What order to use my sharpmaker stones

E

Emersonman91

Joined
Aug 15, 2020
Messages
22
So if I’m going to be using diamond ,medium ,fine , and ultra fine stones


Do I just use the diamond then first then move up to coarse and then fine and ultra fine ?


If that’s indeed the right order now do I know when to move from one stone to the next.



I feel like I switch from coarse to fine too quickly and I’m worried I’ll do the same with diamond and switch to coarse too quickly.

The reason I feel like I’m switching to the fine stone too quickly is that I’ve been told majority of the sharpness is supposed to come from the coarsest stone and then the final stone is just to give it a nice finish.

in reality most times I sharpen with the brown medium stone it definitely doesn’t feel sharp enough to cut through paper or shave hair before I move onto the White fine stone


Is the brownstone supposed to be able to get me to the point of being able to slice thru paper or even shave with the grain.


If that’s the job of the brownstone then which stone is the one that gets me to being able to basically treetop hairs.

is that the job of the fine or ultra fine and not the medium or diamond?
 
You listed the correct order but typically unless you’re reprofiling or the edge is butter knife dull, you can start with the mediums. You should be able to shave arm hair before going to the fines. Some will say you should be able to shave with the diamonds, but at a minimum the mediums need to be able to shave before going to the fines.

If reprofiling, you need to make sure you’re hitting the apex on both sides before proceeding through the stone progression. This can be done by working one side of the edge until a burr is formed, then do the same thing on the other side.

To treetop hair you will likely need to add a strop after the ultra fine.
 
Your sequence is correct. At each stone you should achieve even grinds resulting in reaching the apex. Every sequence will be sharp enough to slice phone book paper or hair. The difference is in the refinement of the edge, i.e, less toothy, more polished from one level to the next.

I only use the diamond rods for reprofiling new knives when the grinds are less than even - most often the case and/or damaged knives. Once you have achieved even bevels it is pretty easy to maintain with just the brown and fine stones. I also strop between stones and often incorporate a microlevel at the end. Super fine stones IMHO are more sharpening than my regular carry knives ever need.

Worth searching the Maintenance and Tinkering forum for sharpening threads.
 
Use a Sharpie and a 10-20x loupe to observe your progress. It's especially useful when re-profiling an edge.
 
blueblur said:
You listed the correct order but typically unless you’re reprofiling or the edge is butter knife dull, you can start with the mediums. You should be able to shave arm hair before going to the fines. Some will say you should be able to shave with the diamonds, but at a minimum the mediums need to be able to shave before going to the fines.

If reprofiling, you need to make sure you’re hitting the apex on both sides before proceeding through the stone progression. This can be done by working one side of the edge until a burr is formed, then do the same thing on the other side.

To treetop hair you will likely need to add a strop after the ultra fine.
Click to expand...
Holy shit this was a very awesome description


So if I’m seeing my knife never get to the point where it even shaves hair with the grain that means in maybe need diamond Stones ?

Given that I have done good work with the brown stone and it takes all the sharpie off but still dull as shit I assume it needs a more coarse stone
 
The order is correct from coarse to fine but, if you REALLY want to make your knives razor sharp, you should also consider buying a 2-sided leather/cloth strop to really smooth out the edges.

I've got one that I use w/my straight razor and I've tried it on a couple of folders and it does make a difference but I seldom bother stropping my folders/fixed blade knives because there's no point IMO to try to put that fine an edge on them.

I'm just not that "anal" about knife sharpness, except for my straight razor that MUST be "razor" sharp to do its job correctly.
 
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