recommend a sharpening system

You can get a Spyderco Sharpmaker for that, but the extra fine rods are more money. Spyderco made sharpening systems before they made knives, if that matters.

 

Get the DMT alighner.

 

+1 for spyderco sharpmaker, then save up and buy the diamond rods, or be cheap and get some rough snadpaper. you will not be dissapointed.

 

I've had excellant luck with The Spyderco Sharpmaker. Tok me about two knives to truly master it, but noe I can make damn near any knife razor sharp.

 

I picked up the Smith's Combo sharpener from Walmart (basically small size version of the DMT Duosharp). It works quite well. I managed to put a sharp edge on my old Gerber, that after years of abuse from crappy pull thru sharpeners could cut as well as an old spoon. So IMO the Duosharp would be okay BUT I wish the fine was more... fine. It's still pretty coarse.

 

I've sharpened some very alrge knives on the sharpmaker - works fantastic! In fact, I can;t really think of anything you cna;t sharpen on a sharpmaker unless you're wanting a convex shape or something.

 

I've sharpened full size chefs knives at work with my sharpmaker. Worked great. Also my zt 0350 and my skyline both shave hair with the standard fine rods. As a matter of fact, all of my knives that have met the sharpmaker will shave hair.

 

+1 for the sharpmaker!

 

Another vote for the sharpmaker
Pocketknives are razor sharp, and so are kitchen knives and scissors

 

The fine rods on a Sharpmaker will have hair flying off your arm

 

you should look into a norton india stone, they are great. i use that along with a piece of leather and green stropping compound and it keeps a razor edge on my knife with little effort and they are cheap to pick up.

 

Spyderco SharpMaker (unless you own a bench grinder) then a set of paper wheels factors in as well.

The SharpMaker works, it is portable/versatile/easy.... really is all you need until the sharpening genie enters your mind and you start wondering how sharp things can get

 

The DMT duosharp stones are good stuff, I'd go with a coarse and fine or coarse and extra fine. You'll want the flexibility that a quality coarse stone gives you no matter what system you end up with. Personally I'm a huge fan of waterstones - I can speak for the Norton and King varieties - both work well - I have no experience with the other brands. I'm no good for advice on guided systems but for freehanding I find the diamonds to be a bit limiting - you cannot do recurve edges on them, even relatively gentle ones. A solid stone like an India, Crystalon or waterstone can have a side rounded down a little to allow for that sort of thing. Combo India stone and a Spyderco fine ceramic stone will come in at just over your 50 buck range but lets you do a lot. A Norton combo waterstone 1000/4000 grit is also a very good combo. Pairing up a King 800 and 4000 grit or 1000 and 6000 make for a good combo as well - hard to beat and meets your 50 buck target. From what I understand the Sharpmaker is only good for maintenance, a task easily accomplished with a variety of tools that can also be used for thinning the blade, convexing, changing bevel angles etc. That said, it gets a lot of praise on the forum and I don't own one myself.

 

For that money I would look at the GATCO Professional.

 

I'd go with the DMT Duosharps (and I just did, recently). However, you won't be able to keep total cost under $60 though, unless you get tiny stones that makes it harder to sharpen.

Ultimately, a good long term approach might be:
* Get a DMT duosharp set to start.
* Later, add a Sharpmaker as this gves you a few additional capabilities that the DMT are not quite as good at:
- SM can handle recurves well. The DMT are not so good at that. You can make them work, but SM is easier to do recurves.
- SM also gives you better blade FINISHING/REFINING ability, esp. if you get the ultrafine extra rods. A good combo is to use the DMT stones for the rougher cutting aspect, and then use the SM ceramics to finish and refine your blades.


But with all that said, I'd start with the DMT stones if I were doing it today, and still add the Sharpmaker later.

 

I sharpen 10 inch knives no sweat

 

Any hard sharpening stone can do that. Its a matter of stropping it off