5 buck resharpening file........yeah right. We are not sharpening axes here. We dont need to remove a ton of metal, much less scratch the crap out of the blade. Plus how do you match the angles with a file. Thats bunk. You take your knife and use the file, I will stick with the diamond stones.
First off the diamonds cut on their own. If you press hard against them, thinking a little muscle will make things quicker you will wreck them. You just use the corners of them and stroke with very modest force levels. Then skip right to the spyderco white stones. The diamond hones really help a lot for matching a new blade to the spyderco angles on the sharpmaker when reprofiling. Using the standard stones to do this takes a long time if the angles are not close to matching. It goes much quicker with the diamond stones. I love them. Once you have the angles of your knife matching those of the sharpmaker, you will not need the diamond stones again. For upkeep the white or maybe the dark standard stones is all you need.
The edge I like best is obtained by using the diamond stones to match the angles, then corners of the white stones. If I use the flats of the white stones, the blade ends up too polished and slips right off poly rope etc and has no bite. Very sharp and polished edges are great for shaving hair, but have no bite on harder materials or slick fabric etc. New Graham Pharmacy has the best deal on the diamond hones I have seen.