Sharpening
Choosing a first sharpening stone
Sharpening is a ladder, not a single step. Understanding which rungs you need saves both money and a great deal of frustration.
Japanese grit numbers are not US grit numbers
A Japanese #1000 waterstone is roughly equivalent to a US 400–600 grit. A Japanese #6000 is somewhere near a US 1200–2000. Comparing the numbers directly across systems will lead you badly astray, and it is why a "#8000 finishing stone" sounds far more extreme than it is.
The three jobs
Every sharpening system does three separate things, and it is worth being clear about which one you need on any given day.
- Setting a bevel: reshaping a damaged or wrongly angled edge. Coarse, #220 to #400. Slow and infrequent.
- Sharpening: bringing a dull but undamaged edge back. #1000. This is 90% of what you will do.
- Polishing. Refining the edge to pare cleanly. #6000 and above. Fast, once the #1000 has done its work.
Buy a combination stone first
A #1000/#6000 combination stone covers sharpening and polishing in one block, which is the pair you use constantly. Add a coarse stone later, when you have chipped something. Most people never need one in the first year.
Soft-bonded stones cut fast and forgive an imperfect angle, which is what you want while learning. They also dish quickly. Harder ceramic stones stay flat much longer but punish a wandering wrist.
The thing everyone skips
Every waterstone wears hollow in the middle as you use it. A hollow stone rounds over the bevel it is supposed to be flattening, and you will get steadily worse results while doing everything else correctly.
A flattening plate is not optional equipment. A coarse diamond plate does the job and doubles as your bevel-setting stone, which makes it the most useful second purchase in the category.
When a guided system makes sense
Freehand sharpening is a skill, and skills take repetitions. If you are maintaining a large set of edge tools, or several people share the tools, a guided wet system removes the variable entirely: the angle is set once and every tool comes off matching.
For one person with six chisels, stones and a honing guide will do everything a machine will, for a tenth of the money.
How we write these. Guides are written by the people who pick and specify these tools. We sell the products mentioned, and we say so, but where the honest answer is that a cheaper tool does the job, that is what the guide says. If you think something here is wrong, tell us at support@exelprod.com and we will correct it and note the change.
