Do you have a mixed bag of stones?

[Rhodies]

Do you keep with the same mfg of your stones or do you have a mixed bag? I could see the cost advantages of going from lower cost/lower grit stones and as you progress up to say 8000 grit then you might consider looking for or have already purchased quality stones? I Don't think of going cheap on the lower grit stone would effect the end result, or would it?

 

[adamlau]

Mixed bag. As you come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a stone, you can slot it within a progression. Nothing wrong with inexpensive stones. So long as you are willing to adjust to how they behave, any stone can be worthy of inclusion into a collection.

 

[3fifty7]

Norton and King are what I currently have.

 

[Kyle363]

I have several different brands some grit ranges on same brands preform better than others. Every brand and ever grit has different characteristics. It's all about finding what you like for what you're sharpening.

 

[Wowbagger]

Do you keep with the same mfg of your stones or do you have a mixed bag? I could see the cost advantages of going from lower cost/lower grit stones and as you progress up to say 8000 grit then you might consider looking for or have already purchased quality stones? I Don't think of going cheap on the lower grit stone would effect the end result, or would it?

Yes and no :
I started with a mixed bag chosen from experimentation.
Results = BRILLIANT ! ! ! (on most of the easier to sharpen alloys not the high vanadium blades). I was getting super easily produced near mirror (looks like a very impressive mirror unless you use jeweler's magnification).

and
Now . . .
a near full set of Shapton Pro stones from 120 to 15,000
Results = BRILLIANT ! ! ! same alloys maybe a tiny bit higher alloys maybe a hint cleaner mirror, stay flat longer.

For the high Vanadium alloys (S30V, 90V, 110V) I use a full set up DMT from 220 up to 8,000
Results = dang good

All are easily hair whittling.
NO STROPS

Cheep coarse stones ?
My mixed bag stones were : Norton 220 water stone = garbage; only good to prop the door open in sumer time. Way toooooo soft; I have never sharpened ANYTHING on it that seemed like the stone was suited to the purpose just like rubbing a hunk of metal on a chuck of firmly packed sand it just wears tooooo fast.

My other mixed bag coarse that TOTALLY saved my bacon when I got fed up with the Norton was DMT 10" 220 / 300 I still use it for reprofiling S110V and for flattening all my other stones all these years latter.
but
not cheep $100 plus
WORTH IT !!!

The Shapton Pro 120 (a white stone) is one of the best stones I own. The complete opposite of the Norton. It cuts for ever, stays flat feels great . . . just a gem of a sharpening stone.
I don't recall what it costs . . . I'm thinking ~$60
WORTH IT ! ! !

I don't know if I answered any of your questions but I had fun posting.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

More options are always good to have. Price doesn't always correlate directly with quality, as stones within certain grit ranges of certain compositions may be more or less expensive to manufacture, and your sharpening needs may or may not benefit from those particular qualities. It all depends on what you're trying to do and what you work best with. There's a lot of different variables that can be altered with stones, and most manufacturers mostly offer 1-3 "flavors" with a range of grits in each "flavor" when different tools or different stages of sharpening do better or worse with certain blends of performance factors.

So yeah. Try everything. Find what you like and what you don't.

 

[David Martin]

Yep, 2-3 grits. I've noticed that with Norton on their India and SiC stones. They did offer another grit higher but it was dropped some years back. Now they just go up to around 300. From there you have to find the old stones or go to a different type grit.
Mostly I work with India, SiC and diamond, approaching 4-600 grit. I have one India that is higher than this and my Spyderco ceramic & a blue Coticule. DM

 

[maximus83]

Nothing wrong with inexpensive stones. So long as you are willing to adjust to how they behave, any stone can be worthy of inclusion into a collection.

I have found this to be totally true. For folks that don't have a ton of $$ lying around and just want to keep it simple, you can seriously get by with a single, 2-grit stone (I'd recommend a 2-grit diamond stone, the Arctic Fox 2-grit field stone, or a lot of folks here like the 2-grit Norton economy, India, or Crystolon stones). You can always add refinement and more stones, more grits, as you go.

On the Q about mixing and matching: if you want to do a progression of grits and get good consistency, you probably want a progression of grits from the same manufacturer and same stone type. Example: DMT EC, C, F, EF, EEF. Or similar with Atoma, Shapton, others. You probably want to work up to a full progression like that. However, I also like to have a few different kinds of stones just for the variety, the different feel and sharpening attributes they have. So I don't stick entirely to one manufacturer.

 

[jc57]

Mixed bag? I suppose. For oil stones I have Norton (Economy, India, Crystolon) and natural Arkansas. For diamond I have Atoma, DMT and CKTG. For water I have a line of Shapton Pros (4 grits), plus a Suehiro Chemical and two from Shun. For ceramic I have the Sharpmaker with the standard rods.

 

[OldNavy]

bit of a mixed bag:
Gesshin Pink Brick 220
Masamoto 240
Chosera 400 & 600
King 1k
Cerax 1k
bester 1200
Suehiro Rika 5k
Naniwa Snow White { Junpaku } 8k
Kitayama 8k

Binsui natural 2-3 k range
Takashima Awasedo { muddy finishing stone }

 

[22-rimfire]

I also have a mixed bag of sharpening stones (bench stones), DMT and Norton dominate in terms of use. Have at least one EZE-Lap or whatever they're called. Have some arkansas stones I don't use any more; soft to very hard.

My question is about the Norton very fine water stones like the combination 4000/8000.... any good? My only Norton is the India combination stone, but I like it and use it a lot. If the quality is consistent with the India, it should be a winner from my point of view.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

There's a lot to be learned in trying out as much as you can, including a lot of 'inexpensive' stones. The only expensive stones I have are my larger diamond hones (DMT), and some Spyderco ceramics. The rest of my gear is made up of less-expensive diamond hones and hardware store stones in aluminum oxide and silicon carbide, most of which haven't cost me more than about $15-$20 each, or much less in some cases. I also have a no-name tri-hone set with one synthetic coarse stone and two Arkansas stones; I'm sure it wasn't very pricey when I bought it, a long time ago.

I've found that almost all of my gear can work pretty well, even very well, once I figured out what their best attributes were, toward which steels and with an informed strategy in using them. There was a time when I thought many of my stones just didn't work very well, and I contemplated getting rid of a lot of them. But I've since figured out the real 'defect' was in my own lack of knowledge of how to use them. I'm glad I held onto all that stuff, before writing it all off as useless.


David