Hello everyone,
I traditionally always used a norton combination oil stone on my working knives, but I want to explore other options. During lunch break last week myself and a fellow coworker were whittling to pass the time while the others ate ( We work in the Park & Rtecreational department for the City). And his blade got a little dull and he went to his trucks tool box and used the Spyderco Sharpmaker to touch up his blades.
Now I want to replace my old oil stone with a quality set of ceramic bench stones. What options do you guys recommend? The steel being sharpen would be Case's CV steel and later down the road GEC's 1095. I careless for very fine grit sizes that polishes blades to split hairs, Im looking in the sub$100 range.
Thanks
That bolded part above^^ suggests you likely wouldn't need ceramics at all. If you just want to try them, that's fine. But, for the desired edge finish you describe, on the steels mentioned, the 'fine' side of an oil stone is virtually ideal. You might look into picking up a SiC (silicon carbide) oil stone, such as a Norton 'Crystolon' or Norton's 'Economy' stone (6") found at Home Depot. Equivalent stones of other sizes could be found at Ace Hardware, in 4"/6"/8" sizes (they carry a small pocket stone, at ~3" or so, in the same material as well). All of the hardware-store versions of these can be had for ~$10-$12 or less (the 6" stones run ~$6-$8 or so).
You could also use silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper on a hard backing like glass, or over your existing oil stone, in ~320-400 grit or so, even up to ~600. Over a glass backing, it very closely emulates the performance and feel of a SiC oil stone. SiC works great on the mentioned steels; I've really liked the edges produced by my SiC stones' 'fine' side, on my Case CV and Schrade 1095 blades. Some green compound on leather (such as a belt) is an easy way to clean up the burrs and finish up the edge, after the SiC stone.
Ceramic hones can work well for quick touch-ups on edges that are still relatively sharp, and they're often used in pursuit of those polished, 'hair-splitting' edges; they have their place in sharpening. They're not very good for creating entirely new edges, or repairing heavy edge damage, because they're not aggressive enough to remove heavier amounts of metal efficiently, without clogging the hones (they'll get VERY SLOW). This is where a two-sided (C/F) SiC stone really shines, because they're very fast and not prone to clogging; can be used dry, with oil or water (or water + dish soap), and will still perform pretty consistently. This makes them almost perfect for on-the-go touch-ups or even complete re-bevelling, with a minimum of hassle.
From my own uses, the 4" SiC stone available at Ace Hardware is a perfect companion for maintaining folder-sized blades in the steels found in traditional pocketknives, such as the Case and GEC knives (and Schrade, Buck, Boker and many others). And I'll likely pick up that 3" pocket SiC stone from Ace, next time I'm running errands in that neighborhood.
David
