A sharpening setup for various steel types? Advice would be greatly appreciated!

Greetings esteemed burr chasers!


People who don’t want to bother with the overlong newbie rant can jump straight down to the “Long story short” version just above the stone list!


Others try to bear with me, because this is going to be a “bit” on the long side and sorry for my mistakes in English, as it´s not my native language.

I would like to start at thanking for this great forum, so much good information and knowledgeable people! Came here just to read on a few things about sharpening stones and got bitten by a knife/sharpening bug, and I’m developing a serious addiction. I´ve been reading and watching Jons videos to learn about sharpening and I think I´m ready to jump in and get some nice whetsones. I have also been checking out different new knife options for me, but let’s not even go there. That’s going to be a whole other overlong and boring post from me.

So my dilemma is that I want a setup of stones from scratch and I´m a bit overwhelmed of the possibilities, to say the least.

I´m ready to invest about 200€/250$ and this doesn’t have to include a stone lapping plate. I would prefer to spend a little less, so please don’t “make” me go much higher cause this has already doubled and severely impacted my knife budget...

I think it would be better to have a different stone(s) for the cheap stainless steels. As I´ve read from here, they are strongly abrasion resistant and will sharpen a lot better with silicon carbide or diamond. I would also prefer to perma soak the Japanese whetstones or have splash and go´s, just for the storage convenience. Choseras and Shaptons can’t be submerged for a long time but I´m not sure which others.

I´m going to sharpen a lot of cheap/softer stainless steel knives for relatives, friends and off course few of my own (Victorinox/Forschner set, F. Dick). Those are going to be my practicing knives, also my nakiri from MAC.

For the Japanese ones I´ll probably get a Ginga (AEB-L) gyuto or something carbon on a stainless clad and later maybe a pure carbon one. As I’ve learned from here the first Japanese knife I´ll get, surely will not going to be my last…

I am a total beginner in sharpening but very eager to learn. If I understand correctly, beginners should get stones that are a bit different (softer and slower cutting speed?), compared to the stones people usually end up with. But I rather practice holding the angle on cheap knives, spend a bit more and buy stones that I stick with, than those that I possibly want to change when I´ve learned to sharpen more. I hope you´ll understand my reasoning and don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean those stones that are usually recommended for beginners are bad choices by any means.

I´ve put examples from Japanese Natural Stones and I want to buy 1 or 2 stones from there. I’d like to support the forum vendors, small shops and of course because they have gotten great reviews. The other stones I was thinking to get from fine-tools in Germany or straight from Japan for minimizing shipping costs.

I would love to try something in the highly praised Gesshin line from Jon at Japanese Knife Import and support him too, but as I live in Finland, the shipping + VAT costs will be too much for me at this point. For that reason those aren’t in the options listed below.


Long story short:

A home cook from Finland here, with a budget of ~200€/250$ (doesn’t have to including a lapping plate) ready to jump in and get my first whetstone setup. I need advice for picking a separate 2 stone/grit silicon carbide or a diamond plate setup for soft stainless and a different 3 stone/grit whetstones + loaded strop for the Japanese knives.

It would be a nice bonus if the Japanese whetstones would work well on my semi cheap stainless knives too. Perma soaked or splash and go, for storing convenience. Knives I own at the moment are Victorinox/Forschner set, F. Dick (X55- or X50CrMoV15) and a MAC nakiri. Going to get at least a gyuto, probably Ginga (AEB-L) or a carbon with stainless clad and later some monosteel carbon.

I will practice sharpening/holding the angle on my old knives and looking for the best bang for the buck stones. They can be a bit harder and faster than usually recommended for beginners. I would like to support JapaneseNaturalStones.com and order 1 or 2 stones from there. The rest from fine-tools.com or straight from Japan to keep shipping costs low. Would love to try Gesshin´s from Japanese Knife Import, but they are a no go because of the shipping + VAT.


On a side note, I want to express my gratitude and say thank you to Jon from Japanese Knife Import for all the sharpening videos! Those are just great for us new sharpeners!


Finally to the stones and questions, hope someone is still with me… Here are the options what I have tried to narrow down from reading around here.


For the cheap stainless steel

Coarse/medium:

• Missarka Combination stone, grit 150 and 800 (JIS) LINK
• Norton fine/coarse combination stone
• Generic double sided diamond plate grit 400 and 1000

Is anyone using the Missarka for cheap/soft stainless steels? Norton seems to be hard to find here in Europe, so the Missarka would be easier to get. These are all in the same price range about 40$, so they won’t break my budget, and I don’t have to use my nice Japanese whetstones on relatives butter knives.


