Ceramic vs. natural sharpening bench stones

Easyrider

Easyrider

Joined
Jan 31, 2000
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What has been people's experience with natural sharpening stones vs. Spyderco's ceramic benchstone? I have a Spyderco sharpmaker and I like the ceramic rods, but now I'm thinking about going the freehand sharpening route with Mike Stewards convex edges. So what does the collective prefer and more importantly why?
 
For convex edges, I must say I prefer slack sanding belts/paper followed by a strop. I fully convexed a Shrade peanut 2 blade pocket knife this way, and if I may say so, it was beautiful. I used a 1x30 belt and some C clamps to hold the belt and make a handle. It worked great, and the blade would shave hair held between my fingers. After reading "The Complete Book of Sharpening" from Lee Valley tools, and after trying to do major sharpening on a Sharpmaker, I kinda view the ceramics as finishing stones for very fine edges. After the stropped convex edge lost its bite, I would make a very fine microbevel at 30 degrees on the sharpmaker, using all 4 steps, and it was just as sharp. I'll have to find that knife.

As for natural stones, I used an Arkansas oil stone for many years on a Buck Lite with a 425 modifed stainless blade. It cut faster than the brown Spyderco stones I believe, but I did not use the 2 side by side to compare. I have not tried a covex edge on a stone. I tried it with some sandpaper on a flat backing, and had to roll the knife from the top of the grind all the way to the edge.
 
Compared to other kinds of abrasives, natural stones are slow cutting but long lived. Ceramics vary. Those that are waterstones with a water soluble matrix would be faster cutting and shorter lived than a natural stone of comparable "grit." Those that have no water soluble matrix and are used dry are pretty similar to natural stones of comparable "grit" assuming you can find a natural stone as fine gritted as the dry ceramic.
 
i love my ultra fine spyderco ceramic for finishing up sharpening jobs, it works great. it is a very fine stone though, ya need something coarser for starting the job, i like the norton india stones myself, they are fairly cheap, and ya can get big ones (like 3"X9") that work faster. ark stones are good too, but the best imho is the DMT diamond stones, get a coarse bench stone and a duofold w/a medium and fine grit, and ya should be set imho, ya can also lay the spyderco ceramic on the sharpmaker stone to keep the same angle for polishing the edge, works good, also i guess ya could lay a coarser one on the SM too, it helps w/the angle, i get in a hurry sometimes and get off angle if not carefull..

greg
 
Thank you gentlemen for your replies. I'm currently leaning towards a ceramic stone from Spyderco. I'm looking for a stone for touch up work instead of reprofiling work.
 
I find the man-made blue stone to work amazingly well. It is not quite a finishing stone, but it gives a very sharp edge and is easily the fastest cutting stone at that grid range (#2500) I have ever come across. Available for about $55 and so large that longevity isn't really an issue: its a brick.
But it is a waterstone, it is messy and needs to be lapped occasionally.
From the blue stone you can go directly to a finishing stone at something like #8000 grid.

As much as I love the sharpmaker, I find that if you are willing to deal with the "hassle" of a man-made Japanese waterstone, there is nothing that compares in cutting speed and edge refinement (they are much more gentle on highly hardened and very thin edges).
 
Sorry for necroing a thread but I'm looking at triangular sharpeners and want to know if I should be Arkansas stone or a ceramic.
 
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