Guided Sharpening: DMT Aligner vs. Magna-guide vs. others

J

jonwade92

Joined
Jan 21, 2014
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I'm absolutely terrible at eyeballing angles. I need a guided sharpening system pretty bad and was looking at DMT because I already have one of their double sided sharpening stones.

What I like about the magna-guide is that it uses the double edged sharpeners, meaning that (to the best of my knowledge) I can use any grit they sell.

What I like about the aligner is that it also has the ability to sharpen serrations, and I have a lot of serrated knives that I need that option for, but from looking into it I wasn't able to find other stones that work with the kit, meaning I'm stuck with the 3 that come with the kit and I won't be able to change grit outside of those 3 options.

And then if there are any others out there that you would recommend over these, any other suggestions are also welcome

EDIT:
Another thing to note is that one of my main knives has a recurved blade. Will either of these work with that?
 
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Extra grit stones are available for the aligner kit.I have black and tan as extra’s.
 
What you need to be looking for is the 4in diamond whetstone's, pretty much their 4in duo-sharp stones which are the ones that are used with the Aligner they have grits available from extra extra course (120micron) all the way up to extra extra fine (3 micron). And 3 special machinist stones in C/F/EF which have a small dia-sharp area to sharpen small pointed tools.

A quick search on their website will show you what you need, look under pocket models. I typically see these things go for $15-20 for each stone.

I just picked up a DMT Aligner Deluxe probably 2 weeks ago and I am quite happy with it. Though I typically use it just to reprofile with the aligner and than free hand sharpen with the stones after that. The last few times I have only been able to get my free hand sharpening just a hair sharper than I could with the aligner after I reprofiled/sharpened initially. That's saying something considering the aligner still feels very awkward to me and I don't have my technique down for it and my free hand skills are significantly better.

Oh and sharpening a recurve will be a pain, I had dificulty sharpening a CRKT Drifter on this thing and gave up using the Aligner or the stones. I ended up using a curved diamond stone, think of something like a diafold but curved and was made by eze-lap I want to say. It was still a pain but doable than, mainly because of my hatred of that sharpening stone.

And just like someone else mentioned earlier picking up the black and tan grits, I plan on eventually doing the same thing. But by no means is it necessary. And keep in mind the stones take a few sharpening to break in. They will feel very rough and remove a lot of steel, than it will get smooth once it's broken in.
 
I also made a steel blank ,same size as the stones. Edgepro 3000 grit tape gives a nice polished edge.
 
I have the DMT Aligner for many years
And it has rebeveled many knives

To touch up the edge I just use the EF freehand a couple of times either side
 
I'm waiting on pay day before I buy anything so that gives me some more time to figure this out. First time with a recurve so it's basically all new to me (I used to sharpen SAKs with just a whetstone my dad had 8+ years ago). Taking that into account, would something like the spyderco sharpmaker be a better idea, and if so, how does that work with guides?
 
jonwade92 said:
I'm waiting on pay day before I buy anything so that gives me some more time to figure this out. First time with a recurve so it's basically all new to me (I used to sharpen SAKs with just a whetstone my dad had 8+ years ago). Taking that into account, would something like the spyderco sharpmaker be a better idea, and if so, how does that work with guides?
Click to expand...

I got the DMT Aligner Deluxe for xmas and although I only used it couple times, it is very good for the money. A few weeks later I got Edge Pro and havent touched the DMT Aligner since and will probably put it up on the trade forum soon.

The stones I have for the Aligner are:
- X-Coarse (purchased separately)
- Coarse
- Fine > came with the kit
- X-Fine
- XX-Fine (purchased separately)

The X-Coarse stone is defintely a neccesity in this kit. Its works really quick.

The Spyderco sharpmaker is a great system to keep sharp knives sharp or make them sharper. The Aligner is a great sytem for reprofiling and working on a dull knife. So in other words, these systems work great together.
 
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I bought the Aligner a couple of weeks ago and have been very pleased so far. It came with the coarse and fine stones, but I'll probably look into getting the extra fine and extra coarse at some point in the future. It's simple enough to use and has done a great job of putting a good, serviceable edge on my EDC knives which were becoming dull. For what I use my knives for on a day to day basis (cutting rope, cutting open boxes, etc.) this should work fine for keeping them up to snuff.
 
I might get something if I come into some extra cash at some point, but I did some practicing and my DMT double sided stone and the diamond rod I have are working for the time being. Rod allows me to get recurves and serrations, stone lets me get the rest.
 
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