Sharping stones forum members are using.

Oh man so many stones....

Most of them are for working on Japanese knives. All about that contrast and scratch pattern.

Shapton stones and diamond stones are more for my folders and super steels.

Atoma 140, 400
Shapton pro 120, 220, 2000
Shapton Glass 500, 2000, 4000
Nubatama 150, 220, 1000, 4000, 8000
JNS 800, Red Aoto, 6000
JKI 700, 1200
Suehiro Rika 5000
N name 400 grit
2 JNats
Venev Bonded Diamond stone
 
Khromo said:
Who knows? You can't tell from the ad copy! When the guy was writing the ad, he might have meant "emerald stone" as "emerald green in color" and when the ad got to me I read it as emerald as in that rock. Or stone. Mineral?

When I bought mine they called it 10K! The newer ads call them a more realistic 1K, but I'm thinking it's probably higher than that. They don't seem to give the location of the quarries anywhere, but I've bought four of them, in three different packages, and except for one with a vein on one side, they are very useful stones for a rough polish.
Click to expand...
I received my before Christmas. There were a couple options on Amazon, I bought the lower cost one. Used it as a finishing stone on a kitchen knife. It did give a noticeably keener edge than the 2K stone preceding it.
I'm liking it. I really wasn't expecting much, but it works. Mine is much darker though.
 
Mostly use a bunch of DMT stuff. Also have some Spyderco pocket stones in med. and fine, and the big one in ultra-fine.
 
Wow! What a question OP Snapshot!

Lots of inventory and lots of opinions to be had, no doubt about it!

I’ll start backwards, I can use waterstones for carbon steel sharpening (I’ll be talking newly made knives here), but the water can cause issues if the sharpening session is lengthy and involved. Anyone who does this knows what I mean !! Water marks, however subtle they are!

I don’t care to take knives past 2k-4K JIS. Razors....yeah. Generally 2k maximum on all knives. Often, DMT fine (600 mesh) is plenty!

On bench stones:
Baronyx 60 grit SiC stone
American mutt 120grit is it?
Sigma power select 120 waterstone
Crystolon coarse and fine
India coarse and fine
Generic 120 waterstone
Suehiro chemical 320
Naniwa super 400
Norton 1000
Shapton pro 1000
Naniwa Green Brick 2000
King 4000
Suehiro 8000
Chinese 12000
Spyderco 4000
Spyderco 8000
DiaSharp 120-8000
Atoma 140-1200
 
A photo of one of my favorites. This is a Norton IB-8 India, a coarse / fine stone from 1976. This one is still new and from the Norton plant in Troy, NY. DM
317.jpg
 
David Martin said:
A photo of one of my favorites. This is a Norton IB-8 India, a coarse / fine stone from 1976. This one is still new and from the Norton plant in Troy, NY. DM
Click to expand...
David, I have and use that same stone, it's a nineties model. I'm going to be buying some diamond stones and was looking in this forum for some ideas. I would appreciate your input. Preston
IMG_0853.JPG
 
Planning to get a diamond stone to set edges on high vanadium steels. Should i aim dmt or are there some cheaper but as good alternatives? Also planning to see how good or not the norton crystolon stones feel on high carbide steels.
 
pjsjr pjsjr , I use the dia sharp and have the x-coarse, coarse, fine and X-fine . The best value on one site I looked at is the 2X6" double sided in coarse / fine for 58$. I know you like the 2X8" size stone and those are 59$ for a single grit stone. If you only sharpen 2-4 knives a month you won't need the others. Will you miss your 2X8" size? I mostly only use diamond plates if the steel has vanadium and that is the finishing stone. Good luck. DM
 
I often bounce around trying various stones/systems but always come back to my Spyderco Sharpmaker which I finish with a strop.
 
koduu said:
Planning to get a diamond stone to set edges on high vanadium steels. Should i aim dmt or are there some cheaper but as good alternatives? Also planning to see how good or not the norton crystolon stones feel on high carbide steels.
Click to expand...

I think this is a good idea. Look at the coarse / fine in a 2x6" stone, they are very economical. They need a break-in period and the fine is only 280 grit so
your last strokes should be light. Strop it if you like and this will bring the edge up a step. Good luck, DM
 
I also have cheaper equivalent to DMT from Axminster. I find it very scratchy in comparison....I have also have a DMT fine bench block style. I have had it for 20 years or so. They are made very well.
 
