Thread: Is it wise to use my honing stone sharpening my hunting and/or kitchen knives?

Sorry get a bit ocd sometimes and will try punctuate better,as for sharpening knives on soft stones you just have to use more care and make sure you cover the whole stone with out digging the tip in,i've worked with some people who would use that much pressure and move the blade in such a way they ruined a stone in one go but they always used them the same so it didn't matter for them,they would wonder why no one would loan them stones though,i'm a big fan of green river knives and i use them for hunting,butchering and in the kitchen,i haven't found reasonably priced knives that hold an extremely polished edge as well except for high priced blades like vg10

Hi, Soilarch. Yes, my naniwas are the superstone type. Thank you very much for the tips. I will use the norton 225/1000 for knives to test it.

Your Welcome. I didn't clarify that, like has been mentioned, you don't *need* to go to 6K/3Mic for your kitchen knives. I don't go past that unless I have a specific job in mind for the knife. (And I've not invested in personal knives that are good enough to "hold" an edge past that anyways). Use the 225 and 1K to get it sharp. Then a few edge-trailing strokes on 4K. Try that edge and go from there. You may prefer the 1K edge though. Knives are like razors in that everyone has there own preference on what type of edge they like. Just like in razors, get all your "work" done on your courser stones, anything about 1K should not be used to remove material, but instead polish/refine the edge.

And for the life of me, when I freehand, I get better results the fewer stones I use. That much, is different than razors. If you get frustrated start at the 1K and jump directly to whatever you want to finish on.

remingtonmarlin,

I like the Spydero medium & fine bench stones for sharpernng my field knives.

Also the Spyderco Tri-Angle SharpMaker works very nicely

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

Originally Posted by Soilarch

And for the life of me, when I freehand, I get better results the fewer stones I use. That much, is different than razors. If you get frustrated start at the 1K and jump directly to whatever you want to finish on.

Truth. There may be something to the fact that King/IceBear sells a 1k/6k combo stone. Less is more. Personally, I like to run a few strokes over the 1k then finish with about 20 strokes over the 4k (first 15 edge-first, last 5 edge-trailing). For my 8" Santoku and my 5" slicer, I like to give a little extra with the 6k, and I've even got the slicer all the way up to a slurried hone on the PHIG and about 30 strokes over Flexcut Gold on leather. It can shave a Thanksgiving turkey from across the room, in high wind, uphill, in the dark, with the sun in your eyes, with one hand behind your back, while whistling "Dixie," eatting crackers and covering one eye. However, that is hardly normal. Usually it's 2-4k finish and that's all.

i've been working in kitchens for years and while i think stones are a great way to sharpen knives i think i've got something better for you. Check out on youtube the Scary Sharp method. Using the varying grits of sand paper makes the work go alot faster and you don't have to worry about ruining any of your expensive stones.