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Naniwa SS are for polishing, they are great on razors but no so much for knives. They also do not handle super steels all that well.

The Chosera are a little better but still not stones I would recommend for PM steels. Shapton Glass stones are my preferred waterstones and work well with most PM steels.

For folding knives I like to use my SG500 and finish with a strop coated in 3 micron DMT diamond paste. This makes for a very sharp and toothy edge that cuts well and lasts in EDC tasks.
 
Those will work just fine. Elmax has only 3% vanadium. While vanadium carbides are quite hard, there aren't a heck of a lot of them in Elmax, compared to other steels like the S---V series. Most stones will sharpen Elmax quite well.
 
samuraistuart said:
Those will work just fine. Elmax has only 3% vanadium. While vanadium carbides are quite hard, there aren't a heck of a lot of them in Elmax, compared to other steels like the S---V series. Most stones will sharpen Elmax quite well.
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While this is true, I still wouldn't recommend Naniwa SS for knife sharpening.
 
On razors, yes. On knives, no.

Knives need aggressive edges, and if you polish it like a razor then yes, it will be sharp but it will be short lived and the cutting of various materials will be unpredictable.

Coarser edges last longer, are easier to bring back with a strop and are waaaaayyyyyy easier to apply. Plus with the trend of overly thick blades the coarse edge helps to compensate for the lack of good geometry.
 
I don't know why they wouldn't be recommended. The only one I do have is the 400, and the edge it produces for me is extremely sharp. Quick, too. Love using that stone on every steel (never sharpened the excessively high VC steels, tho). It's not like the 400 grit stones only polish. Seems to cut quite readily. Sure, there may be "better" options, but to say these stones only polish and don't cut...well, I guess I'm missing something here. Jason, you know way more about sharpening and stones than I do...

There are guys who like polished edges, progressed all the way up from coarse to ultra fine, sub micron even. Then there are those who prefer coarse edges. There are steels that do indeed prefer coarse edges, some work better with fine edges. With Elmax, you can have your pick, and choose which edge works for you. D2 is a steel that really likes an aggressive toothy, somewhat coarse edge, while AEB-L/52100/Shiro type steels seem to prefer polished edges. What you are cutting makes a difference too. Strictly protein cutting, a coarse edge that is stropped (Jason's SG500 + 3 micron diamond strop) works quite well. Vegetables, a little more refined of an edge seems to work better. Shaving your face....polish that baby on up!
 
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I don't know how to address your exact set of requirements within your budget. All I can do is tell you how I sharpen my Elmax blades.

I have a couple of Elmax knives and when I want to sharpen them, I use a CKTG 400/1000 combo diamond plate that was about $35 for setting the initial bevel or edge repair, and if I want to clean it up further will switch over to a Shapton Pro 1000, then strop on a balsa strop with some 1-micron diamond spray. I don't have anything in S30V.

I have finer grits of Shapton Pro stones but really don't need a polished edge on a fairly sturdy knife that I mainly use to cut down cardboard boxes.

You can get that particular set up for quite close to your $100 mark. You can buy balsa blocks for about $7, and the rest of the stuff I mentioned comes in right at $99.90 from one vendor including some 1 micron diamond paste.

Whenever you use water stones, you will have to plan for how to flatten them eventually. I don't know if that 400/1000 diamond plate would work well for flattening, I have never used it for that. I have a different diamond flattening plate I use, but that would blow your budget. There are $20-ish stone fixers available from various places, or you could use SiC drywall mesh on a piece of glass in a pinch.
 
samuraistuart said:
I don't know why they wouldn't be recommended. The only one I do have is the 400, and the edge it produces for me is extremely sharp. Quick, too. Love using that stone on every steel (never sharpened the excessively high VC steels, tho). It's not like the 400 grit stones only polish. Seems to cut quite readily. Sure, there may be "better" options, but to say these stones only polish and don't cut...well, I guess I'm missing something here. Jason, you know way more about sharpening and stones than I do...

There are guys who like polished edges, progressed all the way up from coarse to ultra fine, sub micron even. Then there are those who prefer coarse edges. There are steels that do indeed prefer coarse edges, some work better with fine edges. With Elmax, you can have your pick, and choose which edge works for you. D2 is a steel that really likes an aggressive toothy, somewhat coarse edge, while AEB-L/52100/Shiro type steels seem to prefer polished edges. What you are cutting makes a difference too. Strictly protein cutting, a coarse edge that is stropped (Jason's SG500 + 3 micron diamond strop) works quite well. Vegetables, a little more refined of an edge seems to work better. Shaving your face....polish that baby on up!
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Yea those super stones are straight up just for Polish, they work best on razors and traditional single bevels.

But can be used on other knives.

Skill is the limiting factor but there are more efficient stones for Elmax

They just don't have the firepower the Naniwa pros have. Conversely the pros don't have as bright of a finish as the super/sharpening stones.
 
elmax takes a nice polish without loosing a significant amount of bite. I'd start with a SiC stone if i had to rebevel, move on to diamonds, up till fine, and finish on alumina ceremics for the polish. Remember to use light pressure at the higher grits, then you won't loose that bite.
 
AlexT808 said:
virtuovice reccomended shapton ha nokoromaku. Are they any good for modern steels?
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If i'm not mistaken, those are like Shapton pro's? I do use shapton glass which has a slower release. I currently finish my blades on 6K shapton glass and they do a decent job. I do finish with 6, 3, 1, and 1/4 micron diamond compounds and will be adding 1/2 micron to the rotation when i get it. Light pressure, again, is important IMO.
 
Shapton Pro: formulated for low alloy steels. These release abrasive slower and have lower density than the Glass stones.

Shapton Glass: formulated for high alloy steels. These release abrasive faster and have higher density. This allows them to cut faster and wear slower.

Though elmax is not that tough to sharpen the Glass stones would be the better option and work with more steels.
 
SG500 is $55
SP2k is $62

The SG500 will produce a much better and far more useful edge than the SP2k and will sharpen the Elmax steel without issue. The Shapton Pros will sharpen Elmax as it's more of a mid level alloy but I can tell you from experience its barely making the cut.

I would also not purchase from Amazon, the Japanese Shapton Pros
 
AlexT808 said:
I bought a shapton pro 1000. Thank you everyone for your help.
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It's a very good stone, one of my favorites. Works well at removing course scratch patterns but it's not much of a standalone sharpening stone.
 
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