What's Your Favorite Piece Of Sharpening Equipment?

tinfoil hat timmy said:
Haarbor freight 1x30

theres not many things that cant be done with it if you have the proper belts
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That's true, eh. You can get belts of any size from a few different suppliers, so there's no reason not to have good ones that will make the job easy (e.g. ceramic).
 
A Vintage Rosy Red Washita, manufactured sometime between the 1850's and 1930's, but probably in the earlier range as it appears to be hand cut.

These stones are surprisingly fast cutting for the keenness of the edge that they can produce, and blow modern Soft Arkansas Stones out of the water in both cutting speed and the edge they can produce.

They do wear/dish quite a bit faster though.

They're usually extremely expensive, but I took my chances with an unlabeled stone that looked to be a Washita, and scored the one I have on ebay for $15. I was lucky indeed.

I made a cool box for it, too -- chiseled out by hand from two pieces of Cypress.

Hmm... Seems like I can't upload images. I'll come back with pictures when I can maybe.
 
All my sharpening at present is done on a DC4 and a DMT blue 6" diamond whetstone. VERY occasionally I will use a home made strop loaded with green compound.
 
For gross repairs a Ken Onion Worksharp. But, most of the time either a fine diamond plate or a simple set of Spyderco ceramic sticks.

n2s
 
The Spyderco 306UF. I use it on 1075 and I use it on Maxamet and S110V. It doesn't matter, it always delivers. The 302M is also great, but I use my DMT plates a bit more.
 
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I have dozens of fancy stones but my sink bridge is probably my favorite accessory.
I used to just use a cleated pine board but I saw this for sale with a 1K Cerax stone for just over 40 bucks.

Normally the stone alone is 40 so I got it and am so glad I did.
This bridge is pretty convenient and holds the stones very well.
 
kobold said:
I still think it is a good idea to use a few drops of soapy water even with diamonds, if for nothing else, to trap any metal dust so I don't inhale it. The feedback also improves with water IME.
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Yep, especially when reprofiling. I use a soapy sponge and touch my stones to the soapy sponge occasionally. I wear a N95 mask for the dust.
 
kobold said:
I still think it is a good idea to use a few drops of soapy water even with diamonds, if for nothing else, to trap any metal dust so I don't inhale it. The feedback also improves with water IME.
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Indeed. I think many are using water with a little dish soap mixed in. I've even heard of some using Windex.

Originally, I had imagined that the old hands on BF would report that they are using fancy Japanese water stones. I thought that's what the big boys did. Maybe I've been watching too much virtuovice. :D So far, I use diamond plates. So do Jdavis882 and Michael Christy (a.k.a. Our Man in the Basement).
 
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My most used items are two vitrified diamond water stones from practical sharpening. I have them in 400, 1000 and 3000 grit but the 400 gets very rarely used since the 1000 cuts so damn fast and the 3000 is enough as a finishing stone before going to strops.
Oh and I also have one of those sink bridges. Really handy.
 
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