Outdoor Life

sir pball

(5,050 posts)

12. Beg to differ, for steel at least nothing beats a water stone.

Thu Dec 4, 2014, 12:06 AM

Dec 2014

Especially with the modern ultrahard steels, there's absolutely no power tool that can touch a blade that's been properly worked up on a 0.92 micron synthetic water stone. It goes so beyond "razor sharp" it's barely comprehensible - I took a huge chunk of my thumb off once, clean through the nail, and felt nothing beyond a gentle pressure. For softer stuff like my Wusthofs, a 1000-grit followed with a traditional steel still makes a factory edge look positively butter-knife.

Of course, it's also much more of an investment, both in the $350+ of stones and the year or so it takes to get them down. Mastering them is a lifetime.

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Ceramic Pocket knives [View all] Aerows Jul 2014 OP

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Beg to differ, for steel at least nothing beats a water stone. sir pball Dec 2014 #12