Sharpening Setups/Kits

[dafox]

Here's my setup for work. Nothing too special. View attachment 133069

Looks like you have few hours on those stones!

 

[Blank Blades.]

Looks like you have few hours on those stones!

Yeah. A lot of them are getting close to being retired/fingerstones. I've, I'm even half way through my shapton 1k i I got a couple months ago. My kitayama is looking pretty sad right now, gonna pick up a new 8k one of these days, likely something else. If I dont have the extra cash in the mean time I can finish on the rika 5k. I dont use it enough, and I actually quite like the edge it gives.

 

[Boynutman]

I was able to put hinges in a blanking plate in the kitchen, to create a shallow 'secret' storage space, and I made a plywood rack to hold 4 stones and some stuff.
Wooden sink bridge is stored in a regular kabinet.
This way all essentials I use are always safe and within reach, really happy with it!

 

[SolidSnake03]

Yeah. A lot of them are getting close to being retired/fingerstones. I've, I'm even half way through my shapton 1k i I got a couple months ago. My kitayama is looking pretty sad right now, gonna pick up a new 8k one of these days, likely something else. If I dont have the extra cash in the mean time I can finish on the rika 5k. I dont use it enough, and I actually quite like the edge it gives.

If you haven't checked out the Morihei Karasu 9k I would highly recommend doing so when you want to replace that Kitayama. I've got both (Karasu and Kitayama) and they are both wonderful but actually am finding I prefer the Karasu a bit more. The Kitayama still feels magically delicious to sharpen on and is better for a mirror polish but the Karasu seems to leave a bit more bitey edge that seems to last longer as well. Sharpened up my TF Nashiji Petty with the Karasu and then went ahead and banged on it for ~2hrs on a random wooden board and plastic board prepping a ton of garlic, peppers, tomatos, eggplant etc.. for meal prep. Was going for speed and efficiency on this so I was not delicate, that edge took a pounding Edge was still able to pierce pepper skin no problem after that and had plenty of bite for eggplant as well which is a tricky test. I'll probably get another session or two out of this edge based on it's performance. Tried this with a Kitayama edge before that, same knife, same recipes and didn't make it through the ~2hrs. The Karasu one still had a nice bit of bite and held up much better. You could say this could come down to sharpening or maybe I didn't do as good of a job on the Kitayama or something but tested it a few times now and find that the Karasu is overall giving me longer lasting edges with more bite.

 

[Blank Blades.]

If you haven't checked out the Morihei Karasu 9k I would highly recommend doing so when you want to replace that Kitayama. I've got both (Karasu and Kitayama) and they are both wonderful but actually am finding I prefer the Karasu a bit more. The Kitayama still feels magically delicious to sharpen on and is better for a mirror polish but the Karasu seems to leave a bit more bitey edge that seems to last longer as well. Sharpened up my TF Nashiji Petty with the Karasu and then went ahead and banged on it for ~2hrs on a random wooden board and plastic board prepping a ton of garlic, peppers, tomatos, eggplant etc.. for meal prep. Was going for speed and efficiency on this so I was not delicate, that edge took a pounding Edge was still able to pierce pepper skin no problem after that and had plenty of bite for eggplant as well which is a tricky test. I'll probably get another session or two out of this edge based on it's performance. Tried this with a Kitayama edge before that, same knife, same recipes and didn't make it through the ~2hrs. The Karasu one still had a nice bit of bite and held up much better. You could say this could come down to sharpening or maybe I didn't do as good of a job on the Kitayama or something but tested it a few times now and find that the Karasu is overall giving me longer lasting edges with more bite.

How well does it polish? Does it leave streaks on a wide bevel? I definitely want to get a high grit stone that polishes just as just as well as it can sharpen.

 

[SolidSnake03]

How well does it polish? Does it leave streaks on a wide bevel? I definitely want to get a high grit stone that polishes just as just as well as it can sharpen.

The Karasu polishes very well as well. No detectable streaks. The Morihei line actually does really well overall for this. The combo I use in synthetics now for wide bevel or anything I don't want to use diamonds/vitrified on is Morihei 1000, 6000 then 9000. The 12000 is supposed to be great as a polisher as well. To me the Kitayama is more of a mirror polisher, like if you want that blinding light reflection and that looking at your own eyes in the wide bevel than the Kitayama is better and "cleaner" so to speak. The Karasu leaves a bit more of a misty/faint darkness, you can still see some of your reflection through it and it feels very nice and smooth (almost slick) to the touch but it doesn't give you that crazy bright mirror reflection that Kitayama can. The edge itself (core steel) can get that bright shiny sliver of light look going on that you can tell means its a very high grit but the cladding doesn't get totally there like the Kitayama can. The Morihei 12k should get you there though no problem. I wanted a stone that still left a useable edge as well so I went with the 9k. It's right at the limit of what I would call practical in any way and only some steels/heat treats can really hold that edge for knives that aren't exclusively for really delicate work (TF is one of them) but it's a sweet edge and legit would get me through a day of prep with maybe 1um diamond strop at lunch time (takes 30seconds). It's pretty incredible both the stone and the TF steel that I could get a day out of the 9k edge with a light strop at lunch and just need a light touch up before the next full day of work. Again I am not gentle when using this, it's full on banging through 20kg cases of stuff prep just to see if I could do it.

Note I don't recommend actually doing this because you could just use a more reasonable edge like the 1k or 6k but I like having fun pushing my stuff as far as it will go and see how it holds up. Sometimes you get cool surprises like this one. I wager that the Toyama/Watanabe steel could hold this edge for a while as well as Munetoshi based on my use. Potentially Moritaka and Murata too. Maybe Mazaki but my edge retention experiences with Mazaki haven't been as out of this worldly by comparison to those heavy hitters. Thats about all I can think of that would hold an edge like this for hours of abuse. Leaving custom makers out of this and just going with more off the shelf life stuff.

 

[SolidSnake03]

Forgot to add Mizuno Dx Blue #1 can take and hold this edge too. Tried it on a coworkers knife. It’s dumb but yeah it’ll hold that edge for longer than you think. Mizuno dx Blue #1 is pretty insane.

 

[spaceconvoy]

Is there a prize for most compact setup? 80mm paring knife for scale

I'm a big fan of maximal minimalism, trying to cram as much as possible into a small footprint. I use these boxes to organize most of my tools, and they happen to fit two X two standard-ish stones (don't worry, there's enough room to use shapton foam sheets for padding). Since they're all splash-and-go, I sharpen on the counter and don't use a sink-bridge, so this is my entire setup:

- textured neoprene mat
- the perfect sized Aizu (211 x 72 x 33mm)
- SP2k epoxied to a double thick GS500
- Atoma 400 with a custom wood handle
- 400/220/120/80 grit sheets of Cubitron