Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Japanese Water Stones - School Me

For decades, I have almost exclusively used natural Arkansas stones (with honing oil) to sharpen my knives; however, I have also used synthetic Norton stones when re-profiling a bevel or to remove chips. I have found that natural Arkansas stones are a marginal choice for sharpening these new "super steels" such as Elmax, M390, S30V, etc. due to the toughness/hardness of these steels. I am able to get a decent edge with medium & hard Arkansas stones on these super steels, but of it takes me many, many hours to due so and I am not overly happy with the final results & I feel I could do better if I had appropriate stones.

Note: I have watched that Japanese Doctor on boobtube and although his sharpening technique produces good results, I'm not sure I agree with his method of back & forth sharpening at such a low angle - almost essentially flat. My technique (generally) is to take 2 "slices" across the stone away from myself and then 2 slices towards myself at a 15-23 degree angle (depending on the knife) as many times as necessary to obtain the desired results and then finish with a leather strop to remove the wire edge.

I believe I would get better results sharpening super steel blades with a set of professional Japanese water stones and I would like to give them a try and I need to know what to look for. What brands of professional Japanese stones are the best quality and if I were to purchase 2 of them (i.e. a medium and a hard stone), what would be the best grit ranges? I would also like to get a decently sized stone - i.e. 3"x10". I also want a stone that will last a long time and will not wear quickly.

From my limited research, it seems like the Japanese grit ranges vary considerably and I have difficulty equating these grit ranges to the Arkansas Medium and Hard stones with which I am most familiar - the best I have come up with is that an Arkansas medium is equivalent to a Japanese stone in the 3,000-5,000 grit range, and a Arkansas hard stone would be equivalent to a Japanese stone in the 6,000-8,000 grit range. Correct?

What say you?

I'm not sure if I understand the question but on the subject of stones Shaptons have always given me good service. For grit I have a few stones from 220-5000 and they work for me. Chef Knives to Go is where my stones came from. They usually have lots of different brands and grits.

Regards

In my experience, if you are using a grit finer than 800 or so you are just polishing.
If you want to shape a bevel, you need to start with coarse enough fresh stone to actually remove metal.
You should not flip sides until you are rolling a burr (wire) that you can feel opposite the
side you are stoning when you rub thumb across it.

With the steels that have a variety of additives such as chromium, vanadium, etc, etc......... the Arkansas stones
will only be good for final polish in my opinion. But an impregnated leather strop works great for final finish.

Keep stones fresh and clean.

It should not take " many, many hours"

Properly sharpened initialy, you should be able to "refresh" and edge several times with just an impregnated leather strop.

But, to each his own. You just have to work it out to suit yourself.

Strop on.

What he ^ said.. I personally use a few different diamond stones. My favorite is an orange Smith's 2 1/2 x 12 inches.I do have some coarser ones to remove metal a lot faster when needed. I do most of the work on the orange Smith's. After I am done with that I go to a water stone that is 3 inches by 8 inches and one side is 1000 grit the other is 3000 grit. I do not spend much time on it until I get to the 3000 grit and then it's mostly because the grit is so fine that it polishes that much slower.

I submerge the water stone in warm water until it quits bubbling and work on the diamond stone while I wait. The trick to getting the super steels sharp in a relatively short time is to use the appropriate grit diamond in the first stages and once you have the angle where you want it never let it get too dull before you resharpen.

Keith1: The question is, what types (grits) and brands of Japanese water stones would allow me to achieve the results I want with my super steel blades more quickly than is required with my Noviculite (Arkansas) stones. I have since learned that the vanadium and tungsten carbides in the super steels are harder than the stones themselves. Therefore, Japanese water stones are not exactly appropriate for sharpening super steel blades. If anything, Japanese water stones could be used to maintain an existing edge. Japanese water stones would work well on more simple steels such as 1095 (high carbon), 440C, 154CM, etc.

michiganroadkill: As I stated, I can re-profile a super steel edge with relative ease using my Norton stones, but these stones are somewhat unrefined and are rather aggressive. I agree that Noviculite stones are not adequate to the task of properly sharpening super steel blades and that it should not take many hours to put a hair-popping edge on a super steel blade. The reason I posted this thread was to determine the type of stones required to give me an excellent edge on super steel blades. The answer seems to be either diamond stones such as the diamond stones from practical sharpening or CBN (cubic boron nitride) stones. Thanks.

