Knife sharpner / stone

[Rykard]

Hi,
I was at the bushcraft show yesterday, which was quite interesting. One thing i picked up was that you should keep your knives sharp. What sort of stones do you guys use to keep your blades nice and sharp?

cheers
Rich

[Jamesey1981]

Depends on the knife/tool and whether I'm at home or in the field.
At home I use Japanese Waterstones or a fixed angle sharpening system (I use the lansky one). Out in the field I use a fallkniven dc4 or a lansky blade medic (only the ceramic part, the carbide part takes too much metal off), I also have a lansky puck double sided sharpening stone for my axes in the field, at home I use the Waterstones.

Kitchen knives I don't sharpen often, they go over the Waterstones very occasionally and get touched up on a steel as I use them.

I have a razor strop for using at home, in the field I use my belt.

[Drcamburn]

...

[ForgeCorvus]

I've got a few diamond 'stones' (200, 300 and 600) that I use for pretty much all my sharpening (and a little ezelap round hone for touching up),also a leather strop for my razors and a file for the axes if they've come a cropper (I use my 'stones' as an axe puck )
I've got one of those Lansky sharpening systems, doesn't work for me at all.... Mind you, I've spent over three decades learning how to hand sharpen.

[Jamesey1981]

Nothing wrong with the blade medic, it'll ruin the bevel on a scandi grind knife though, I use it on knives with a secondary bevel.
The little rats tail diamond hone on it is really handy for gut hooks.
There's also a similar one called the scotts pocket pal, also does the job and is a little cheaper, but neither is all that expensive and the lansky feels better quality, I gave my pocket pal to a mate as I wasn't using it, he's had a fair bit of use out of it and it's held up fine.

The lansky sharpening system certainly takes some getting used to, it is very handy if you want to change the angle of a bevel though, nice and easy to get an accurate angle, but I would definitely say using it is slower than flat stones, I tend to keep that one for blades that are coated and I don't want scruff up or blades with a tiny bevel.

[ChefSimon]

I feel like I'm letting the side down a bit here... having been a chef for the past 2 decades & still having the first set of knives I was given aged 15 I just use my kitchen knife Steel to sharpen my knives. Never had an issue and they always have a decent edge on them (kitchen and bushcraft knives)

If a knife had taken some abuse I've an old (it was my grandfathers) whetstone to really work the knife on.

I don't use any clips or holders to get the angle right, it's just something I learnt over time.

On the plus side it's given me some good insight to what other people are using and something I can look at for adding to my kit.

[pseudonym]

I use a Schrade Oldtimer Honesteel:



Mine's an old one, Patent Pending

[ukpreppergrrl]

I have water stones for the Moras and assorted other blades (they seem to breed when I'm not looking! ). For kitchen knives, after many years of no sharpening ever they were blunt as ball-point pens, so I bought an electric sharpener: Chef's Choice 3 Stage Sharpener, Model 110 to be precise, to put an edge on them (that was about 8 years ago before I learned to use water stones). Since then, every time before I use them I run them through a Chantry Knife Sharpener. I now can't abide a blunt knife in the kitchen!!! I discovered the hard way about different grinds and that you can't put a scandi grind through the Chef's Choice!

[tanstaafl]

Lansky sharpener for my good stuff, occasionally a Chinese water stone if I want to meditate and (shock horror) an Anysharp for users and my kitchen knives, I only need to sharpen my kitchen knives once in a while and I use a lot of cheap knives for work SRMs etc as they get used and abused, so shaving metal off is not a problem .

[junmist]

I'm not fancy I use a whetstone on everything scythe's, bush hooks, garden tools, and knifes. I do have a couple of finer stones that I got from the ironmongers for the knives, I dream of getting a strap but though I watch videos on using them I can't get my head round the thought of using leather to sharpen a knife, come to think of it I think I have a steel somewhere I need a trip down to the darkest corner of the shed to look for it. But it's the whetstone that keeps everything sharp.