Hi guys I am looking to get a cheap sharpening kit. I dont know what grit whetstones to get though. I have about a 20 dollar budget. I was thinking a two sided stone. I saw one that was 400 and 1500 grit. Would that do the job im just looking for something that can cut paper easily. It does not need to be hair cutting sharp but at least cut paper very easily.
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What whetstones to get
- Thread starter Hc720
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I'd wait a bit and get a range of stones. If you really can't spend any more then i'd recommend not to get whetstones, but instead buy some wet 'n' dry sandpaper. You use it the same way you would a whetstone. I would get; 400,600,800,1000, and 1500 grits. This has worked great for me.
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Twenty bucks should just about cover a Norton 8" silicon carbide (Crystalon) combination stone. I recommend you use mineral oil or soapy water as a lubricant. You'll need to practice, but that stone is easily capable of making edges that will cut paper. Whatever other stones/methods you opt for down the road, this stone will always be useful. Throw in some 2 dollar polishing compounds from Sears or other big box hardware store and you'd be surprised how nice your edges can get.
Thanks for that advice. I am pretty new to knife sharping so i dont know a lot. I have a spyderco tenacious. what angle and what motion should i use on this sharpening system?
Go and watch some jdavis882 and solosknifereviews on youtube. Yes you start on the lowest grit and work your way up. You can't really overuse a grit, but if you go way over the top on each grit you'll wear your knife down faster. Once you have gone through the grits and have your edge you'll probably only have to use the highest grit for a touch up. It's hard when you start but once you get the hang of it its super easy. You could also get a Spyderco Sharpmaker for <$50 which you can use both the guided and freehand options on it.
David Martin
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I agree with Heavy Hand. It's not complicated. Watch utube and lean a technique. DM
Well, no...it's not complicated. It is however somewhat difficult to master. The essentials, in theory are quite simple. They are in practice rather difficult to implement. You will want to practice a lot before you take a nice knife to stone.
As far as stones are concerned, I prefer diamond stones. They cut quicker and as such, they provide a very fast feedback loop...the edge essentially looks different after every stroke or two...and thus you can watch the thing progress and adjust. Norton makes very good stones but they cut more slowly and, IMHO take longer to master.
Now I am not talking years here...we're not talking Samurai Swordsmith level of mastery here. But you will want to do a couple dozen knives that you don't care so much about and get it so you're getting 3 out of 4 sharp on the first try before you put something nice to a stone. Now if you have a couple of good old pocket or kitchen knives laying around that need some work, go for it. I do not, however, recommend buying some cheap pakistani knives to practice on because that steel may be so soft or poorly heat treated that you may not be getting the right experience. I'd go with a good knive that has seen better days and practice on that. An old Buck or something that's been rattling around in a toolbox or a tacklebox for years. Maybe some dull old butcher knives or kitchen knives.
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Absolutely. I almost get teary thinking about some of the nice knives I ruined while learning.
A couple of cheap knives taken to the coarse side of a combination stone will teach one quite a bit about angle and pressure. Once you can reliably grind a new apex and reduce the burr you're ready to move on to the fine side. I've mentioned this before, your margin of error is larger at the coarse end of things - you can have a lot more angle variation and the bevel will still appear optically flat. This a very good way to build basic hand-sharpening skills. Removing the burr can be very challenging at the coarse end, but learning to reduce it will pay off later on (and a well-finished coarse edge is a nice EDU blade in its own right). Each time you move to a finer stone, the margin of error shrinks. My own skills increased dramatically after I went back and relearned much of my technique starting with the roughest stones I could find.
Specific stone types are a personal preference if not dictated by the steel. I personally feel I get better feedback from a silicon carbide stone with mineral oil than I get from any other stone type save waterstones (I don't consider waterstones to be whetstones), and it handles just about any steel very consistently. Equally important - one can round over a long edge and do recurves on the same stone. Grind speed on most steels isn't noticeably slower than diamonds and they cost a fraction of a set of diamond stones.
Have fun learning, but by all means learn on cheap knives. Mistakes are a lot easier to live with when you aren't watching the amount of useable steel on a nice knife disappearing before your eyes.
Some good suggestions here, but to give the best recommendation I would like to know what type of knives you intend to sharpen, specifically how long the knives are and what steels. If you want to sharpen S90V you're better off saving up for diamond stones. If you've got a 10" Bowie knife you will want a larger stone than if you've got a 3" pocket knife.
If you're not going to be sharpening the Vanadium steels, then the Norton SiC combination stones ("Crystolon" is Norton's brand name) in 8"x2" sizes with coarse & fine grits can be found online for around $20. You can get a lot of use out of a stone like that. The other thing would be to get a flat plate of glass (glass cutting boards from the grocery store will work) and lay Silicon Carbide wet/dry sandpaper on it. The advantage with sandpaper is you can get a wide range of grits, but if you are just after paper cutting sharpness then you don't need an extensive range of grits.
If you're not going to be sharpening the Vanadium steels, then the Norton SiC combination stones ("Crystolon" is Norton's brand name) in 8"x2" sizes with coarse & fine grits can be found online for around $20. You can get a lot of use out of a stone like that. The other thing would be to get a flat plate of glass (glass cutting boards from the grocery store will work) and lay Silicon Carbide wet/dry sandpaper on it. The advantage with sandpaper is you can get a wide range of grits, but if you are just after paper cutting sharpness then you don't need an extensive range of grits.