Sharpening stones

[augostos]

Hello!

Recently I've got an Arkansas soft stone for sharpening my knives.

I could test it only on my RAT-1, you know, the AUS8 steel. The results are decent. Also, I practised my freehand sharpening on some kitchen knives, nothing exceptional about their steel either.

I don't have at hand my Military with s30v steel blade, so I can't test the Arkansas.

My question is, do you think this stone (around 600 grit) will be appropriate for sharpening more advanced steels, like s30v, 154CM, M390 and alike, where hardness is 60-65 HRC?

Or should I get a diamond sharpener/stone?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

At the very least, a soft Arkansas stone will be extremely slow on more wear-resistant steels, like most/all of those you mentioned. The carbides in those steels are likely harder than the stone itself. And it might even be marginal on some other more common stainless steels. Diamond hones work the fastest on very wear-resistant steels, for re-bevelling and heavy grinding in particular. And other synthetic hones like silicon carbide (Norton 'Crystolon') or aluminum oxide (Norton 'India', or ceramics from others, like Spyderco) work pretty well also, especially in the touch-up & refining/polishing stages.

Sometimes, if an edge is already in good shape, a hard Arkansas stone (black hard or translucent) can work to very gently polish some of the tougher steels, and also help to straighten/remove burrs on those blades. They will still work much slower, but at the refining stages, that can be a good thing at times.


David