For the Japanese knives

Coarse:

• JNS 300 Matukusuyama
• Beston 500
• Bester 400
• Naniwa Chosera 400

Medium:

• JNS 800 Matukusuyama
• JNS 1000 Matukusuyama
• Bester 700
• Bester 1200 or 1K
• Bester 2000

Medium fine:

• JNS Red Aoto Matukusuyama Blend of 2000-4000 grits
• JNS Blue Aoto Matukusuyama
• JNS 6000 Matukusuyama
• Suehiro Rika 5000K (seem to be really hard to find in Europe)
• Arashiyama 6000
• Something else in the 6K range or higher?


So guys/galls what kind of combination would you choose if you were in my shoes? Any input to help me pick on these options or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated! There´s still Naniwa SS, Sigma Select II, Shaptons etc., but my head is spinning already.

ps. Sorry for the longest first post in the history of first posts. I´ve probably put a lot of wrong and useless info. If nobody will not answer or read the whole thing, I´ll understand completely. Will just flip a coin and pull a trigger on something, so I can finally start sharpening, anything! xD

Thanks!

I'll start with another question--from reading your post I'm not so sure if you would prefer splash-and-go or soakers?

Don't think you really need to purchase two sets of stones...I would suggest purchasing stones that will work well with the nicer stuff as you'll be miserable sharpening cheap stainless no matter what stones you use (imo).

Maxim (JNS) sells quality stuff and you won't do wrong purchasing from him. Don't let the multitude of choices bog you down, all will be good and you won't likely know what you enjoy until you try something either way.

Cheers

Thank you for the input Chinacats and sorry that I was unclear with my post.

I would definitely prefer stones that can be perma soaked, can just throw them to a container and don’t have to worry about drying. Got confused, cause I thought that some stones needed a good soak, but can´t be left in the water and was trying to avoid them. Also thought that some splash-and-go stones needed a bit of soaking and still had to dry for storage, were trying to avoid them as well.

I will definitely try to get whetstones that would work well on my nicer stuff. I believe too that I will not be too thrilled, that I have to sharpen the aunt´s cheap stainless butter knives.

Behind my reasoning for the second set of stones or even a single stone/plate for the cheapo steels is:

- I know I still need to do them and I think it would contribute some for my sharpening learning curve (for at least holding the angle).
- I can do it cheaply (options are only 40$, so they don’t affect my budget that much) and I wouldn’t have to try to use and waste my nice Japanese whetsones.
- Reading from threads, many Japanese whetstones have hard time of removing the metal because of the strong abrasion resistance the cheapo steels usually has. Threads: 1 2 3

Would be more than happy to buy all the stones from Maxim, but my budget is a bit limiting and I can´t afford to do that. Thanks for the reassurance and that sounds logical, that I don’t even know what I like before trying something.

I´ll try to rephrase my questions.

Knives in use, AEB-L, White#2, Stainless cladded VG-10 and Victorinox/Forschner.

If you would get stones that can be perma soaked, has good cutting speed and feedback. Which 3 (combination of coarse/medium/fine) stones you would pick, if you would get 2 from Maxim JNS here and 1 from fine-tools here? Perhaps some Bester options from the OP?

What would you get under 50$ for the cheap really soft stainless knives? Missarka, Norton combination, Generic diamond plate or something else?

Hope this has more sense than my overlong rant OP.

There is no "one size fits all" solution to sharpening stones. Choices are frequently more subjective than objective and availability where you live can and should be part of your decision.

For coarse work the JNS 300 does it all for me from crap knives to good knives. It's S&G but that can be a good thing for a stone you should not have to use very often. I also like the Gesshin 400 but realize that would probalby be cost prohibitive to ship internationally. I've used the Bestor 500 and I could not find the sweet spot between wet enough and too wet. I did not like it but many people do.

I use and like the JNS 800 but if budget is tight I would not suggest one. The Bestor 1200 is a good all around med stone though for me it's at its best on German stainless. A King combo may be most budget friendly option for a med and fine solution. A JNS synthetic aoto would be my first choice from what you have listed.

I have the Missarka and I like it for average stainless steels. It does gives a nice toothy edge. The rough side is pretty useful too.

Something similar to the set from JKI will work very well for you, although you may not be able to get those exact stones.

