Sharpening your traditionals?

[SwissHeritageCo]

Lately I've been enjoying the speed of the very simple lansky croc stick setup.

 

[RustyRick]

I started by hand on stone and could not get it. I moved to lansky oil stone (cheap set) and it worked amazing for consistency but small knives were an issue. I moved on to the original worksharp (work smart?) upright. A huge upgrade IMO best bang for the buck at the time but again struggled with large blades and small blades. Large could be mitigated some by support. The worksharp Pro has added support and a table for small blades which looks interesting. I tried to make my own with neodymium magnets but it's not right and doesn't hold well. Lately, I've just been using a fine DMT diamond (plastic) stone I've had since the turn of the century and being sure to keep a consistent angle and light touch and it has worked pretty well for _close_ to razor but I just can't get it final. Which is good enough for most things. But I try to just use a strop and not actually sharpen most of the time. I'd say 90% of the need is handled by that. Again consistent angle. Same angle as sharpening. Oh I also 3D printed one of those angle guides. It's just a square with multiple angles to judge the angle. I even redesigned one for smaller blades and printed that since the exiting ones had a rise that was a bit tough to gauge. Using the angle guide helped me get more consistent but I don't bother with it. I sent it to a friend and never bothered to print another yet.

 

[AZGabe]

I'm using a Cabelas brand soft Arkansas or a Washita. The Washita makes the job faster.

To keep the edge fresh, I use a strop with diamond spray. There is a guy that makes these strops that are glued to wood. He sells the strop and small bottles of diamond spray as a kit.

Edit** I got my strop from NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY

 

[BrotherJim]

Still trying to learn to use a Sharpmaker and the Ken Onion Work Sharp requires due care

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

The options shown below are what I've used the most overall for my Traditional knives, at one time or another:

Diamond 'credit card' hones are easiest to carry with me in my wallet, wherever I happen to go:

India stones (bench, pocket) used with mineral oil are my absolute favorite for resetting edges in Traditional steels like 1095/CV, 420HC & equivalents:

Alumina ceramic (a Lansky triangular shown):

Probably the most often used, and brilliantly simple in its effectiveness, is my Sharpmaker for occasional light tuning up (with pink eraser for cleaning the rods after each use):

 

[gentleman_edc]

Dmt has A reasonable priced guided system. The jig is composite so not as firm as the lansky, but the dmt diamonds are worth the price of the kit.

I have plunged into the world of the hapstone, but it isn't worth the price for just traditionals. Maybe a kme if you want to spend some money.

But to be honest, the dmt folding "stones" in course/medium and fine/extra fine are more than you will need. Actually, I have used extra course on som beat up buck 501 clones I picked up cheap, to reprofile a beat up, abused blade.

 

[cudgee]

Lately I've been enjoying the speed of the very simple lansky croc stick setup.

The lansky are a great simple system. Thought you may find this set up interesting if you have not heard of them, i have both, but prefer these, especially for larger knives, hunting and kitchen knives for example. Better angles as well, 15 degrees and 22 degrees, so between my lansky and this one i have four angles. The smaller grit is 340 compared to the lansky 600 so much better for really dull knives. And no i don't work for them even if it sounds like i do. .