(Part 3) Top products from r/sharpening

There are tons of stones out there and most of them will work for you. I would recommend starting out with a hard stone that isnt going to dish. That way you wont have to worry about flattening or regrinding the stone. Personally I would recommend this as a beginner stone that is still very high quality and inexpensive. Its an oil stone so you will need mineral oil or something similar with it. The spyderco ceramics are also great stones as they essentially never wear out.

If your set on getting waterstones I would say for the fibrox to not go much past 2k grit. The king deluxe stones are good, the shapton ha no kuromaku stones are also good and much harder making them a little easier to learn on. I would recommend against getting something like naniwa professional/chosera or shapton glass to start mainly because of the price.

The honing rod is fine I personally dont use them but thats more of a personal preference thing. I would rather use a benchstone than a honing rod. However a honing rod can help maintain your edge and quickly touch up the knife. Using a honing rod you can keep a knife sharp for quite a while before needing to sharpen it again. Which is great if you have your knives sharpened by a professional not quite as important if you do it yourself and your knives arent super expensive.

A leather strop can help quite a bit when you are first starting out to help remove burrs, and do minor touch ups between sharpenings. If you want to get really good a strop will end up being more of a crutch that lets you get away with not properly deburring the knife edge.

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a good tutorial video https://youtu.be/2Vu6Dq00v7I

ceramic stone

spyderco medium benchstone

waterstones

king deluxe 1000 grit

king 250/1000 combo

shapton ha no kuromaku stones reccommend 320 and either 1500 or 2k for these.

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There are also arkansas stones which are great I would suggest getting the soft arkansas stone and using that as a finishing stone.

From someone casually interested in learning the craft, using cheap sharpeners on cheap knives is ok. I had this for a while with a $20 knife set and it kept them from being dangerously dull, but they weren't particularly sharp.

With good knives you don't want to run them through that, because it will change the geometry of the knife and make it harder to sharpen later. Getting them professionally sharpened is the best way to go if you don't want to learn yourself, and getting them professionally sharpened by someone that does whetstone sharpening is better still. If you want that edge to last there are a few things you can do: always use a cutting board, always clean and dry the knife off immediately and by hand (very important for high carbon, still important for stainless), and pick up a honing steel and learn how to use that. That way you can limit how much you have to spend on professional sharpening.

Get the 400/1000 sk11 diamond stone. The 1k edge will be great in the kitchen. Great knife love Tojiro.

Sk11-sided Diamond Whetstone # 400 / # 1000 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0029LH3BW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ye4HAbQ3JV3H1

You should really link the products you're talking about here.

I still have to ask who you are trying to convince. FWIW, I don't recommend the King KW-65 1k/6k but the kind of person you argument would apply to is the kind of person who wouldn't by the KW-65 anyways.

The stone in question is $28 on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/d/Sharpening-Stones/KING-KW65-Combination-Whetstone-Plastic/B001DT1X9O. That's half the reason it's recommended. The other half is that the "King" brand has many better and more expensive popular products and as such it's sort of like a household name among sharpeners and so people trust brand. Everything you are arguing for could be completely correct, but it doesn't matter because there is still a "cheapest option" be offered by King; being offered by that household brand people trust.

I usually recommend this Suehiro instead of the King since it's similarly priced and arguably better: https://www.amazon.com/Suehiro-Kitchen-Sides-Whetstone-Skg-24/dp/B000OZ6XMU

But none of that matters until it gets traction as a household name around here.

edit: For clarification, the reason I'm playing devil's advocate here is because based on your argument you seem to think that people are recommending the King out of malice or just plain ignorance. The former is most certainly never the case and the latter I think happens less than you might think.

My first stone was a Kai 240/1000, which I got because it was cheap. It got me started on sharpening technique, and I restored a few mangled knife blades out of it. It does a great job, despite its smaller size

My current stone is a King 1000/6000, priced at only $40. I've spent a lot of time practicing proper technique with the King stone, and can get my Henckels Santoku sharp enough to shave (which I think is impressive for a $40 knife). My Shun Chef is sharp enough to do surgery. Shun uses VG-10, a much harder steel (HRC around 60) which requires a very consistent technique to polish properly.

If you want to move up in quality after that, you're looking at $100+ per stone.

For stones pretty much everything in the 400 - 2000 range can work with these knives and a honing rod.

As for the rod I would rather go with a known good brand like F.Dick or Wusthoff or Victorinox.

No you do not need a strop in the kitchen.


For me what works quite well is the combination of the Naniwa Pro 1k and after it sligtly dulls a fine cut steel like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XTP7MY .

Alternatively xou can also get a steel with 2 different cuts and use this like for example https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MF2RTK.

Ar you forego the classic steels completely and use a ceramic rod which acts like a hard fine whetstone https://www.amazon.com/Idahone-Ceramic-Sharpening-Natural-Handle/dp/B01BUNEO0M

Smith's CCD4 3 IN 1 Field Sharpening System https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000N35D2E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_MFzCDbVFFHA9R

Smith field stones are shaped like a tear drop so you have a corner like the spider co if you don’t want to spend that much.

Also the pocket sharpeners have a cone diamond rod specifically for serrations:

Smith's PP1 Pocket Pal Multifunction Sharpener, Grey https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O8OTNC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.GzCDb632PH6Z

Or my personal preferred the pen style:

Smith's DRET Diamond Retractable Sharpener https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001910FOA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_YHzCDbBX4VWRS

1. Why mess around?
   
2. What's the coarsest stone in your set?
   
   >I'd prefer not to use a coarse diamond plate to do so personally
   
   
3. Why not?
   
   Depending on what you sharpen, you may not need to flatten very often at all. Occasional conditioning/resurfacing can be nice, though, and just about anything coarser than the stone being conditioned will work. As often as not I use a 3" pocket stone like this one to resurface clogged Shaptons. Usually you can just increase sharpening pressure and spray a little water and the stone will unstick itself.
   
   Loose SiC grit on glass/granite is better than any "flattening stone", which will itself eventually go out of flat (unless you buy 3 and flatten against each other).

They do make something like files for sharpening

EZE-LAP L PAK4 Set SF/F/M/C Color Coded Diamond Hones https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UVTDZC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XZe7CbA5DJGXA

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000YHRC9Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1511427729&sr=8-13&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=round+diamond+file

Something like those. You can find them at hardware stores too. Look for diamond files.

The corners of the sharpmaker rods should then get the theeth polished up. I would use oil for all this grinding and sharpening.

Hi there!

your post contains a referral link which reddit does not like. and as such was automatically removed.

if you replace the link to the lansky with this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lansky-Deluxe-Knife-Sharpening-System/dp/B000B8IEA4/

i'll go ahead and get the post approved for you.

Really this is all you need to get any knife plenty sharp.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000XK5ZDY/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519680306&sr=8-1-fkmr2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=norton+economy+stone