Good sharpening system for beginners?

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benlg

Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
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Hey guys, I am a total newbie to sharpening. I do have a Sharpmaker that works great for my Spydercos and other pocket knives. The problem is that I find the coarse stone is not coarse enough for say old kitchen knives. I have to run them through the coarse about 100 times or more to get anywhere. Eventually I would like to learn how to freehand. I would like to know in a sense, what are the reference sharpening systems recommended on this forum? If I want to learn freehand, how many sets of stones do I need to get a razor/shaving edge? Medium, coarse and fine? What grit etc. TIA, any opinions would be appreciated.

How is this Lansky?
http://lansky.com/index.php/products/universal-system/
 
For a beginner, the Lansky is a great system. I feel like the Wicked Edge is about the pinnacle of sharpening excellence, but it is also very spendy. The Lansky will give you excellent results for significantly less money. The WE is about $400, the Lansky is less than $100. If you decide to upgrade later you can. I've had good luck with the Lansky myself.
 
A lot of people like the lansky. I never had luck with mine though. I have a sharp maker but don't use it a lot anymore. What I do use is a x-coarse diamond stone, and a couple of old Arkansas stones and a couple of hard backed strops with black and white polishing compound.
 
Yes, that is a good set. I have a Smith version similar to that and that's all I use and I get my knives sharp enough to shred paper pretty easy. It als makes it pretty hard to screw up a knife, which is good for a beginner.
 
I was never able to get good results with my sharpmaker so I just laid some sand paper over my wood backed strop and I've been sharpening freehand ever since. If you go this route you can have your pick of grits. I use 300 on beat up knives all the way through 2000 and then finish with a two sided strop. I would suggest you use a sharpy for a while to get a feel for the correct angle. I still use a sharpy from time to time.
 
If you want to learn how to free hand pick up a Norton Combo Cystolon or India stone and a DMT Aligner clamp and use it with the stones. The clamp can be used with the benchstoens and will make you mimic the proper freehand technique, though you have to lift the knife slightly to hit the tip towards the end which is easier than it sounds. Just use a sharpie as with any type of sharpening to make sure you are removing steel where you want. I would also pick up some strop compound and you can apply that to some paper and wrap it around the stone and strop on the stone or make various strops on the cheap using MDF, balsa wood, paper, denim, leather, etc.

There is a lot of information in the maintenance section concerning sharpening which this should be and the guys there are very helpful.

The lansksys is a pretty good kit to my understanding though you really need at least a coarse diamond stone in there as you are going to need to reprofile each knife so you can sharpen it as it only sharpens at specific angles. This will speed up the process and help you not wear down the other stones.
 
I've been using a Spyderco Sharpmaker and I'm able to get much better edges than I thought I would with it. It's working just fine for me.
 
Bigfatts said:
I've been using a Spyderco Sharpmaker and I'm able to get much better edges than I thought I would with it. It's working just fine for me.
Click to expand...

It actually sounds like his issue is when he has to reprofile a knife to fit the sharpmaker from the sounds of it.
 
I love my Sharpmaker but if any kind of reprofiling is required, I'd say that the optional diamond rods are pretty much a necessity.

I've used them to help bring a few very badly damaged kitchen knives back to life. Highly recommended.
 
I just got my Work Sharp in the mail the other day. Totally takes the guess work out of it, not skill required. Nice touch up to shaving sharp in about 5 passes on each side, probably 10 minutes tops to reprofile a blade. Best $70 knife related purchase I've made. Also can sharpen mower blades, axes, tools....ect.
 
The guided systems like the Lansky or DMT Aligner are pretty easy to learn. The Sharpmaker is also pretty easy to get going on, although I wouldn't want to try to reprofile a blade on one. For reprofiling, I'd much prefer something like the DMT with extra-extra-coarse diamond stones.
 
The XXC stones aren't anywhere near necessary to reprofile blades, I find the coarse stone more than adequate for most steels and sometimes overkill and resort to using fine for reprofiling when I used to use my DMT Aligner. I would say the XXC is something you pick up for those very wear resistant steels, otherwise it's not needed in my opinion.

