Included diamond stones enough?

[williaty]

I’m going to buy a WEPS next month after payday. Buying just the base unit busts my budget pretty hard. Are the included diamond stones enough to get started successfully sharpening knives for a while? To be honest, I have no interest in polished/mirror bevels. I just want my working knives to stay sharp. Right now, I have an ooooollllllld Spyderco Sharpmaker with the coarse diamond sleeves, the medium gray stones, and the white fine stones. Those stones produce perfectly satisfactory results in terms of sharpness for me. The problem is that I’m facing some significant loss of motor dexterity in my hands and holding the knife perfectly vertical every stroke is no longer possible for me. I’m hoping to be able to return to sharpening knives for myself by using the WEPS.

I’ve got a box full of working knives, meaning the pocket knives and camp knives I carry around daily or when working out on my property. They get beat up pretty bad and having to grind out nicks and chips with the coarse diamonds sleeves on the Sharpmaker is pretty much something I do every sharpening. Well, used to do. The edge left by the fine/white ceramic stones from the Sharpmaker is perfectly acceptable to me. Additionally, my wife has some Shun Classic kitchen knives that can’t be sharpened with the Sharpmaker at all, so I’ll be sharpening those for her with the WEPS as well. They just need to be able to slice ripe tomatoes without crushing.

So are the included diamond stones from the basic kit going to be enough to achieve that for me?

Thanks,
Ty

[cbwx34]

I’m not sure which kit includes ceramics, but yes, the edge left after the ceramics is great. It’s often the stone I finish with. The Micro Fine ceramics are actually very similar to the Sharpmaker stones, but either set will leave a great edge.

[Mark76]

Simple answer: yes. More than enough.

In fact, when I read your requirements, I think you could do with the basic setup that includes stones up to 600 grit.

The Micro Fine ceramics are actually very similar to the Sharpmaker stones

Very similar[/url] 😉

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[williaty]

Yeah, the basic $275 setup is what I’m talking about (not either of the Pro Packs).

[Mark76]

OK. That doesn’t include the ceramic stones.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[williaty]

OK. That doesn’t include the ceramic stones.

Oh, you’re right. Somehow I had crossed up that it had the ceramics rather than the diamonds.

So that totally changes my questions then.

Are the included 100-600 grit diamond stones enough to get me what I want?

[Mark76]

They won’t give you a very polished edge (but you weren’t looking for that), but a toothy edge that works quite well in the kitchen. You’ll be able to slice all those tomatoes.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[tcmeyer]

The Sharpmaker gray stones are claimed to be about 600 grit; the standard white stones are supposedly 1200 grit. They offer a super-fine white stone which is the same as the fine side of Wicked Edge’s Micro-fine ceramics.

I have a nephew who wants to get into the Wicked Edge set-up and I recommended to him to buy the base $275 package and the 800/1000 stones. For your purposes, I think this is all you need. The 600’s will give you a good working edge, but where you want a much more refined edge, the 1000’s will give you a huge step up. You only need higher grits (ceramics, etc.) when you want to show off your mirror finish or by push-cutting newsprint.

For what it’s worth, I bought a box of scalpel blades and the edges are probably ground no finer than 800 grit. The sharpness is due to an included angle of 30 degrees with one side polished. You can achieve that level of polish with Wicked Edge’s strops using the 5 micron and 3.5 micron diamond pastes. I never would have guessed it, but scalpels have a “toothy” edge. A mirror finish won’t cut into soft, slippery tissue.

[Geocyclist]

You definitely can get good results with the base kit and 600 stones. If you couldn’t I don’t think WE would sell it that way. The design of the product and customer service are excellent.

I had problems with the Spyderco as well. That is why I went to the WEPS. Also with the Sharpmaker you are limited to two angles, unless you try to free hand. With the WEPS you can set any angle you like.

There is a learning curve and the stones need to get broken in. Other than that you will be very pleased with how sharp 600 grit stones will get you and the ease of using it. The nice thing with WE is you don’t have to buy it all, you can start simple and add on later if you need to.

[wickededge]

williaty – Check out this post from Josh (razoredgeknives) http://www.wickededgeusa.com/forum/9-basic-techniques-and-sharpening-strategies/13052-new-blade-on-benchmade-need-help-mounting-it#18159. It includes a great video showing the results he’s getting from his 600# stones. It is also a great tutorial on a lot of other aspects of using the system from mounting the knife, pressure, stroke direction etc…

-Clay

[JS]

Once the stones are broken in, the 600 grit stones leave a great edge and one that I think will be more than acceptable for what you’re looking for. You won’t be disappointed with this system!

[williaty]

I’m the OP. Figured I ought to bring some resolution to the thread and answer my own question.

I’ve used it for a month with the 100/200 and 400/600 diamonds. Sadly, even for what I wanted, this was not enough to produce an acceptable edge. Basically, as it came off the 600 diamond stone, it was sharp to about the point where I start thinking it’s maybe time to sharpen the knife. Granted, I never actually get around to sharpening the knife before it’s much, much duller 😆 I think for many people this might be satisfactory. However, I was used to something sharper than that, even for working knives. I added the 800/1000 diamond and the Super Fine Ceramics this month and, after doing one knife, I think we’ll be in the ballpark for what I’m used to once I get the stones broken in and improve my technique a little.

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