Looking for expert opinion on what coarse stone to get to use with Sharpmaker

CSG

CSG

Joined
Dec 15, 2007
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I love the Sharpmaker for blades that are not damaged or needing serious work. From what I understand (from Spyderco), the grit on the medium rod is something on the order of 600 and the fine rod 1200 or 1800 (I forget which she told me). Spyderco CS said it's a little difficult to state and actual grit for these.

Anyway, I'd like to get a bench stone rather than the diamond rods that would compliment the Sharpmaker and help work an edge better than the Sharpmaker's ceramics.

I had thought of getting a Diasharp 8" Coarse from Amazon as it's only about $45 or so but wondered if the jump from it to the ceramics was too much. Really, I just want to add a complimentary stone to the Sharpmaker that will help work an edge more quickly.

Not afraid of oil stones but I'd prefer something that could be used dry (so probably not a waterstone).

Thanks for any thoughts!
 
You know, I didn't even think of sandpaper. Duh. This isn't something that will get frequent use as I tend to maintain my various knives and don't damage an edge beyond the capabilities of the Sharpmaker very often.

Jason, thanks for the comment. It was something you said in a thread on this subject a few years ago that made me ask. KC has a 6" DMT coarse and fine whetstone set on sale right now for about $54 shipped or I could get the Diasharp 8" coarse from Amazon for about $8-9 less. Or does sandpaper make more sense in this case?
 
I like high grit sandpaper for some things but imo low grit sandpaper wears out quickly and slows down dramatically in use.
 
I've also tried sandpaper and I prefer a DMT stone for heavy metal removal or reshaping. A DMT coarse stone is what I use for that before I go to the grey Sharpmaker rods. I also have diamond SM rods, but I still use the DMT if I'm doing a lot of work.
 
Sandpaper attached to the rods works great also. Heck, I've even propped a DMT bench stone up against the Spyderco rods before to re-profile. Worked fine.

I ended up getting the diamond rods for the SM, but I also have other methods of sharpening which I use more often (Edge Pro, hand, Work Sharp for convex and loaded strops with strips of sandpaper for convex edges.
 
Any thoughts on this choice to use with the Sharpmaker?

"KC has a 6" DMT coarse and fine whetstone set on sale right now for about $54 shipped or I could get the Diasharp 8" coarse from Amazon for about $8-9 less."

Does one of these make more sense than the other?
 
I was take Congresstools Moldmaster stones. Great stones for re profile. Using 120,240 and 400 grid. After that Sharpmaker stones will do the rest.

I will use the picture from web to demonstrate how I did it.

 
Woody, that's great! I had seen these on a YT video but couldn't find them. Seems like they're pretty inexpensive.
 
knifenut1013 said:
A coarse DMT will work fine.
Click to expand...

This is probably the better option for longevity.

If I were using a sharp maker for touch ups, I'd decrease the angle of the back bevel.

Truthfully whenever I use my knives, I tend to not care about edge damage because I have more knives than I can use in my lifetime and my Edge Pro sits on my counter waiting for me to sharpen since I've already set my backbevels.
 
I found a 6x2 Coarse DMT Dia-Sharp on Amazon for $28 delivered so that's what I went with for now. Had a chance to look at some 6" stones at Sportsman's Warehouse earlier and for my needs, 6" will be fine. I don't have any outdoor knives with blades longer than 6" and all the rest are blades 4" or less. My kitchen knives will be fine using just the Sharpmaker.
 
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