What hone to buy?

After years of doing stones + leather strop, I'm thinking it's about time that I gave hones a chance. Batterie is your basic j-knife nut stuff -- devin thomas, hiro as, carbonext, tanaka, tojiro dp, etc.

What hone should I buy, and why?

I have a Mac black ceramic... However its rarely used.
Its cheap and works, and has dual grit sides.

Curious what you are trying to achieve that you can't with a stone or strop? Guessing convenience, are you a pro?

No, not a pro. You are right about the convenience factor -- with the strop, I have to clean up every last bit of that green powder, or I'll never hear the end of it. But mostly just want to try one out and see if it is actually more convenient than a strop. I'm also thinking that I can more easily teach my partner + kitchen visitors to use the hone.

So, I'm not really feeling any deficiency right now. Just want to try a hone and see what it's like.

I've got a Messermeister ceramic that works fine, but personally find it more convenient to strop on either one of Marko's felt strops or newsprint over a dry stone. I find it easier to maintain angles/pressure more consistently/evenly while using a larger flatter surface...ymmv.

Cheers

Nmko said:

I have a Mac black ceramic... However its rarely used.
Its cheap and works, and has dual grit sides.

Click to expand...

I have the Mac Black as well - I've definitely noticed that it is faster and less detrimental to simply stop my knives on newsprint or do a few trailing edge passes on a finishing stone. I only use the hone on my beaters now, and for that purpose it is well suited.

I have the DMT fine diamond 12", and the DMT ceramic 12". They work very well for vintage, German, and softer jknives.

They are in no way a replacement for proper sharpening, and will actually deteriorate your angle, and over time the edge will become rounded and will no longer respond to the rods.

I've had the Mac black and liked it very much. It leaves a refined toothiness on stainless. But I prefer strops here, which is why I no longer have one.

Like polishing steels,don't wak out your edge like coarse rods,just realine the edge & extend prep time between stones.As mentioned no replacement for freehand.Also improper steel tech.is a major factor in rounded edges.

Chop Chop and keith said right. I have a HA 1200 ceramic rod and although it will scrach up the cutting bevel I much prefer to strop wet or dry on my highest grit stone then refine that edge with naked horse leather.

For most good knife steels, I find most ceramic or diamond hones to be much too low-grit.
As Mucho B mentioned, they scratch up the non-primary bevels, esp with the very low angles at which most good steels are sharpened.

I also had the HA ceramic (gave it to a friend), and it's a little less brutal than some of the others, but I much prefer the borosilicate glass HA hone or the smooth oval F.Dick steel.
The F.Dick has the added comedic benefit of having "Dick", "Dickron", and "Dick Polish" written all over it. Both of these hones can be used on hard steel with very light pressure to align the edge without removing any steel.
If my edge has a nick or small ding and I need to take it to a strop or finisher just to get back in action before I have time to do a full sharpening, I will use one of the smooth hones to align the edge so that the damaged sections don't scratch the heck out of my leather strop or finishing stone.

For quick touch-ups at home I strop in a j-nat or Marko special order DMT 8k plate. The DMT 8k is a solid bar of steel, so I imagine that it would hold up pretty well in a pro environment that might be too scary for an expensive and fragile traditional finisher.

Justin I have the same great polishing steel with Dick Polish in bright yellow letters on the handle.It is made in Germany.Was it done on purpose?Maybe so,Germans can be a little twisted,sorry Stepan.:O

I use a piece of wide balsa wood with diamond spray - you can even get a sheet of balsa wood - which is 4" strips glued together and spray - mindbogglingly easy to hone on a 12x12 piece of balsa impregnated with diamond spray