Best Sharpening stone for m390 supersteel

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benchguy

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Apr 6, 2013
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My benchmade 581 Barrage just came in the mail 10 minutes ago. I have been looking on the internet for a good stone to use to sharpen this knife with but have found nothing helpful. So here I am, I found a lot of talk of this steel on this site and decided to join. I have heard ceramic stones will not work because this is an extremely hard steel. What can anybody recommend for a good sharpening stone to get a factory razor edge? Thanks.
 
It's not that hard to sharpen. It's more wear resistant so it will take longer than a more common steel.

Ceramic stones will sharpen it just fine but they are typically more of a polishing stone so heavy grinding should be done by a coarse diamond or bonded abrasive stone.

Most stones will sharpen this steel so what one you should get would be a question of budget and expectations of the finished edge.

I could name stones from $10-$200+ it just all depends what you want.
 
Knifenut- I have heard good things about the spyderco triangular sharpmaker... currently I have a set of smiths diamond stones that I use to sharpen my 580 barrage 154cm steel and they are just ok.. The stones are about worn out tho so I need something new that will work primarily for 390 and 154... any thoughts on the spyderco sharpmaker?
 
It is, though if I had one I would probably only use the UF rods and mainly use the SM for applying microbevels and keeping the edge touched-up between thinning.

A combo Norton Sic stone would be a good grinding stone for cheap. Beyond that your better off looking at stone sets and forgetting about the SM.
 
M390 when properly heat treated is a superb steel, very very fine grained. My customs from Elliot Williamson, my BM MPR 755 and 581 all have confirmed this.
You can actually bring this steel (and Elmax as well) to an absolutely luster finishing.
This brings about to first consideration: stropping will be gladly received by this steel, even on non-diamond stropping compounds. So first don't ever let it go dull.

Lowering the bevel is quite another story, though.
I hotly recommend a DMT 6" Coarse (45micron) stone to get this job done in a decent amount of time, and a DMT Fine (25micron) stone to ged rid of the deep scratches left by Coarse stone.
With a normal steel for normal utility use I would call myself done after a leather strop with rouge and then Blue compound.
But this steel call for more.
Thus I'd recommend you Naniwa Chosera stones in 400, 1000, 3000 grits (do NOT use much pressure) that will bring you to the hanging newspaper cutting level, with a semi-glossy finishing. Some very light stropping strokes would still improve the edge at this level.
Admittedly all of my M390/Elmax blades are finished with Naniwa Chosera 5000 and 10k stones. Stropping won't improve cutting edge at this level, but stay warned about a couple of things: you will need a very steady hand with these two stones and get ready for purchase price.


benchguy said:
My benchmade 581 Barrage just came in the mail 10 minutes ago. I have been looking on the internet for a good stone to use to sharpen this knife with but have found nothing helpful. So here I am, I found a lot of talk of this steel on this site and decided to join. I have heard ceramic stones will not work because this is an extremely hard steel. What can anybody recommend for a good sharpening stone to get a factory razor edge? Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
The sharpmaker is great for maintaining an already sharp knife, But not something I would use to re-profile. M390 isn't too hard to sharpen, Ceramic does work. It will just be slow going.
 
A sharp maker would take several lifetimes unless you get lucky and your factory bevels are less than 20degrees per side. I reprofiled my 581 with DMT diamond stones. I haven't done any stopping yet.
 
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