If available, a Beston 500 or 700 will work well for a coarse stone, a Bester 1000 or 1200 (I have the 1200 and really like it) are good basic stones that can be permasoaked with no issues. They wear slowly and cut nicely for a hard stone and I've not had any problems getting very sharp edges from stainless on them. A King Deluxe 300 grit (the new one, not the 220 grit King!) is a very hard but fast cutting stone that appears to be much more available in Europe than the US. Great coarse stone, but not cheap. Very useful for other people's knives that have never been sharpened and have a pretty flat edge as you need to take off quite a bit of material.

A fine stone is more problematic, I guess, especially in terms of soft stainless vs Japanese knives. A synthetic aoto (I have a blue one, I've heard Maxim's red one it also great) in the 2000-3000 range does a wonderful job on soft stainless, leaves a very sharp edge that lasts, I suspect because it does not gouge out the large carbides in the edge.

Those stones, however, will NOT leave a great edge on harder steels, they always feel rather dull, and that means you need to polish on a finer stone -- just my normal stop on chromium oxide on wood doesn't make them screaming sharp. They are also rather expensive, mainly because they are quite large, which is a good thing as they wear quickly and make lots of mud.

Probably a better choice is an Arashiyama 6K, Suehiro Rika 5000, or a King S-3 6000. The King is often greatly under-rated, I think. It has been around forever -- mine is 20 years old -- but it wears fairly slowly, flattens quite easily, and does a pretty good job for a very low price. Probably not the best 6k grit stone around, but the fancier ones don't do much for you if you cannot afford them.

So my bottom line recommendation is to get a Bester 500 and a Bester 1200 and some chromium oxide buffing compound (green waxy stuff to polish metal, available here in hardware stores everywhere for very little). This combination will do a good job on cheap stainless and an adequate job on Japanese knives. If you can afford it, also get King S-3 6k stone, they are often quite inexpensive and will do good things with the Japanese knives. Strop all of them on a piece of flat, smooth wood with the chromium oxide paste on it. Should get you decently sharp knives at the lowest possible cost.

Not a fabulous set up, and I would expect you to eventually replace some of those stones, but for basic sharpening they will do quite well and they are probably the cheapest quality stones out there. King stones in the 800 to 1200 grit range are cheaper, but I don't use mine any more, they dish so fast I cannot use them for woodworking tools. Cheapest by far, but then if you hate them and have to replace them, not such a bargain, eh?

Peter

Thanks guys for the detailed answers and recommendations!

Sorry for not posting sooner, life has been a bit hectic and in the spare time trying to read on sharpening equipment, so I don’t have to ask the questions you have probably answered a million times.

I understand that stone preferences are really subjective and mine none existing experience would make it impossible to recommend me the “right” kind of stones. I got a chance to try one of my friends (who I got infected with the jknife bug too ; ) King 1000/6000 combo and it felt too soft for my liking, especially the 6000, so I decided to go for harder stones. Also PSfreds comment that the use of JNS synth Aotos as a finishing stone wouldn’t get my Japanese knives screaming sharp, made me revaluate my plans.

I just ordered my first real Japanese knives (Stainless Ginga Wa-Gyuto and Wa-Petty wuhuu!:biggrin and these are going to be my main cutting tools from now on. I will give the Victorinox´s away one by one to friends as I have done before to my previous knives. I can´t even begin to describe how excited I´m for getting a nice Gyuto, been using my Victorinox Santoku and the MAC Nakiri a long time as my main knives. Gave my chef knife away at one point and I have had a big whole in my heart ever since.

So back to stones, I managed to scuff up some more money and was able to raise my budget. As I am looking sharpening more of a hobby for life, the budget difference isn’t that important, at least for a few tenner`s more. Yeah psfred, the deal is not that great sometimes with cheap things as I might want to change them soon. I try to apply my grandma’s saying whenever I can, when purchasing things: “Poor can’t afford to buy cheap”.

So here are the stones which I decided to order:

• JNS 300 (So many recommendations and thanks Daveb for the last nudge)
• Sigma Select II 1200 (Wanted to try something different. Supposed to be really fast, but if I start very slowly with low pressure and use the magic marker trick, hopefully I do ok... I know this stone is not so good with single/large bevels, but I´m pretty sure I´m not getting those anytime soon)
• JNS 6000 (I thought I can´t go wrong with this one, as Maxims stuff always gets high praises. The Rika and the Arashiyama 6K would probably be very good options too, but those plans went out of the window, when I realized with the shipping and taxes they would cost me almost the same amount as this one.)

I can take some pictures of the stones and the gear when they arrive, if someone is interested. Probably my unknowledgeable babble will be tuned to minimum for saving everyone`s nerves.

