Sharpening stones really necessary?

Coarse diamond stone for tough jobs and the bottom of a coffee cup for the fine and you are set.
 
Bo T said:
Just a quick question, What type of steel do your knives usually have?
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i have couple of d2, s30v
but i only use knives with 8cr13mov, wich is rather softer steel
wich is why i was wondering if i only use extra fine grid to sharpen 8cr13mov is ok?
 
I've experimented with using some 600 grit silicon carbide powder on a 1200 mesh diamond plate with a few drops of water. This combination allowed me to cut new bevels very quickly on many common steels. Is not as effective as a coarse stone/fine stone combo, but worked well enough and made a very good edge.

In all reality, you should have three stones or surfaces to work with, coarse/medium/fine. A 1k/6k combination waterstone or a hardware store combination stone with a strop of some sort are about the minimum you can expect to get good results and capable of dealing with damaged or worn edges right up to touching up a finer edge.
 
For general purpose sharpening you can go to medium grit and then strop on some newspaper. I would suggest a Norton economy tool stone rough and medium grit. I just reprofiled a rather thick edge on a used knife I picked up on ebay. It's a $10 investment. I use and try various systems the easiest to me are the Lansky Diamond Turn Box and Sharpmaker by Spyderco. I still keep a Norton economy stone though.
 
Jason B. said:
IMO, no, you cannot use just a fine stone to maintain an edge. You would eventually get to the point where the stone would be simply too fine for the amount of metal that would need to be removed. It's not something you can just spend more time doing, you need a coarse or medium grit.

For just one stone I would rather have a coarse stone and strop as it's far more useful. The DMT Coarse and a balsa strop with 1 micron diamond would be my choice. I can produce some scary edges with these two items.
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I am a firm believer it is the guy doing the sharpening not the stone. I fixed your quote for you, I would bet big money not too many on this site could out do you with these two simple items. Back to your post though, are you saying that a gyuto used daily with no accidents causing a ding or major chip would eventually to far gone to keep up with a shapton GS 1000? Seems like you could hit it often enough to keep the edge. Anxious to hear you thoughts Man. Russ
 
Nah, "coarse" was being used loosely. The average knife enthusiast has no need for a stone coarser than a 1k. The only exception comes when you sharpen very hard and/or wear resistant metals, a 320 or 500 stone becomes very handy.

It's why I like the SG500 and 2000, the 500 is smooth and acts like a strong 1000 stone while the 2k is still fast enough to remove a good mount of steel yet produce a nice level of refinement. It allows a lot of work to be done with minimal tools.
 
Norton Crystolon stone coarse/fine benchstone will cut pretty much anything at a decent rate. Can be found for $20. Norton India coarse/fine stones are around the same price and they're very good too. You don't have to sink a ton of money into sharpening equipment if you can freehand, but more stones gives you more options.
 
Jason B. said:
Nah, "coarse" was being used loosely. The average knife enthusiast has no need for a stone coarser than a 1k. The only exception comes when you sharpen very hard and/or wear resistant metals, a 320 or 500 stone becomes very handy.

It's why I like the SG500 and 2000, the 500 is smooth and acts like a strong 1000 stone while the 2k is still fast enough to remove a good mount of steel yet produce a nice level of refinement. It allows a lot of work to be done with minimal tools.
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My glass line up goes-220,500,1000,6000. I think I may need a 2000 soon, a lot of you sharpening monsters seem to dig it. I am starting to think it would be a good addition for my kitchen knives. One thing I don't understand is people not liking the feed back on glass. I love it, some of my high carbon ,high hrc kitchen blades give me gooose bumps on a shapton. I really feel like I know what is going on at the edge, silly ain't it? Russ
 
flphotog said:
I'm a big fan of the Sharpmaker. Very rarely use a stone since I bought it.
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Been using one for over 20 years. Touch'em up often and there's never any problem. Tho' I can let them go a lot longer now , since I got the CBN rods, tho' that rarely happens.
 
hi i wanted to ask if the DMT sharpening stones with green color will give you a polished edge on your knife
howmany xxxx-grid you need to get for a polished edge?

edit: will the DMT Dia sharp (green version) give me a polished edge? green = 9 micron, 1200 mesh
 
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QiQi said:
Hi
i wanted to ask if its really necessary to have rough/fine/extra fine sharpening stones
what if you only use an extra fine sharpening stone?
i mean can you skip the rough/fine and just go straight to the extra fine sharpening stone?
because i want to buy only one sharpening stone (going for the extra fine one)
do you REALLY need the other ones?
thank you in advance
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That's the mistake I made when I was beginning. A course stone does most of your job, the fine stone is there only to clean up the 'saw blade' edge you get after the coarse stone. Just get 2 types of stones and you're ready to go.
 
QiQi said:
hi i wanted to ask if the DMT sharpening stones with green color will give you a polished edge on your knife
howmany xxxx-grid you need to get for a polished edge?

edit: will the DMT Dia sharp (green version) give me a polished edge? green = 9 micron, 1200 mesh
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Not polished with that one. However, if you use some 3µ & 1µ diamond stropping compound on wood strops (balsa, basswood, etc.) AFTER the green DMT, you'll bring up a polish very quickly. The 3µ Dia-Paste from DMT brings up a polish very fast, used as such. The green DMT hone will do a pretty good job 'prepping' the bevels for polishing, itself leaving a very fine satin finish. This assumes the scratch pattern on the bevels is ONLY left from the green (EF) DMT, and no coarser scratches are leftover from earlier grits.

You could also throw in the EEF DMT (tan; 3µ/8000 mesh) after the green; but the green should leave you close enough that you might not really need the EEF before stropping with diamond on wood. The EEF used after the EF can get the finish to a 'hazy mirror' on most steels, before stropping.

Depending on the steel, other less expensive compounds like white rouge, or Flitz or Simichrome polish, or Mother's Mag polish on hard strops can also bring up a polish very fast on less wear-resistant steels (1095/420/440/etc., and even up to D2, for example), also used AFTER the green DMT. Diamond compounds work especially well on high-wear steels like S30V, with their very hard vanadium carbides (which may remain 'hazy' with less-hard stropping compounds).


David
 
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Obsessed with Edges said:
Not polished with that one. However, if you use some 3µ & 1µ diamond stropping compound on wood strops (balsa, basswood, etc.) AFTER the green DMT, you'll bring up a polish very quickly. The 3µ Dia-Paste from DMT brings up a polish very fast, used as such. The green DMT hone will do a pretty good job 'prepping' the bevels for polishing, itself leaving a very fine satin finish. This assumes the scratch pattern on the bevels is ONLY left from the green (EF) DMT, and no coarser scratches are leftover from earlier grits.

You could also throw in the EEF DMT (tan; 3µ/8000 mesh) after the green; but the green should leave you close enough that you might not really need the EEF before stropping with diamond on wood. The EEF used after the EF can get the finish to a 'hazy mirror' on most steels, before stropping.

Depending on the steel, other less expensive compounds like white rouge, or Flitz or Simichrome polish, or Mother's Mag polish on hard strops can also bring up a polish very fast on less wear-resistant steels (1095/420/440/etc., and even up to D2, for example), also used AFTER the green DMT. Diamond compounds work especially well on high-wear steels like S30V, with their very hard vanadium carbides (which may remain 'hazy' with less-hard stropping compounds).


David
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wow crazy post
had to re-read that couple times since im total noob on this
thx for info!
 
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