Recommendation? Stones for Kitchen Knifes

[Larry in Washington]

Hello forum,
I am confused as to which stones to use for my wife's knifes. They all seem to be SS. I have the Boride T-2 & CS-HD, which set should I use?

Thanks
Larry in Washington

 

[CSG]

I have Wusthoff Grand Prix knives, about 30 years old now. I use the gray and white Spyderco bench stones for sharpening and a Wusthoff metal honing rod after every few uses (depending on what I'm processing). My knives are sharp and work well. Don't know the stuff you own and you've said nothing about the steel other than they seem to be SS. One thing, it ain't rocket science.

 

[garry3]

I'm not familiar with your stones but my rule of thumb is the softer stones will generally remove material faster and the harder stones make cleaner apexes.

So, the answer might be both?

As an example, my favorite combination for most inexpensive stainless steel like what's in most of the European or American made kitchen knives is a medium or coarse Norton Crystolon stone which is a softer silicon carbide stone that cuts fast followed by a Norton India that is a really hard aluminum oxide.

So, I'm using a stone progression of a coarse fast cutting soft stone followed by a finer hard stone for the finished edge.

That's just what I prefer, there are no rules.

 

[jc57]

Well, the two stones you mentioned are families of Aluminum Oxide (Boride T2) and Silicon Carbide (Boride CS-HD), respectively. You did not mention what grits you have, nor the specific details about the knife and the steel type, other than stainless. Those stones come in smaller sizes and not regular full-size bench stones, so maybe you are using a guided system?

For general sharpening of typical German steel kitchen knives, I would go with the T2 stones in a couple of grits, maybe 320 and 600, or perhaps a 220 if you need to do some more metal removal first, before moving onto the finer stones. Boride stones use FEPA standard for the numbering convention, so that would equate to a medium and fine.

I personally use a Norton IB-8 India oil stone, which is an 8" bench stone, Aluminum Oxide, 2-sided coarse-fine, and a 2-sided soft/hard Arkansas stone, which is natural novaculite stone, 8" bench stone, for typical European steels.

For Japanese steels I use a set of Shapton Pro 8" water stones ranging from 320, 1000, 2000, 5000 JIS grit ratings, though I use the 1000 more than anything else, which would be equivalent to the F600 Boride T2 as far as grit rating.