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

I have Norton starter kit(225/1000, 4000/8000) from SRD as well as the naniwa 1,5,8k set.

I am not sure how I assign those stones to my tasks, i.e.,sharpening hunting knives and honing my
DOVO(s).

Sigh.....

Too much stones (I forget to mention my Chinese 12k and DMT 325) and too little experiences.
Any suggestions?

Should I use one set on my razors exclusively, and other set on my other knives?

Many thanks.

I would use the norton set for razors and the DMT325 for the hunting knives. If you do use the norton on the knives lap it flat before you go back to your razors. IMHO.

Thank you Jimmy. In this case, maybe I should sell my naniwa set if the Norton and DMT are enough. haha

So that anything above 1k is not necessary for hunting knife? how about those for skinning games?

Originally Posted by remingtonmarlin

I have Norton starter kit(225/1000, 4000/8000) from SRD as well as the naniwa 1,5,8k set.

I am not sure how I assign those stones to my tasks, i.e.,sharpening hunting knives and honing my
DOVO(s).

Sigh.....

Too much stones (I forget to mention my Chinese 12k and DMT 325) and too little experiences.
Any suggestions?

Should I use one set on my razors exclusively, and other set on my other knives?

Many thanks.

For now as long as you flatten the stones before you put a razor back on them you can.

+1 on the information given above. Most hunting/pocket knives don't really need to be sharpened above the 325 level, and if you really want to, use the Norton 1k to finish it off, but ABSOLUTELY lap the hone flat before using it on razors. Albeit my honing experience is limited, but I found out very quickly, it doesn't take much to dish out a hone if using heavy pressure, even with razors, but especially with knives. JMHO

I have used the 1000 and 4000 on my kitchen knife today. Not really helping very much to bring out a smooth edge!?
But I did flat it with the lapping stone (Norton 325) after.

However, I found that it is very difficult to flat the four corners of the surface (indicated by the pencil traces).

Neither my tomatoes nor my pork roasts ever complained about a rough edge
Don't forget the sharpening steel tho, it is the kitchen equivalent of a strop. Sort of.
My kitchen knives get a 180-260-325 honing, then the sharpening steel. Works well for me.

first i bought washita arkansas stones for my knives when i was an apprentice butcher when i dropped it i bought a soft arkansas,i dropped that too well it slid of bench while using it so i bought a soft hard and surgical black arkansas and have used them on my knives ever since then when i started with a straight i just used them,finer stones don't just make knives sharper they polish the edge and remove the little sawtooth pattern left by courser stones just like they do on a razor,90% of meat workers use finishing stones because of how much better a polished edge is as it glides through what's being cut just like whiskers you can shave off really course stones but after the finishing stone it's so much better,it's also easier to skin and process game etc and cuts can be made with more precision because the edge is really slicing not tearing at a microscopic level if it didn't make a big difference the guys that use knives to make a living wouldn't bother,one difference with knife sharpening is keeping your angle consistant from one stone to the next as you progress other wise the results wont be as good as they could be,a good fine steel is needed to maintain knives just like a strop but you can't use a polished edged blade on a rough steel with grooves or it's just like running your knife over a course stone,all my steels a mirror polished because they go with the super polished edges on my knives but an extra fine or fine is ok,you can buy steels that have fine to polished sides aswell as course to fine on the other and the courser sides can be used to bring the knife back when it gets blunt enough not to respond to the finer side,it does bug me a bit when people say you don't need to sharpen your knives on fine stones but i guess they haven't experienced how good they can be and if you use all of the stone when sharpening your knife you won't groove it or ruin it for razors same with sharpening a razor if you use all of the stone it will stay flat longer

Alu please punctuate. It is EXTREMELY hard to read your post.

As said, you can use either or set for both. Knife sharpening dishes them out much quicker so you MUST lap them before going back to razors (in my experience at least). If your naniwas are the super-stones, do yourself a favor and use the nortons for knives. I LOVE my SuperStones for razors and "finishing" chisels and knives. But they are very soft, will gouge easily, I hate the feedback for knives, and even I don't like the finished edge they leave for a KITCHEN knive. For a razor/chisel/skinning knife I love the resulting edge.

General duty kitchen knives really don't have to be finished on a very high grit. I like my hunting knives and pocket knives to be at least 3 mic (6,000 grit) sharp, and often take them to .5 micron. The benefits are small but that last mile of effort is well worth it to me. You really have to have some nice (good high quality and hard) steel to take advantage of the 3mic, let alone the .5mic finish.