Your Favourite Sharpner

W

Witterings

Joined
Mar 13, 2012
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What's your guys thoughts on the best sharpener for your EDC knives and I guess kitchen knives as well.

I did ask a couple of years ago and ended up buying one of the Lansky Turnboxes and I have to say I'm not that impressed with it. If you do want to get something sharp you're better off using something more aggressive to start off with as it'll take forever otherwise ... if ever ... I actually found the £4.99 Screwfix Magnussan Diamond Stone better.

Am thinking about getting a decent stone and came across the Fallkniven DC3 & DC4's ... I'm guessing the only advantage of the 3 is it's smaller but if I'm not going to carry it out to the field would probably be better off with the DC4???

Or am I better off going with a more traditional Whetstone and if so does anyone have any recommendations, I did google and found the Sharp Pebble which had brilliant reviews on Amazon until I found a thread inferring that quite a high percentage of their reviews were fake.

Last piece of the puzzle ... is a whetstone good for axes / machete's as well or am I better off with something different just for that???

Any help appreciated and mods of this is in the wrong place and needs moving please do.
 
I'm a rookie when it comes to sharpening knives but I bought a KME a couple years ago and with some practice and YT vids I'm able to get any of my knives scary sharp. I also have a Sharpmaker and it's great for keeping them sharp.

Plenty of great info in the Maintenance forum here.
 
I used to use the Razor Edge Making System for all my sharpening but now have gone to using my 4" bench top belt sander and set the final edge angle with my old Gatco sharpener a Smiths hard Arkansas stone and a leather stropping for the final cutting edge. Maintain with the Gatco and the Smith's stone.
 
I've had a Sharpmaker for years now. It works like a charm for me.

I also have the bottom of my coffee mug to hone my EDC back to laser-like sharpness. And a newspaper for stropping.

I'm getting old now, and don't always remember to drink the rest of the coffee before inverting the mug. Ruins the newspaper.
 
I use DMT Diafolds in different grits with water probably 90 percent of the time.

I also use a Sharpmaker, KME, King Water Stones, a Smith Tri-Stone, a few other ceramic pull through deals, and a variety of strops.

But not nearly as much as the DMT Diafolds though.
 
I mostly use a set of Venev pocket stones. With six different grits I can pretty much sharpen anything.
The only downside is that they're so small that I sometimes move the blade too far and cut my hands.
 
Recently got a DC4 from Fallkniven and it works really well for me
For the kitchen I prefer a diamond rod, It's the one that looks like a honing steel and is about a foot long
The one I have is some cheapo from RedHead hunting, but I've seen some nicer ones.
One I was looking at is from Fallkniven with that same diamond grit they put on the DC4 sharpening stone

I also have Japanese water stones in the kitchen but they rarely get used.
They'll get used more if I ever get around to getting a traditional Japanese style kitchen knife with a chisel grind.
 
Sharpmaker with CBN stones as well as the medium and fine stones for edge maintenance.
Wicked Edge for bigger jobs.
 
Smiths coarse (yellow) diamond bench stone here. Just bought a replacement. My first one is worn down to a medium/fine.
 
I would recommend a Norton India stone. You can get an 8"x2" stone for under $25. You would be able to sharpen most anything on it. Free hand sharpening gives you a lot of freedom.
 
As much as I love my 11inch smiths bench stone, it is kind of a luxury item. All you really need is the portable combo one they make.
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Well best and favorite are two different questions.
For an ax or machette, a mill file or puck will do fine.
I prefer benchstones for knives. Above a certain level of quality it's more about taste in that they all do a good job of it. Sure some brands are better with some steels, but overall with the Choseras/Shaptons/Suehiros of the world they will do a good job.
For softer steels I do like oil stones.
Generally, if we are leaving thinning/reprofiling/bevel setting out of it I like a series of waterstones - Shapton Glass 500, Kohetsu 2000, and then a couple of finer water stones.
If I have too, if I'm dealing with high vanadium steels, the diamond stones come out.
 
I use a KME to profile. And SharpMaker and a bunch of strops to maintain. Obviously the less aggressive you can be and still keep your blade at the level you like, the better. So once I have an edge set on the KME, a knife may not see that jig again for a very long time....if ever.

I'll do quick strops after use to keep the edge conditioned. When that no longer does the trick, then I'll bring out the SharpMaker with fine stones. Then back to strops.

When it needs stones again, it's the SharpMaker with medium stones. Then back around full circle again. Only a few of my most used/abused knives will probably ever need a another full reprofile on the KME again.
 
All my kitchen knives get 325 DMT except one that I use for chopping that I finish on a 1200 DMT. For my edcs DMT 325 or venev 400 to a pasted balsa strop. Although sometimes I finish on the venev 800/1200 to strop. I don't strop my kitchen knives.
 
I use a combination of a KME and the Worksharp grinding attachment with a leather strop. I'll get it 90% of the way there on the KME diamond hones and then go to the worksharp strop loaded with .5 micron diamond paste. Puts a polished micro convex right at the end and works out any small scratches or imperfections left over from the extra fine diamond hone on the KME.
 
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