonded abrasives. This is what I like to use:

Extra coarse: Crystolon (silicon carbide)
Coarse/medium: India (aluminum oxide)
Medium/fine: Diamond
Fine: Ceramic
Extra Fine: Strop with chromium oxide paste

There's a lot of overlap between these progressions and what I go with for a given knife in part depends on the qualities of the particular knife/tool and what exact form I happen to have a given grit in (shaped rods vs. rectangular stones, for instance)
 
15mtyler said:
I'm wondering if I should get a arkansas or a diamond stone for sharpening. Also. Should I get it in fine or medium for sharpening. I will be using it in 1095 croc an if that helps. Thanks.
Click to expand...

A decent quality Arkansas stone will likely work just fine on 1095. As mentioned earlier though, Arkansas stones will be much more limited, or ineffective, on more modern and wear-resistant steels, if you upgrade sometime. Arkansas stones tend to be very slow in more heavy grinding tasks, on modern steels. The hard Arkansas stones (black hard, translucent hard) can sometimes still be nice polishers on a wider variety of steels. Still slow, but can burnish & polish with some patience.

IF you do use diamond, use a finer grit; coarser diamond grits, for 1095 steel, would be too aggressive for most tasks, and it'll be very difficult to fine-tune a finished edge with anything coarser than a Fine or EF. A Fine diamond hone can even be used for re-bevelling small/medium-sized blades in 1095. In fact, I prefer such a hone for these tasks on this steel; it's very fast and leaves a very uniform grind pattern and crisp bevels, with a minimum of effort.

And a strop with some aluminum oxide (white) or chromium oxide (green) compound goes very well with 1095 steel.

I've recently been using Fine/EF diamond hones to re-bevel smaller traditional pocketknife blades in carbon steel or simple stainless like 420/440 varieties, followed by stropping with white compound, which cleans up burrs and polishes very fast. Sometimes use green compound on a strop, but more often follow the white by going straight to a bare leather belt. This sequence has become one of my favorites for steels like these.


David
 
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1095 easily can be re profiled on a DMT F stone without being too aggressive

I use it to redo some of my more modern steels.
 
If the only steel you will be sharpening is 1095, either will be fine.

If you ever want to graduate to steels that can attain high hardness and/or have a higher vanadium content, IE high wear resistance, you'll need to use diamond plates.
 
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