Committed

It's official.

I'm a BIG fan of the DMT stones and freehand sharpening.

As a matter of fact, I put away ALL of my other sharpening equipment this morning.

It's not going away but it's going to be out of sight and out of mind as I reach for a sharpener.

What I kept out includes my DMT DuoSharp 10X4" stone, a JRE strop, a red Sharpie, and two 11X2" DMT single grit stones (Coarse and Fine?)

I have been working with the DMT stones because the belt sander, my first choice for speed and ease of use, could stop working during a power outage and I like knowing that I have equipment that I've used and can use well versus having something that I'd need to learn under duress.

I don't really have a ton of free time these days but I find the time spent working over the stones to be very relaxing and it allows me to focus on one task for a short time. The mechanics are simple but they're also easy to screw up so doing this without distractions is, for me, fairly important.

Along with the stones and strop, I also keep a protractor handy to help me visualize angles to make adjustments to the knives in case I get an edge too thick or too thin.

At the end of the day, it's the speed with which the DMT stones work that makes me such a huge fan and the fact that it'll chew up S30V and 3V all day long while other stones may balk a bit at such hard steel.

The funniest part of this project this morning is the laundry basket full of sharpening gear that has migrated upstairs for tuning up the kitchen knives on a regular basis. I've got pieces of leather, mouse pads, a stack of sandpaper, ceramic sticks, a Sharpmaker, Home Depot paint sticks with various things glued to them, Norton Waterstones, oil stones, and even a smooth steel and the Fallkniven Diamond and Ceramic sticks.

I hope moving to the DMT stone doesn't cause excessive wear and tear on the stone. As I recall, it was expensive--but worth it.

Thanks for reading,


B