Thanks again for the explanations, good points and recommendations for all who have participated! I think you got me on the right track.

PS. I know these are not the most beginner friendly stones, but I´m going to take it slow and don’t worry guys, my new knives are not going near the stones before I have gone through at least a dozen of practicing knives.

If someone is still willing to answer just a few last things regarding strops, it would be great.


1. Which liquid should I use to dilute oil based diamond slurry to a sprayable suspension?


2. Is it possible that felt for stropping can be too hard/dense or is it better the more dense it gets?

I wanted to try felt for deburring and polishing/stropping, so I contacted the local felt manufacturer. They sell scrap pieces of all kinds of felts they have, from surplus cuts for a very decent price. I asked for hard felts and they now have this density available. It is used to make polishing abrasive discs for grinders and it seems to be extremely hard:

(0,52 grams/cm3) which converts to (876.488 pound/cubic yard) if I converted it right.

Dave Martell´s felt strop is categorized as Ultra rock hard, but I don’t know what it is measured. Only reference about hardness I found here was one of the strop threads about F-1 felt that is categorized hard and that`s only 2.1 pound/cubic yard.

Thanks!

Hey Hattiwatti
As far as I know - and in my experience - felt can´t be too hard. You want to have as flat and even a surface as possible - just like with the stones.
Reg. diamond spray: I´ve only tried ready made diamond spray myself. Logically you would have to dilate the diamond slurry with some liquid that can be mixed with oil and mix it until it reaches a sprayable mixture (sprayable thickness) in order to be able to apply it evenly to the felt. You just don´t want the felt to become too whet or it will raise and become kind of looser in texture.
Hmm - Neill Miller from strop-shop-UK makes his own diamonds spray (as far as I know). I´ve bought some from him in the past and he is a very nice guy. He might be willing to help you a bit if you drop him an email.
I hope this was helpfull.
- Kim

Hey Kim!

Good to know felt can´t be too hard. I thought that might be the case, but wasn’t sure. Thanks, I made my order today.

Makes sense the liquid for the diamond paste needs to be something suited for diluting oil based compounds, but haven’t figured out yet what´s the proper one or the ratio. My understanding in chemicals is zero.

I´ve been trying to search the interwebs and came across on some forum, that suggested you can use mix of mineral oil and ISO alcohol, or both separate, but no one seemed certain. Something like, the mineral oil keeps the diamond particles separated and acts as a carrier, and the alcohol dilutes, which then dissipates away after spraying.

That´s a good point I should be careful not to get the felt too wet and ruin it, and it just needs to be liquid enough to be able to spray on the surface. I´ll try to mix as little quantities as possible. If I´m not able to get it to work, I will shoot an email to Strop-shop guy can he help and ask the paste retailer too. Don’t want to experiment too many times, as the felt was not that cheap.

Thanks for the help Kim!

Anyone else has info about this?

PS. JNS delivery came in yesterday, talk about fast shipping. That was about 30 hours from ordering to my doorstep!
Tomorrow I should get my medium grit stone and finally start to practice on the weekend.
Drawer queens beware!

Hattiwatti said:

Thank you for the input Chinacats and sorry that I was unclear with my post.

I will definitely try to get whetstones that would work well on my nicer stuff. I believe too that I will not be too thrilled, that I have to sharpen the aunt´s cheap stainless butter knives.

Behind my reasoning for the second set of stones or even a single stone/plate for the cheapo steels is:

- I know I still need to do them and I think it would contribute some for my sharpening learning curve (for at least holding the angle).
- I can do it cheaply (options are only 40$, so they don’t affect my budget that much) and I wouldn’t have to try to use and waste my nice Japanese whetsones.
- Reading from threads, many Japanese whetstones have hard time of removing the metal because of the strong abrasion resistance the cheapo steels usually has. Threads: 1 2 3

Would be more than happy to buy all the stones from Maxim, but my budget is a bit limiting and I can´t afford to do that. Thanks for the reassurance and that sounds logical, that I don’t even know .

Click to expand...

The point is that cheap stainless knives are "quite sharp" OFTB. So it is possible to make them so. I need to sharpen my wife's cheap stainless knives which goes throu dishwasher. I do it once evry 2 weeks or once a month. I sharpen on Spyderco ceramics 302 (medium, fine and UF). Between sharpening I hone them on a IKEA ceramic steel/road and strap on plain cardboard. As the edge retention is bad I give her many kanives so she change the one she uses before it beacam realy dul.