I have a number of stones both Arkansas and water stones. But I've gotten lazy and now I'm using a set of spyderco bench stones. If I have a need for something more coarse I have a 6x2 dmt coarse/fine combo. Even though I've gotten lazy I don't want to give up my other stones, especially my old Norton crystolon.
 
If using Spyderco bench stones for most of your sharpening work you'll need to to periodically dress the surfaces of them to expose fresh cutting grit since they won't shed it on their own.
 
My sharpening kit is much more modest than some other members here. I have an older (previous version than the current one) Spyderco Shapmaker, a set of medium and set of fine Spyderco sharpening benchstones and a Work Sharp belt sharpener, the Ken Onion edition if that matters.

The Work Sharp is by far the fastest way to get a good edge on a blade. I use it primarily for my Wife’s kitchen knives. It seems more suited to larger knives. I have sharpened my Spyderco Navigator and Dragonfly 2 with it but using the benchstones give me more satisfaction. The Spyderco stick system is a great way to learn and it is also fairly quick.

If the person has the money then I would recommend the Work Sharp. The benchstones are not necessarily any better at getting an edge for me but I do get a great deal of satisfaction using them.
 
kreisler said:
chinese version of Double Stuffz:p
most of the time i do 204-freehanding but when i do ruixin-freehanding i always use the ruby as last or penultimate stage.
Click to expand...
sinfotosfokza.gif


kreisler said:
Or how else would you call freehanding on a 10.0 x 2.5cm double stone? Traditionally, freehand sharpening is done on a bench whetstone which is bigger (longer, wider, thicker, more expensive). In contrast, freehand sharpening on Ruixin stones is very uncommon, which is why i gave it this extra naming.
Click to expand...
Since the double stone is so inexpensive (FT: bulk 3.xx$, AMZN: retail 9.xx$) i bought several units with the natural WHITE10000. Here my comments on the product quality itself: The natural side comes in a "mirror" finish, perfectly smooth like a window glass surface. Unlike window glass, however, the natural side does get consumed the harder you exert pressure on the blade; you'd see blackened powder forming at the blade edge and you'd see how the stone surface looses its mirror reflectiveness! Unfortunately, for this side to be effective one does have to exert notable pressure during the sharpening back-forward motion. The stone consumption alters the stone finish and makes the stone's nominal grit rating drop gradually (10000…9000…8000…etc). I don't think that dishing out is a practical problem with the WHITE10000 or GREEN10000 but hardcore users of these natural sides would eventually run into the task of stone maintenance (trueing / dressing / lapping / flattening), just to restore an even 8000-grit rating across the entire surface not just in the middle section. I will experiment more with that, maybe i manage to lap the natural side on my marble windowsill. Obviously, no homeboy will ever be able to restore the 10000-grit rating, i.e. the original mirror finish ex-factory. (But that's true with the Spyderco 204M 204F 204UF too: once you consume the triangle edges, the original grit rating is forever gone and cannot be restored, realistically.)
ruby200csaojie.gif

I spent tens of hours with this double stone and in my hands the natural side is indeed useful/effective, even though i can't recommend it to anyone else. Fortunately i didn't buy it for its natural side but for the beloved ruby side ("RUBY3000"). I venture to claim that the ruby stone is the very best whetstone coming out of PRC. As "wonderful" as Spyderco white ceramics: whoever experienced how wonderfully the Spyderco ceramics works will be equally enthusiastic about the ruby. (Needless to say, beginners cannot appreciate the wonders of HQ stones, they will think that both stones are just stupid stones haha.)

So i keep the stone in my Olight H1 Nova storage case on my windowsill, ready to be grabbed right away. Using some light oil is key (for sharpening and for cleaning). I learned that 204-sharpening works great with all kinds of blades (convex or recurved) but is not recommendable for straight blades (like razor blades); 204-sharpening a straight razor blade will eventually develop a recurved blade shape. So for trapezoidal Stanley utility blades (and my other straight blade knives) this double stone is my goto stone. For all my other knives (EDC knives, kitchen knives, all with a convex blade) I'd either choose 204-freehanding or ruixin-freehanding (with a Ruixin stone on a rag on the desktop or with the double stone in my left hand), depending on my mood.

The rag on the desktop is equally important for two reasons:
  1. stone (Ruixin or 204) slip-resistance
  2. stone (Ruixin or 204) tiltability("pivot response")
Feel free to share your thoughts on the ruby wonders, the 204-freehanding, or the ruixin-freehanding.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top