Longtime lurker, first time posting. I’m branching out on my EDC knives. I carried a Benchmade in 154CM for years and had no problem sharpening it on a Norton India combo oilstone and a Norton fine stone, then strop. I’ve started messing with S30V and these stones don’t seem to touch it. I dont mind spending a little money on good stones that will handle S30V and hopefully a D2 knife I’d like to maintain. Any advice? I’m still learning, but I have got my 154CM shave sharp many times before. Thanks.
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Recommended sharpener??
- Thread starter Jowlbone
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Vanadium carbides (as well as others) in powder steels like S30V are extremely hard, so you need diamond hones to cut them. I've used DMTs for more decades than I care to admit.
tinfoil hat timmy
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came here to say this.
DMT diamond plates are wonderful.
no soaking. always flat.
use light pressure, keep em clean and they'll last years.
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- Jan 23, 2017
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I don't like diamond stones and even I recommend them for high vanadium steels.
Ultrasharp has good reviews from a very credible sharpener.
Ultrasharp has good reviews from a very credible sharpener.
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- Jan 31, 2000
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- 4,090
I have Spyderco benchstones, a Worksharp Ken Onion edition and a very old Spyderco Sharpmaker. The Worksharp does larger knives like my Wife’s kitchen knives, I have difficulty sharpening some of my smaller knives on it. The benchstones are great but I am still learning, it takes to time to get good on benchstones as I am finding out. For me the best sharpening system that I have any experience with it the Spyderco Sharpmaker. It is simple to use, I can get a really nice edge on my smaller pocket knives and it is easy to maintain that edge. There are many popular systems out there so you may have to experiment a bit.
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Like many others I have a slew of sharpeners from benchstones, to a sharpmaker, to a KME, to a Blade grinder attachment for the Ken Onion Worksharp. In general, the benchstones are going to be the most versatile insofar as you will be able to work on virtually any knife at any angle regardless of size. Unfortunately that comes with it a rather steep learning curve to be able to create the muscle memory required for a consistent angle. To that end, typically for my more expensive knives I will favor the KME since I want to have the cleanest most even bevels possible for an expensive piece.
Cheaper knives or those already set on the KME/Ken Onion will go on the sharpmaker. The sharpmaker is a great tool but I dont typically recommend it for first time sharpeners. It's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness and I found this out when I first jumped into sharpening. It can keep a blade screaming sharp without removing a lot of material however if you are getting into sharpening for the first time seriously that usually means you have some pretty dull knives. That is going to require a new bevel being set in most cases and doing that on a sharpmaker with medium and fine ceramic rods is near impossible with some steels and downright tedious with others.
Long story short, if you are willing to put in the time, a good set of benchstones will serve you well. For under 20$ you can pick up a Baryonyx Manticore that will cut anything and cut it fast. Then from there you can pick up some medium and fine diamond plates and that should do you just fine with stropping.
If you dont want to spend time and money learning and marring up a few knives in the process, get a KME or similar guided system and be done with it.
Cheaper knives or those already set on the KME/Ken Onion will go on the sharpmaker. The sharpmaker is a great tool but I dont typically recommend it for first time sharpeners. It's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness and I found this out when I first jumped into sharpening. It can keep a blade screaming sharp without removing a lot of material however if you are getting into sharpening for the first time seriously that usually means you have some pretty dull knives. That is going to require a new bevel being set in most cases and doing that on a sharpmaker with medium and fine ceramic rods is near impossible with some steels and downright tedious with others.
Long story short, if you are willing to put in the time, a good set of benchstones will serve you well. For under 20$ you can pick up a Baryonyx Manticore that will cut anything and cut it fast. Then from there you can pick up some medium and fine diamond plates and that should do you just fine with stropping.
If you dont want to spend time and money learning and marring up a few knives in the process, get a KME or similar guided system and be done with it.
today i used the Sharpmaker , codename 204MF , to sharpen one chef knife 8cr13mov9 . such a knife, whatever technique you use on 204MF, you will end up with a burr \ microburr \ wire edge \ foil edge, i.e. not a totally clean apex.
(...)
anyway the most challenging step is the deburring step. and it doesn't get easier if you use this or that sharpener. no matter what you throw at it. at some point you have a microburr that doesn't want to go away.
then you're toast. (i heard that paper sharpening wheels are good)
(...)
anyway the most challenging step is the deburring step. and it doesn't get easier if you use this or that sharpener. no matter what you throw at it. at some point you have a microburr that doesn't want to go away.
then you're toast. (i heard that paper sharpening wheels are good)
Deburring can be a real pain on some softer steels. I know a lot of people are moving to harder substrates for stropping or not stropping at all but for deburring, I still find that going with a good leather strop is the way to go. Get some good stropping paste or even normal green compound and 10-15 passes with proper angle and pressure will do wonders for getting a stubborn wire edge or micro burr off.
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S30V and D2 are both steels that respond excellently to diamond hones. With S30V, it's more about its vanadium carbide content - of which those carbides are harder than either aluminum oxide or silicon carbide, making it difficult to refine the edge past a certain point (around ~ 600 grit or so). And with D2, even though it doesn't have the vanadium carbides, its chromium carbides are VERY large, up to 50+ microns. This means it takes something a little more aggressive, when used with a very light touch, to cleanly shape & thin the big carbides near the edge. That's a perfect setup for diamond.
Technically, abrasives like aluminum oxide or silicon carbide are hard enough to cut the big chromium carbides in D2 - but diamond will do it so much better, especially when used with the light touch so important to refinement. Even more so, the more refined you take the edge, including up to and through mirror polishing, which is best done with diamond compounds on a strop of firm/hard wood.
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