MILES58: I will take a look at the Orange Smith’s diamond stone, but I am looking for a diamond stone with a continuous diamond surface, rather than the little circles. I have used diamond stones before and I think the feel is altogether different than Novaculite (Arkansas). I feel that with diamond stones I am not getting a "clean pass" or that the entire blade edge is not making full contact, which I guess is actually the case with all the diamond circles embedded into the plastic base, rather than a full diamond surface. I will consider your suggestion of starting off with a diamond stone and then progressing to higher grit water stones, which sounds like a practical solution to me.

There's a lot of difference in the feel of the diamond stones. I use oval diamond steels a lot but prefer the orange Smiths for most work. I will use much coarser diamond stones for major edge resets or fixing bad chips etc. The good water stones are very hard ceramic and cut/polish edges very well. I have a couple very hard blades that they work great on, so do not worry about the stones being too soft. Instead worry about buying a decent water stone. I just used my water stone on a 63-64 Rockwell M4 blade that I reset the angle considerably steeper than it came to me and it worked great. That M4 it about as tough as I have run across, it is really noticeable on the diamond how tough it is.

The way to go is with a good diamond stone for setting the edge and then a good ceramic water stone for the polish work.

the bulk of my sharpening needs are handled by the EdgePro Apex. With the proper stones, I can put the bevel and edge I want on any type steel. I often finish a blade with the polishing tapes.
For scandi grind knives though, I use Japanese water stones. I recently picked up another stone, a King brand double sided 800grit/6000 grit.

The stones from Edge Pro that I use are water stones.
The 120 grit coarse stones are silicon carbide.
I use a lot of 120s because I am usually starting with a never sharpened blade.
The finer grits are aluminum oxide.

I have never had any luck using diamond impregnated stones or steels, or ceramics.
Just me I am sure.
For years I used a set of three large bench stones free hand. Then Boise loaned he his Edge Pro.

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat...... and to sharpen a blade.
You may follow someone else's methods and formulas, but surely with your own "tweaks" added.

I have found the Work Sharp to do an excellent job on my kitchen and filet knives and quickly too.
Freshen the edge with 220/320 grit and then use 1200 grit plus a couple licks on the leather
It will give you a slight convex cutting bevel.

PS: Miles ---What angle did you re-cut the edge to???????
Tim

I reset it free hand on a diamond stone so it is inexact, but the bevel is just more than twice what it was when you sent it to me and I would guess it at 15 degrees give or take a little. It seems to be a good match for the steel and I bet it would make a hell of a kitchen slicer.

There are many ways to sharpen a blade - but in some cases, there's no substitute for a good diamond hone.

The few times I’ve had someone sharpen one or more of my knives with an Edge Pro, Work Sharp or similar types of devices, I’ve been sorely disappointed with the results. I even had one “professional” knife sharpener destroy a knife blade on a rare knife of mine. Luckily, I was able to replace it after a few years of looking. I was at a gun show about 8 months ago and against my better judgement, I paid a fellow a nominal fee to sharpen my ZT 0562 (Elmax) with an Edge Pro. Somehow, he did a piss-poor job, which irritated the heck out of me. I had to completely re-profile the blade edge when I got it home. I guess some people simply do not know how to properly operate these devices.

I prefer to sharpen free-hand, as I’ve always done. With that in mind, I’ve been looking at some of the bench stones GritOmatic has available, particularly the Venev medium (240/400) and the fine (800 OCB/1200 OCB), which are “reasonably” priced. I also like their metallic bonded CBN bench stones, but they are significantly more expensive and most of the grit ranges are currently out of stock.

Regardless of the equipment or process some people just can not make a go of it. There is a learning curve.
Also, some people will just never be satisfied.
Some smaller blades and hollow grinds are way more difficult also.

Best to find your own solution.
Spend a dime and to the time.
Tim

I purchased a Suehiro Large Stone Holder. I was about to pull the trigger on the Venev 8"x3" 800 (OCB) + 1200 (OCB), but then I realized that this is more of a polishing stone rather than a "sharpening" stone. Does anyone know if the 240+400 stone will be available in OCB any time soon as I'd rather have the OCB version if I'm going to spend over $100.00 on a stone.