sharpening recomendations

[mystillwater]

i've never been a big sharpener. i've always had enough knives around that i always had at least one that was sharp. now i'm starting to grow weary of not using some of my awesome knives just because i'm too lazy to sharpen them.



can anyone recomned sharpening stones? i'm new to this but i want something that will serve me well. several of my knives have serrations so that is important too. please post recomended stones and links to where i might find them.



thanks,



dan



ouch.

[jaxon]

Dan,

Welcome. I think almost everybody here will recommend the Spyderco Sharpmaker 204MF setup. Look on this site under sharpeners. Available almost anywhere for reasonable prices. Several always on Ebay. Should fulfill most if not all of your needs.

Jaxon

Live to Ride....Ride to Live

[philuk44]

Yep - what Jaxon said. Welcome aboard Dan.

[dafox]

Sharpmaker is the way to go. Only additional recomendation would be to add diamond rods if you have very tough steels on those blades.

[vampyrewolf]

if you have a grinder in the garage or shed, check out paper or felt wheels.

Mei Fides, Mei Victus <a href=http://www.members.shaw.ca/pjharyett>My Homepage </a>

[delicrazy]

ive always liked acusharp. it gets knives fairly sharp, with absolutly no effort. i only use it on the knives that i use, its not good for your custom knives. try running a search on epinions.com

[dialex]

Welcome to the Spyderco Forum. I'd also recommend the Spyderco 204 MF TriAngle sharpmaker. It's a matter of seconds to put a razor edge on your knives.

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[thombrogan]

Allow me to join the growing chorus of "Get yourself a 204MF Sharpmaker sharpening setup and make life easy for yourself". For serrated knives, it makes life easier.

Where I'll disagree is on buying the diamond hones for the Sharpmaker. Sticking gritty sandpaper over the hones will accomplish the same task for a lot less money. On the other hand, getting the ultra-fine hones is a special treat that your knives will thank you for.

Also, if you do buy the Sharpmaker or a related ceramic sharpening rod setup, rust-erasers are a great way of cleaning the sharpening hones when they're loaded up with steel.

Good luck with your choices and welcome to the forum!

[radioflyer]

Again, Sharpmaker. For the small serrations, I just go straight up and down, staying on the same serration for maybe 10 strokes. After those are all done, move on to pulling the entire blade across as you move down the rod (like normal sharpening)for say another 10 strokes. Then, another 10 of 'pushing' the blade down (start at the top with blade tip, and push the blade forward and down the rod simultaneously).

Pushing is not recommended by anyone probably because it's more dangerous than pulling. But it does a super fine job of sharpening both sides of those larger serrations.
After you do all that, you just need two or three strokes on the opposite side of the serrations to make the whole thing super sharp. Works for me.

btw, with the final word on your original message, "ouch", it seems your blades really are dull. Really sharp blades don't hurt when they cut. You just see blood everywhere. I just proved that over the weekend. It didn't hurt, but there was a lot of blood. I'll survive for another cut another day.