I have the Best Brand soft and hard arkansas stones, as well as the spyderco UF stone. I really like using the UF as my last stone, but I'm starting to wonder if both the soft and hard arkies are necessary in the progression. Has anyone ever gone from a soft arkansas to the UF? If so, how were the results? I'm concerned that I would be making too large of a jump in the effective grits, but maybe not? I would have to spend a TON of time experimenting on my own to test this hypothesis and would be interested in your thoughts. Thank you!
-Justin
That bolded part above is what I'd advise anyway; it's the best way to learn what'll work for your uses. The only time a tight progression of grits really matters, is if you're pursuing highly-polished bevels and the smooth-shaving/push-cutting edges going with that. A single coarse stone, by itself, can still make a wickedly sharp edge on it's own, if used with good technique.
I still 'test' these things on my own knives, just to see what really can be done with only one coarse hone (used a DMT Coarse diamond hone to put a nice edge on a Victorinox blade this afternoon, and added nothing but stropping on my jeans; made me happy.
). The better you get at the coarser end of things, the MUCH easier it'll get at the refined end, if you want to take it that far. You might eventually figure out your 'coarse' edges are doing everything you need or want, and there's nothing wrong in that.
More specific to your circumstances, you might not need both the Hard Arkansas and the Spyderco UF. If you're sharpening simpler steel like 1095 or other basic carbon steel, the Hard Arkansas may suit you just fine for finishing, and just skip the UF ceramic hone. On the other hand, the UF ceramic should do better on high-wear steels like D2, S30V, etc. The Arkansas stone's usefulness will be limited on those, save for just cleaning up light burrs, and likely ineffective if actually trying to polish them or refine scratch patterns.
David
