"Puckdropper" wrote in message
b.com...

Arkansas stones seem appealing, as do water stones. What do you have
experience with and would recommend?

Any system will work... that said, I mostly use Arkansas bench stones though
I do have some course artificial stones to put relief in edges. Most of the
stones I bought about 30 years ago and added a large black stone maybe 15
years ago. I also have a two wheel slow speed vertical grinder, a slow speed
vertical grinder with a course wheel, a horizontal blade/knife grinder with
water drip, angle grinder, valve grinder, and myriad files, slips, and other
specialty stones. I acquired different sharpening items as the needs arose.
I'm now set up to sharpen everything from kitchen knives to hand and powered
woodworking tools, lawn mower blades, chainsaw chains, brush cutting blades,
brush hooks, ditch bank blades, shovels, picks, post hole diggers, loppers,
saws, etc. I must say that there is something special about being able to
shave the hair off your arm with a machete. ;~)

If you buy a good set of large Arkansas stones they'll last you a lifetime
without flattening if you use the whole stone rather than hollowing out some
areas through repeated use of those areas. Yes it will cost you
$200.00-300.00 for a bench set of large soft, medium, hard, and black hard
stones but viewed as a lifetime investment it's not so bad. Avoid buying the
less expensive stones... they are either too small and limited when it comes
to working on plane irons and large knives, or the thin ones are that are
glued to a wooden base only have one usable side. A large course artificial
stone speed up creating relief or repairing damaged tools. I've got a large
Norton stone for such purposes but a good quality diamond stone would be a
fine substitute.