Knife sharpener for a noob?

Is there any company that makes triangle stones to fit the sharpmaker in "coarse" grit?

I know there are diamonds ones but just wondered because it seems like a nice coarse one attached to another stone on the sharpmaker would give you a nice preset angle to re-profile any blade that doesnt fit the sharpmaker.
 
me2 said:
Norton Coarse/Fine combination stone. These work well, even for beginners. Many knives don't have angles that match the Sharpmaker, and will give people fits if the Sharpmaker is all they have. It's not coarse enough to lower bevel angles to match in a reasonable amount of time. It can be done, and the SM will give a sharper edge than a Fine Norton stone, but bring a lunch. For your budget, you could get a coarse stone of some kind and a Sharpmaker. This is a good setup, as the coarse stone can lower the bevel angle and the Sharpmaker can be used for final honing, and for maintenance between trips to the coarse stone. I personally use a coarse stone to go a little lower than the Sharpmaker angle I want to use (15 degrees per side or 20 degrees per side), then apply a very small, nearly invisible final bevel with the Sharpmaker.
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Curious about the stone you mention. Is the coarse/fine Norton stone you use good enough to go from those grits without some kind of medium grit before the fine grit? Can you give a link to it or details of model and price.
Thx.
 
Komitadjie, you just have to develop a taste for the beauty of an evenly finished, uniform, 90 grit edge polish.

I forgot to say I used the India stone from Norton. The Crystalon stones I have not tried, though I hear good things.

Yes you can go from the coarse India straight to the Sharpmaker stones. For years I rarely touched the fine side of the combo stone. I bought mine at Grainger Industrial Supply for $20. It was the 8 inch by 2ish inch wide model. I wanted the 11" x 2", but couldnt afford it. All this talk makes me think I'll have to get another this weekend.
 
I've been looking for an system that is effective, useable in the field and versatile enough to sharpen larger 6-7" blades and, ideally, serrations. There are systems that do one or more of these but the only thing that seems to meet all of my requirements is the Sharpmaker with the caveat that it sucks at re-profiling. Isn't that problem solved with the diamond stones?
 
Not really, unfortunately. They do help to a great deal, but the actual contact area is so small that it still takes a very long time to remove any significant amount of metal. This is by comparison to, say, a DMT XC plate on your bench. If you're worried about reprofiling and still want a Sharpmaker to do the finished edge, save yourself some cash by leaving out the Spyderco diamond tubes, and picking up a DMT plate in XC or XXC instead. Those can be had for ~$30, and will be considerably faster than the SM sleeves. Just freehand the reprofile to slightly more than whichever Sharpmaker angle you want to use, then put the finished edge on with the Sharpmaker. It won't be as pretty-looking as an edge made on an EdgePro or WEPS, since the main bevel will more than likely still show 90% of the diamond plate's scratches, but it will be quite usably sharp, very quickly.
 
I just got my Sharpmaker last week and have been having a ton of fun with it. I am also a noob so i was worried about damaging my better knives by sharpening them myself, but the Sharpmaker is so easy an 8 year old could use it. I started with a BK14 that took 5 minutes to cut through a piece of paracord, but after about 20 minutes it was shaving hairs off my arm.

Its the best 55 bucks i've spent in a long time. I just ordered the extra fine stones for it to have a little more fun.
 
I just purchased a DMT 6 inch kit that has the XC, C, F and XF diamond stones so between that and the sharpmaker and strop, I should be all set.

The setup is 2 double sided stones with a wooden box. I think they will work.

Thx.
 
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