…hope I don’t screw up my knives.

Will be practicing on some old ones 1st 🙂

Keep an eye on how worn the whetstone gets too – they need flattening once in a while.
And soak it for longer than you think you need to. Just dunking it will only keep it wet for a couple of seconds.

Thanks Chipps. I’ve seen a vid on how to re-flat the stone so will keep an eye on it 🙂

Ahem…..this might be useful…..there were a few comments from people with a lot more experience than me about it:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/sharpened-a-knife-yesterday-before-after-pics

As above – soaking the stone for a decent amount of time seems to make a real difference.
I did the knife on my Leatherman over the weekend and was too keen to wait 15 mins for it to soak – but it was definitely more ‘scrapy’ than the first time I used it and gave it a good soaking.

Just go easy & concentrate on maintaining a consistent angle. I bought a guide for this, but took it off after about a minute. It was straight and didn’t work well with the curved blade I was trying to sharpen. I did wonder on the usefulness of it when I bought it, but thought it was worth a try.

Regarding flattening the stone – I have already put quite a bow in my stone from one use, because I had a lot of material to remove to get back to some ‘good stuff’. There’s probably a more suitable way of doing this, but the stone was all I had to use.

On my leatherman knife, I really struggled to get the tip sharp, because it curves quite sharply.
The straight section was a doddle, but I think there must be a better technique for the curved tip of the blade.

Like this one:

Regarding flattening the stone – I have already put quite a bow in my stone from one use, because I had a lot of material to remove to get back to some ‘good stuff’. There’s probably a more suitable way of doing this, but the stone was all I had to use.

A couple of cheap large diamond stones, one coarse one fine or extra-fine to fast cut the edge back to being sharp enough for general use, then the whetstone/water stone for getting a final polish on the edge.
For quick touching up you can’t go far wrong with a Lansky four-stick sharpening set.
Very neat little wooden box with a hinged lid holding four round sticks, two brown coarse and two white fine, that sit in two pairs of angled holes, one pair at 20 deg and one at 25 deg. It puts a very good edge on some cheap Ikea kitchen knives, once I’d used diamond stones to restore a basic cutting edge.
https://www.heinnie.com/lansky-turn-box-4-rod

2 threads in one week. I think that’s done it.

Whetstone ordered.

stevied – Member
…hope I don’t screw up my knives.

Will be practicing on some old ones 1st

Where did you buy them from? How much?

Just enjoy sharpening your knives regardless of precision etc …

Flatten the stone(s) only if you have time otherwise sort it let it be.

I doubt you will be sharpening £300 knife so mess up does not matter much.

edit: also do check out TK Maxx because they have some at £14 each and quality is good too.

I’ve got a couple of whetstones in my kitchen drawer that I keep meaning to try out. Perhaps I’ll give them a go at the weekend as my knives need sorting out.

I got some proper serious knives for Xmas a few years ago, beginning to need more than the steel.. Fortunately I have some terrible old ones to play with first.

I bought a cheap 1000/4000 whetstone a year or two ago and find it pretty easy to get a decent sharp edge in the knives. Like stumpy though I find the curve too much tougher and need to find a better technique for that bit.
I find myself redoing the knives after 4-6 months now, a fairly quick process, 100 strokes per side on the 1000.

Stone is getting a bow despite my efforts to use it evenly. How do you flatten them? Is it worth it? eBay has dual stones from about £3.50. I can’t remember what I paid but it wasn’t more than a tenner iirc and my stone seems fine to me. I’d probably buy cheap and bin when worn.

Well, 30 mins on each knife and now very sharp. Takes a bit of trial and error to get the angle right but once you’re in the zone it’s quite easy to do.
Bought a 1000/4000 from Amazon for £20.
Might have to get a finer one to get a really good edge 😀