Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades dumb sharpening stone questions

If you're really interested in sharpening knives using a stone this is they way to get started:

You need a medium coarse diamond stone say 400-600 grit and a combination ceramic stone, one side of 1000 grit and the other of 3000 grit.

The diamond stone will be a metal substrate impregnated with diamonds mounted on plastic. The ceramic stone will be two colors, one for each grit and may or may not come with a rubber "holder".

You set the knife at the angle to be sharpened on the diamond stone. A drop of dish detergent on the diamond stone with a teaspoon of water will wet the stonproperly. With the knfe at the proper angle slide the knife like you are trying to shave a very thin slice off the top of the stone. Keep slicing until you raise a burr on the edge away from the stone. Flip the knife repeat on the opposite side. Once you have set the angle like this you can start with the finer ceramic stone.

Soak the ceramic stone in water until it absorbs no more. On the 1000 grit side gently remove the burr from the blade and lightly polish the edge. You will be able to feel and hear when the edge is at the right angle. Go to the 3000 grit side and repeat. At this time if you did good work the knife is razor sharp. If it isn't, then you probably did not maintain the same angle during the process and will now have to go back to the diamond stone and start over again.

If you never let a knife go completely dull, you will not need to start with the diamond stone.

Once you have learned to feel the cutting edge as you sharpen you can go to a 1000 grit or finer ceramic rod (crock stick(s) either on a handle or mounted in a V on a piece of 1x2. A light stroke or two on the crock stick will maintain an edge for a very long time between sharpenings.

You can do the same thing with the grey stones you have, but the grey stones are nowhere near as durable and dish out pretty rapidly. Then you have to bring it back to flat with a diamond stone and that's hard on the diamond stone. The grey stone can be used with water and detergent or about any kind of oil.