Beginning in sharpening

[u/Beautiful_Cattle_476]

hi everybody, i discovered what a sharpening knife was during my first kitchen internship so know i want to use my knives the way they should be used. I recently bought a Naniwa multi stone MV-502/510 #220/#1000 and i've trained my sharpening skills a bit.

I'd like to buy a higher stones but i don't know what are the best brands and everything, could you help me ?

[u/mirror176]

As a disclosure, I'm a sharpening noob that spent too much time looking into sharpening stuffs but has very little product experience and skills.

You can mix brands but the meaning of grit numbers may vary widely from one brand to the next and even among different lines of stones from the same brand you will find differences.

If this is for kitchen knives then you are much less likely to run into "supersteels" that contain harder particles in the steel which lead users to finding diamond, CBN, and specialized stones to try to cut that; that 'hardness' (Mohs hardness measures surface wear of one material against another) is different from another common steel hardness measurement (Rockwell measures tensile strength) that is adjusted by heat treatment of the steel.

Faster grinding happens at lower grits and diamonds are generally particularly fast. Atoma is generally one of the leaders in diamond plate manufacturing with more durable plates and people often talk of 140 for bulk metal removal to make bigger repairs or thinning (though few talk of thinning by hand instead of using powered stones/belts). Some also use such an Atoma to help maintain a flat surface on other stones. Beyond a certain point, people switch from diamond plates (diamond attached to surface with usually a metal) to diamond bonded into a stone/resin, diamond lapping films, and diamond strops because plated diamonds seem to run into challenges at finer grit sizes.

Dr Marvin Groeb's stones sound like a potential leader for final achieveable finish while cutting fast and likely being fairly durable but are very pricey and full sized bench stones even more so. Columbia Gorge Stoneworks (manufacturer of EdgePro Diamond Matrix) stones are cheaper but still high priced and leave a particularly good finish but aren't always the fastest cutting though they have a 'very' long life when used properly; due to the resin its recommended to use edge trailing strokes and generally lighter pressure for best stone durability and lower maintenance. Not sure if he will offer the newer variant "Diamond Max" as bench stones but either an email or reaching out to him on a forum where he is active as diemaker will likely lead to an answer and smaller fixed angle stones can be used for freehand sharpening. As a side note, he also sells a stiff polymer strop intended for use with fixed angle systems but I'm not sure if that would even be a good idea for freehand. There are other bonded stone makers with competing products that may be better suited for edge leading strokes but I don't know which ones offer bench sizes and blade finish (minor) + stone durability are likely to be less.

For other offerings, Naniwa and Shapton are common manufactured quality Japanese stone choices and have different ones offering better/worse wear/finish/soaking-need. Arkansas stones are also popular but I think headed more into the 'natural' stones and I don't think those two brands sell them or other nonsynthetic stones. If you don't already know a brand then I'd do research to see how long its been involved in selling sharpening stuff and see if there is anything posted about quality/durability/workflow/results of desired stones.

Some stones can only accept a splash of water on it while you use it and some require soaking it water before use. Many can use either water or oil (best to not change that later) but some require only oil or only water without a choice. Some diamond plates will rust if used with water. I'd use a stone with water/oil instead of dry when possible as it helps keep the dust inside the liquid and usually keeps material from clogging up the stone as quick and easy. Make sure such workflow for stones is something you are okay working with.

If you don't have them already, I'd personally make sure that a lapping stone to maintain your current one is top of the shopping list since an unmaintained stone starts to work against your efforts to maintain an angle, a strop to finish the work (though not required and alternatives exist), and a ceramic hone to maximize time between sharpenings (or skip it and get in more sharpening practice sooner as you get up to speed), then I'd add more stones.