Good beginner stone

[Benchmade357mag]

What is a good stone to learn free hand sharpening on I’ve been looking at the norton jb8 mainly because I tend to stick with toothy coarse edges on my kme but I was wondering if there’s another stone I should go with. I mainly work with 1095/154cm/s30v and hopefully here soon s110v on a pm3 any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[David Martin]

The JB8 is a good stone. It will work on a lot of steels. On some of the steels with higher % vanadium you should get a coarse & fine diamond. DM

 

[Benchmade357mag]

What would be a good diamond stone to use I know dmt is a good brand but they’re also expensive

 

[mycough]

Fine grit dmt (600) six or eight inch would be a reasonable option.
Russ

 

[Benchmade357mag]

Thanks for the advice

 

[willc]

The JB8 is an excellent stone and you can sharpen any of the steels you listed with it.

I suggest getting some diamond pastes and using that to refine your edge off the Norton.

MDF, basswood, balsa, denim, or even cardboard are decent substrates for the paste.
There are a lot of informative threads about diamond pastes here in the forum.

Diamond plates are generally expensive and it isn’t hard to damage them with too much pressure.
I have more than a few plates and some off brands can be good but you are probably better off sticking with DMT or Atoma.

I got a 400/1000 plate from Chefs Knives to Go that was 30 bucks and that works excellent but I don’t know if they still stock them as I got it a few years ago.

 

[bucketstove]

What would be a good diamond stone to use I know dmt is a good brand but they’re also expensive

Hi,
Do you own any stones already?

See The Ultrasharp 300/1200 DMD 400/1200 and the DMT duosharp C/F for a baseline

If you dont mind waiting a month for free shipping, ~$4 can get you thin unbranded 6.69inch/2.95inch #80-#3000 "grit" (or mesh?) diamond sharpening plates ... good chance theyre made by DMD... regular caveats ...

 

[Benchmade357mag]

Thanks for the advice I just ordered the norton jb8 from bladehq next I’m looking around for diamond paste as suggested by willc is there a certain brand I should use

 

[David Martin]

During my sharpening I've found that using the fine diamond stone as the last step takes the edge up a notch and removes burrs quickly on the steels with (3% and up) vanadium carbides. DM

 

[Mo2]

For kme and s30v and s110v if highly recommend venev bonded diamond stones. Diamonds will cut the large amount of very hard Vanadium and they will last forever. Beginners will like them because you can't break the diamonds off like you can the dmt style diamond stones. Fairly cheap for kme sizes too.

Wouldn't need to use them for 1095 though tbo I've not tried it, just know diamonds aren't idea for softer steel. Ceramic imho would be idea for 154cm and 1095. But even less costly stones would work excellent too. Norton sic stones are great.

But yea once you start getting steel with higher percentage of Vanadium you will need cbn or diamonds...at least anything over around 1000 grit.

I'm able to sharpen freehand with these kme stones at least on smaller blades. Edge pro stones are more idea size though.

 

[asterik216]

You can actually find the 8" dual dmt plates for a very reasonable price. I just ordered the fine, extra fine plates for $60 shipped.

 

[Blues]

I got a 400/1000 plate that was 30 bucks and that works excellent but I don’t know if they still stock them as I got it a few years ago.

Looks like the price is up a few bucks since your purchase but still something carried in their inventory.

 

[Alberta Ed]

Cheapo way to go with DMT is their Diafold hones -- I carry one on my daypack. Larger/longer bench stones are faster, of course, but the diafolds work great.