Best Knife Sharpening Stones

Are you planning to purchase a knife sharpening stone for your home use? Well, that’s a great move because all cutlery should be maintained. However, there are three key aspects you need to figure out even before purchasing to ensure you get the best knife sharpening stones.

Simple Guide to Help You Understand What is Critical in a Knife Sharpening Stone

Material
Most traditional sharpening stones like Arkansas stone, aluminum stones, and carborundum consist of particles bonded using abrasives forming a block. Some of those called oil stones use oil as the lubricant, while others use water as the lubricant. All of these stones are also going to require that you own a flattening stone; we recommend you use a diamond plate because silicon carbide flattening stones do not stay flat as you use them.

The main challenge you may experience with oil stones and wetstones is how unevenly they wear out. Occasionally, you will be required to do replacement or flattening—which is tiresome and time consuming. These stones come in various price points, from cheap garbage to professional grade. The one thing they all have in common is they wear out when you sharpen exposing more grit. This can make your experience frustrating if you don't maintain the flatness of your stone.

However, switching to harder water stones can help solve that. The only problem with water stones is that they get soft pretty quickly, if you soak them too long they can loose their binding agent which means they wear out faster than others.

The best knife sharpening stones of all is Diamond, closely followed by hard and fine natural finishing stones. They are explicitly efficient, and you don’t need to apply any lubricant. Also, they hardly wear out, and when they do, it is even. Owning a diamond plate, plus a 1000 grit synthetic stone and a Jasper whetstone covers all my bases when sharpening any steel or any kind of knives.

Grit, Mesh, and Microns
Grit is the measure of abrasion of a sharpening stone. The lower the number, the more coarse it is. For instance, a 400-grit sharpening stone is best for big tools like a big chopper / vegetable mower, while a 1000-grit stone is fine enough to handle pocket and kitchen cutlery. Diamond uses a unique system—particle spacing called Mesh, and particle size—known as microns. 1000 grit is fine enough to be a bevel setter for razors, as well as a decent finishing level for knives and tools. 1000 grit is also a perfect set up for polishing with Jasper next. The #1 reason to own a diamond flattening plate is because when you slurry fine natural stones with it they polish extremely well and take an edge to mirror finished.

However, none of these stones are  perfect all alone —how you understand usage is almost more important than anything you choose to invest in.

Price
Prices vary from one individual to another, as well as the type of material. Typically, oil stones / cheap man made water stones are the cheapest and most frustratiung to use. The others like Diamond and jasper —bench stones, are somewhat costly, but worthwhile as they last far longer. Diamond plates slowly wear in and become more mellow, they are exceptionally useful for slurrying jasper at this point and if you have a 1000 grit stone or you make your jasper dual sided with 2 different grit preparations it can cover all bases for you. Feel free to consult me today and pick the best knife sharpening stone you need, or the best razor sharpening stone for you.