What is your experience sharpening traditional knives (1095, CV, 01, etc)?

[yablanowitz]

I switched from Arkansas stones to diamond hones back in the early 1980s. I'm pretty sure I still have natural stones laying around, but I haven't used one in thirty years or more. As long as you bear in mind the old carbon steel blades are 5 to 12 points softer than modern steels and have little or no carbide to deal with, diamond hones work very well. I'm not a big fan of polished edges, so DMT Coarse is generally where I stop.

 

[catspa]

dsutton24, how do you gauge the moral caliber of your Peruvian maidens? Seems like a non-destructive testing method would interfere less with their sustainable collecting, but is it reliable?

Parker

 

[Peregrin]

For years I used a Lansky guided rod setup. I also picked up a KME guided rod setup. Both have diamond stones and pretty much handled my sharpening needs, kitchen, hunting and pocket knives. I sharpened my knives and knives for my grown children. Sometimes the smaller pocket knives, peanut sized, didn't play well. The blade clamps didn't leave enough room for the rods to work properly.

The big problem for me was I don't get into the Zen some folks experience from sharpening. To me it was just a necessary task. Oh, I always appreciated and took pride in the outcome. But it was tedious to me.

A few years ago I picked up a Worksharp Ken Onion Elite unit and there's no looking back. It didn't take long to learn to use it properly, and I'm getting excellent results on all size knives. I've used it on everything from 1084 to the CPM steels with good, quick results. The harder steels take a little longer and I'll probably invest in some diamond belts soon.