Stones for a knife maker?

[Beanwagon]

I have been searching like crazy for a months or so for the best route to take to sharpen in knives.

I have recently started making Japanese kitchen knife and have nearly finished a large sujihiki and bunka knife out of 01 tool steel.

I have looked at everything from fixed systems liked qicked edge etc to stones

At the moment i am looking at the SHAPTON GLASS STONE SET 1000, 3000, 8000 GRIT

Would this with the addition of a course stone be the a good route to take?

 

[Badgertooth]

Having spoken to Comet & Halcyon Forge at length about these things this seems to be a good combo. These are guys who take pride in their bevel setting and stone work:

Atoma 140
Shapton glass 500
King Hyper 1k
Aizu

 

[Matus]

As a hobby knifemaker I use stones at the final stage of tuning the grind (especially behind the edge). I use a lot a Bester 220 and Shapton Pro 1k. At this stage the thing that matter most is material removal. The advantage of the Shapton is that is dishes relatively slowly and thus allows for a more precise work The Bester is one of the faster very coarse stones, the Shapton is also very fast for a 1k (ok, more like 800) stone and thanks to its speed can be used directly after the 220. I do not go higher on stones when it comes to finish - I either switch back to belt grinder or go to sandpaper.

Once the knife is finished I sharpen - I either start with Shapton Pro 1K or Gesshin 2000 and often finish with Gesshin Synthetic natural and sometimes add a natural stone, but that is more of a nice-to-have.

The Aizu is a natural stone - I would the natural stones aside before you get the hang of free hand sharpening.