What to use to sharpen knives? Stone, wet stone, gadget etc

Dont you?:D Yea I saw it on a Food Network show on sushi knives. It's surprising how coarse an edge can still do this.
 
Now I'm confused because I'm too much of a newbie to really understand exactly what you mean and not sure what to buy now.

I thought the majority of knives were ground at either a 30 or 40* angle?

me2 said:
My only gripe with the 204 Sharpmaker is that you need a coarse stone to go with it. The pre-set angles of 30 (15/side) and 40 (20/side) will not match up with 90% of the knives you buy. The edges will need to be rebeveled, or you can use the 204 stones free hand, in which case you're better off with a bench stone anyway. The 204 will rebevel knives, but you'd better call in sick for a day or 2. Even the diamond stones, which are ~400 grit, take a while. For edge maintenance and for adding a final polish to an established bevel thinner than its 30 and 40 degree slots, it is excellent. Get a coarse stone of some kind to go with it, something in the 100 to 250 grit range. Blue DMT stones work as well.

I've actually started recommending the Norton Coarse/Fine India combo stones for knives. If you have chisels, the 220/1000 grit combo water stones will do better, but for just knives the India stone works well.

The Coarse side cuts fast enough to remove nicks and re-establish a worn bevel, and the Fine side puts on a toothy edge that is will catch hair on the back of my head well above the skin.
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That may be what they aim for and say they sharpen to, but in reality there is much greater variability. No knife I've bought has been able to use the 30 (15/side) slots without rebeveling, and few can use the 40 slots. My Delica, by Spyderco, couldn't use the 40 degree slots until I rebeveled it. One side did, the other didn't, so I redid both sides at 17 degrees per side, to be sure the 40 (20/side) degree slot would work. Many kitchen knife companies say they aim for 22 degrees per side (44 total), making rebeveling necessary before any attempt at the 204 is used. The goal by these companies is a strong edge that the user will have trouble damaging. Fortunately, sort of, the steels are fairly soft and easy to rebevel. I typically only sharpen my knives and the knives of one or 2 friends, but ask knifenut how many bevels are even close to the stated factory angle.

There is really no need to fuss over the angles as much as I do. A 60 degree (30/side) angle can still shave your arm easily, and for most people, it will work fine. That's why I recommend the Norton stone. You can free hand and match the bevel from the factory, or rebevel if you choose. I use my Sharpmaker a lot for finish honing and for maintaining an edge between major resharpening, but I have a coarse stone and a belt sander for lowering bevels to match its preset angles. The corners are also handy for the few serrated knives I have. There are entire threads on tricks like the one shown for rebeveling to match the Sharpmaker angles.
 
me2 said:
That may be what they aim for and say they sharpen to, but in reality there is much greater variability. No knife I've bought has been able to use the 30 (15/side) slots without rebeveling, and few can use the 40 slots. My Delica, by Spyderco, couldn't use the 40 degree slots until I rebeveled it. One side did, the other didn't, so I redid both sides at 17 degrees per side, to be sure the 40 (20/side) degree slot would work. Many kitchen knife companies say they aim for 22 degrees per side (44 total), making rebeveling necessary before any attempt at the 204 is used. The goal by these companies is a strong edge that the user will have trouble damaging. Fortunately, sort of, the steels are fairly soft and easy to rebevel. I typically only sharpen my knives and the knives of one or 2 friends, but ask knifenut how many bevels are even close to the stated factory angle.

There is really no need to fuss over the angles as much as I do. A 60 degree (30/side) angle can still shave your arm easily, and for most people, it will work fine. That's why I recommend the Norton stone. You can free hand and match the bevel from the factory, or rebevel if you choose. I use my Sharpmaker a lot for finish honing and for maintaining an edge between major resharpening, but I have a coarse stone and a belt sander for lowering bevels to match its preset angles. The corners are also handy for the few serrated knives I have. There are entire threads on tricks like the one shown for rebeveling to match the Sharpmaker angles.
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I'm still confused :confused:

I guess the sypderco is still probably the best option for me?
 
Sorry, I put up quite a wall of text there. Below is a simplified version.

Most knives will not match the angles on the Sharpmaker. Many knives are sharpened from the factory at angles higher than the 2 settings the Sharpmaker uses. Trying to sharpen these knives on the Sharpmaker will take a long time because you have to thin the bevels enough that the Sharpmaker rods will actually touch the edge. The Sharpmaker will do it, but it takes a VERY long time, and is very frustrating to the new Sharpmaker user because they don't know what is happening.

For this reason, the Sharpmaker by itself is not enough. A coarser stone is needed to thin the edge and allow the Sharpmaker rods to contact the cutting edge.

A coarse/fine combination stone from Norton will allow you to thin the edge on the coarse side, and then refine the edge to arm shaving sharpness on the fine side. This is one stone that is coarse on one side and fine on the other. It costs about half what the Sharpmaker does.

Size matters. Larger stones are easier to use, and will sharpen faster. For a reasonable size, an 8" x 2" stone is a good start. Narrower is workable, but I wouldn't go below 6" in length until you get some practice. As a very rough rule of thumb, the stone needs to be about the same length as the blade to be sharpened. Smaller blades work fine on bigger stones, but small stones are very awkward on large blades.
 
dipbait said:
If you need to rebevel , then you can pick up cheap diamond stones. I got these from a truckload sale at a farm store, three for five dollars. Rubberband them to your sharpmaker rods for the same angle.

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I was gonna try a 3-set of those things for like $9.99 at Princess Auto... just for the h*ll of it, but I figured even that'd be a waste since I was sure they couldn't possibly remove any steel from the exotic hard stuff we use these days. So it works, eh?
 
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