One stone, to rule them all. If you could only have one, what would it be?

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nimrod337

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Apr 24, 2013
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Okay, I want to start honing my skills of knife maintenance (pun intended.) But I want to do it on a budget, and also as simply as possible. So I am going to purchase a sharpening stone. And I'd like to only purchase one stone. So I ask of you, master sharpeners, if you could only use one sharpening stone for the rest of your life, what would it be? (Type, size, grit, brand, et cetera.) I'd like to sharpen both my pocket knives, and kitchen knives with this stone, so keep that in mind: One stone, many knives.
Also, it'd be awesome if I could spend less than 40 bucks on the guy.
Thanks ahead of time!
 
Dan's whetstones, combination soft/hard arkansas 8x2.5x1 (plus a strop with green compound).
 
Get a combo Norton stone, India or Crystalon ($20). I'd suggest some kind of strop, too. A 6" or 8" leather strop and a small block of black or green compound will set you back another $20. Bam, 40 bucks. :D

You can use WD-40 for the stones, which you've probably got in your garage.
 
I would like a custom stone consists of highly friable 40um poly-diamond or CBN in 1m^3 format... and cost only $40. Otherwise, with $40, I'll buy 10 of 12x2.5x2" of Aluminum Oxide 110/220 combo and then tie them together to form a single 12x2.5x20" stone :D
 
Spend $15 more and get a Sharpmaker if your main goal is *maintaining* non-destroyed blades. Another choice that many people like are the DMT dual coarse/fine stones.
 
Norton Crystalon combination stone 8" or Norton combination India stone. The India = somewhat finer, cleaner edge - Crystalon = faster and seems to provide very consistent results across steel types. Be happy with either of those and some creative stropping materials. Dico or Craftsman black and stainless compounds. Total cost approx 30 bucks even with shipping.

Runner up is my 500 grit jointer stone, then I can skip the compound. 20 bucks.
 
Growing up decades ago we had a round combination whetstone, course/fine. It was all that was needed for the pocket knives and kitchen knives. Today, however there are a lot of knives out there with harder blades and more wear resistant carbides. If you have the latter, double your budget and get a combination diamond stone. If you have the easier to sharpen high carbon blades then get the silicon carbide combination stone.
 
I would get a DMT coarse diamond. There will be times when you will need to sharpen something that is very dull, other times when you need to reprofile something. The coarse stone will let you do that. There are a lot of things that you can use to further refine the edge that don't cost a lot of money, such as sandpaper and strops, even a ceramic coffee cup.
 
If i only have to sharpen my knives, meaning no overabused-chippy-flat-edge of doom, i could live with a spyderco profile in medium grit and some 6 micron diapaste spread on balsa.

If i have to deal with random knives, that would be a dmt coarse but i would be terribly annoyed with only 1 benchstone as i own quite a few spyderedges.
 
I fourth the Norton India combination stone in 2X8" coarse/ fine. For 20$ shipped to your door and it will last you 40yrs.. No joke. DM
 
I'll take the fifth on the Norton India Combo Stone. Mine is 40 years old and still in excellent condition. Still my most used stone. I recent got a spyderco ceramic (fine) to refine edges on super steels.

ric
 
Grab a norton crystolon/india combo stone in the 8 inch flavor and fashion yourself a strop of some sort, when you can get a shaving edge without any drama using these then you can start to play with other stuff. After seeing the results some are getting with a norton fine crystolon, and my preference for aggressive cutting edges, sometimes think I should have stayed there. I recommend using the stone with water instead of oil, oil is too messy unless you have a sharpening area you can keep an oil bath stone holder in.
 
Wow, thank you guys. You made the decision so much easier. Last time I asked for buying advice, it was about a knife, so the poll obviously ended with a majority saying "buy both" So I'm glad you could mostly come to a consensus. I am definitely just starting my journey of knife owning/sharpening/collecting, so I am pleased to have such a incredible source of information that is so willing to help.
Thanks again guys, I'll be lurking.:cool:
 
If it was two, it would be what I have -- a Norton combo crystalon/india, and a soft/hard Arkansas combo.

But if it was really only one.... the crystalon/india could keep em cutting. And for that matter, I did fine for years with nothing but a soft Arkansas.
 
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