For reprofiling quicker I use a norton economy stone, the silicon carbide version to be exact combined with the Aligner clamp as it reprofiles significantly quicker than the small 4in DMT coarse stone and I have 3x more space to work with. Even if I wanted to finish up using the full DMT Aligner I could easily do the blunt of the work on the benchstone/clamp combo and than switch over to the full Aligner to finish reprofiling. Strange as it sounds it's quicker this way and I don't have a tendency to chew through more metal than required this way.
 
benlg said:
Hey guys, I am a total newbie to sharpening. I do have a Sharpmaker that works great for my Spydercos and other pocket knives. The problem is that I find the coarse stone is not coarse enough for say old kitchen knives. I have to run them through the coarse about 100 times or more to get anywhere. Eventually I would like to learn how to freehand. I would like to know in a sense, what are the reference sharpening systems recommended on this forum? If I want to learn freehand, how many sets of stones do I need to get a razor/shaving edge? Medium, coarse and fine? What grit etc. TIA, any opinions would be appreciated.

How is this Lansky?
http://lansky.com/index.php/products/universal-system/
Click to expand...

You should check out the sharpening block I make - all the details through the link in my signature below. Is a good unit for beginners and more accomplished folk because of how comprehensive it is. Is capable of sharpening pretty much anything and is very versatile. Can be used to repair damaged cutlery of any size, right on up to as sharp as you can ask. Is a big help when learning to freehand and really excels at maintaining edges at exactly the finish you want. Works on any edge grind - convex, Vbevel, Scandi etc.

If you're considering freehand of any sort, the sale thread has a handful of videos and a copy of the users manual that will be helpful even if you have no interest in buying the kit.

Otherwise I have to recommend a combination silicon carbide stone, some oil, and some polishing compound (made for stainless or cast iron). You can expand on this basic set down the road or not - that combination SiC stone will never become obsolete. This will cover the basics:

You need a coarse surface for repairing damage and creating hard use utility edges (80-320 ANSI)

A medium grit surface for a more flexible utility edge in terms of what it will cut well (400-1200)

A fine surface for edges that are better at chopping, carving, shaving (1500 and up)

I left the ranges pretty broad, you can tweak each range to get the abrasive most appropriate for what you're working on, but in general you will want three stages of coarse, medium, and fine. Most often you will only need the medium and fine once you get things tuned up. Pick up a Sharpie so you can tell where you're grinding, always use light pressure and remember that you're removing steel and odd bits of abrasive - how ever you do it, you need to keep your abrasive surface clean as you work. This makes a big difference.

Martin
 
I have been using the Lansky system for a bit over one year and like it a lot. I started with the Arkansas stone kit and find it works very well for most blade steel except the "super steels". The stones just don't work as well, or at all, when reprofiling, etc. but work well on finishing the edge, etc.

Were I to start again I'd still buy the Lansky but buy the hones separately rather than the kit unless you have steels that will benefit from the natural hones. I currently use the medium and find diamond hones, the natural "black" hone and the yellow and blue sapphire ceramic hones to polish the edge after sharpening.
I think the blue sapphire is easily replaced by a good strop and compound if that is something you are thinking about as well. I have the Lansky leather hone and it is does not work at all and not worth the money.

I've not sharpened anything larger than a BK16 on the Lansky and think it is pushing the limits of the system on the blade length.

I use a set of three free hand stones for my kitchen knives and find it the best. The steels are not super hard so readily accept basic coarse, medium and fine stones. The angles are also shallow and make sharpening, or learning to sharpen, a bit easier...at least imo...I finish them off with the strop to clean and polish the edge.

I suggest learning to free hand as well as a system. Start with an inexpensive kitchen, hunting, EDC, etc. knives to learn technique, best placement in the Lansky "jaws", etc. You will have an extra knife or two and learn how to sharpen and/or increase the skill/technique you already have. You can't "ruin" or "damage" a knife permanently...worst case is you'll dull the edge and have to do it over losing a small amount of edge steel during the process.

Good luck and keep us informed.
 
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