Traditional knife sharping stone recommendations please

Ogri

Ogri

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Hi I am looking to replace my old sharpening stone and was wondering what people now recommend. All my knives are traditional GEC type knives. My old sharpening stone was an oil stone, is this still the way to go? I have not experience of using water stones, are these better than oil ?
 
Hi I am looking to replace my old sharpening stone and was wondering what people now recommend. All my knives are traditional GEC type knives. My old sharpening stone was an oil stone, is this still the way to go? I have not experience of using water stones, are these better than oil ?
 
For traditional knives in 1095 and similar steels, an oilstone may be just fine. Most any stone, from natural (Arkansas) up through diamond can work as well. My personal favorite for such knives is a simple double-sided hardware store stone in silicon carbide or aluminum oxide, either of which can be used to reset bevels and finish to a relatively medium-coarse level of refinement up to around ~ 320-400 grit or so, with most of them. If any of your GEC knives are in their 440C stainless, either of those stones can work for that too. 'Medium' and hard Arkansas stones, also used with oil, are great for further refining the 1095-bladed knives.


David
 
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My go-to progression for traditional knives is,

DMT Coarse, sets the bevel and gets the edge nice and flat. Traditional knives tend to have fugly bevels and getting them flat and true with the diamond plate helps a great deal when progressing to finer grits.


For finer grits I would recommend the Naniwa Pro 400 and Naniwa 2k Aotoshi. Very good stones that will quickly refine the scratch pattern while also creating a very sharp edge that performs well. This is one of my favorite stone combos for low alloy carbon and stainless steels.
 
I start with a dual grit Norton style stone, then I work up with either sandpaper or a Arkansas stone. I also use my Lanskey Crock Sticks for touch up and maintenance.
 
Honestly just about anything works for traditional knives. That's kind of part of the appeal of the simpler steels. It's not just general ease/speed of sharpening but the fact that so many abrasive types are completely appropriate choices.
 
On my traditional knives. I have settled on using a Norton IB8 India coarse/fine combo oil stone, and then going directly to a chromium-oxide loaded leather strop, or refining on a soft/hard Arkansas combo stone before stropping. Leaves a good enough edge for anything I need to do. If the edge just needs touching up and I don't feel like getting out the bench stones, a Spyderco Sharpmaker does a good job.
 
Ogri said:
Hi I am looking to replace my old sharpening stone and was wondering what people now recommend. All my knives are traditional GEC type knives. My old sharpening stone was an oil stone, is this still the way to go? I have not experience of using water stones, are these better than oil ?
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Hi,
What stone is it? Whats wrong with it?
Maybe all you need to do is reconditon recut revive resurface your sharpening stone
 
DMT plates work great for me. A couple 6" two sided plates and a 8" plate do just about everything I need. Add in a strop and some paste and I make shiny razor blade edges on all steels. At some point I may add in some shapton stones to play with working up a mirror finish, but it's not necessary.

Make sure you break in the DMT plates though, NOT with your favorite blades. I personally like to use them dry and wipe/rinse them off frequently, I get a better feel for the edge when it's dry
 
jc57 said:
On my traditional knives. I have settled on using a Norton IB8 India coarse/fine combo oil stone, and then going directly to a chromium-oxide loaded leather strop, or refining on a soft/hard Arkansas combo stone before stropping. Leaves a good enough edge for anything I need to do. If the edge just needs touching up and I don't feel like getting out the bench stones, a Spyderco Sharpmaker does a good job.
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I use very similar stones. Both sides of an IB8 India stone for setting the initial bevel and sharpening. Sometimes I'll use both sides of a combination soft/hard Arkansas stone for further refinement, but not always. Every now and then, I'll break out a fine Spyderco bench stone for polishing whittling blades, in the absence of having a good black or translucent stone. But usually I'll just take the blade to a loaded strop after the India or Arkansas stone.

I'm finding that plain old pharmacy mineral oil works great on the India stone. The Arkansas prefers the lighter grade baby oil. If I use too light of an oil on the India stone, it's not always easy to wipe the stone clean afterward. If I use the heavier mineral oil on the Arkansas stone, the blade has trouble making firm contact with the surface of the stone. So thick mineral oil for the India, and thinner stuff for the Arkansas.

I keep an old Kabar 1354 medium Arkansas stone in my outdoor pack for touch-ups, along with a tiny travel bottle of baby oil. I like the 4 1/4" X 1 5/8" size of the 1354 much more than the usual tiny 1" X 3" pocket stones.
 
For the few Traditionals I have, I typically use my Norton combo stone follow by my Spyderco Ceramics (Medium, Fine, Ultra Fine). One you have your knife properly sharpened, they are really easy to touch up on the ceramics. I'll also use my Sharpmaker for touch ups.
 
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