Which abrasive material used for VG10?

What blade geometry and purpose? For thinner, harder kitchen knives made from VG-10 I would personally use my Shapton Pro water stones. For my Spyderco Delica I might use an Aluminum Oxide (Norton India) stone if it really needed some work but in general I find VG-10 is not especially challenging to sharpen and I tend to keep the Delica touched up on a Spyderco Sharpmaker.

There are water stones made from both of the abrasives you mentioned, and those might work just fine on VG-10.

I am specifically answering your question of what would be MY choice. It may not be the right choice for others, and would depend on what they already own.
 
For coarse work like edge profiling: SiC stones. For this, get a Norton Crystolon coarse if you like oil stones, or if you prefer water stones as I do, get a Baryonyx Manticore, or if you check retail sites like big river, you can find no-name dual grit SiC water stones like 180/240 grit for $10 to $12. For this type of coarse work, you don't need a really expensive stone IMO.
For primary sharpening and refining: AlOx water stones. Or diamonds. Both work equally well, AlOx is for me a little nicer to use when it can handle the steel in question.
 
Rhodies said:
Would Al2o3 or SiC be your choice?
Click to expand...

Either will work. VG-10 can be prone to pretty heavy burring, so a cleaner-cutting abrasive helps minimize that. This basically means decent-quality aluminum oxide stones can work pretty well, or SiC/diamond will cut it more cleanly still. But with that said, anything in AlOx or better should do OK about 99% of the time. Avoid very cheap aluminum oxide stones, for better odds; some of those will be a burring nightmare with VG-10, as the grit in them is very poor quality. But a decent, reputably-branded AlOx oilstone from Norton or ACE Hardware ($15-$20 for an 8" bench stone) can do a nice job with it. And I'm sure decent waterstones in AlOx should do well also, though I haven't used any waterstones myself.

For a couple of my VG-10 blades from Spyderco (Endura 4) and A.G. Russell (Folding Cook's Knife), I've most recently used an oilstone in aluminum oxide from ACE Hardware, to see how well it would handle the steel. Worked quite well on both knives, especially the A.G. Russell blade (@ higher hardness & thin grind = wicked, wicked sharp).


David
 
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