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I use the diamond plates for my woodworking tools, like hand plane blades. A medium grit and then a very fine grit, followed by a leather stop with jeweler's rouge on it. For the knives, I skip the jeweler's rouge.
If a fellow is going to use stones or the diamond plates for a knife blade, it's important to equally work both sides of the blade. Also important is to find, through experience, a consistent angle of blade to stone. I believe that one of the biggest problems people have when being unsuccessful with stones is that the don't have a consistent angle of blade to stone. That problem is removed from the equation if one buys a sharpening 'system'.
And, as earlier mentioned, the blade steel really matters. For the last 4 or 5 years, I've carried a folding Gerber (I live in the country and always carry a pocketknife). It would take a great edge, but I'd lose the edge pretty fast doing ranch stuff. Just recently I bought a folding Benchmade 4 inch blade pocketknife. Wow, that's good steel. The Gerber would have been dull by now, but the Benchmade is still dangerously sharp. I sharpened it anyway yesterday, using some small diamond plates, and leather. Took me a bit to find the edge angle, but once I did, I got a super edge.
How all this works is that with the coursest stone you get a wire edge. Go to the next finer stone and the wire edge is still there but finer. The eventual remaining wire edge, almost non existent, will be removed by the strop. Then you will have two mirror edges on the blade and no wire edge.
If a fellow is going to use stones or the diamond plates for a knife blade, it's important to equally work both sides of the blade. Also important is to find, through experience, a consistent angle of blade to stone. I believe that one of the biggest problems people have when being unsuccessful with stones is that the don't have a consistent angle of blade to stone. That problem is removed from the equation if one buys a sharpening 'system'.
And, as earlier mentioned, the blade steel really matters. For the last 4 or 5 years, I've carried a folding Gerber (I live in the country and always carry a pocketknife). It would take a great edge, but I'd lose the edge pretty fast doing ranch stuff. Just recently I bought a folding Benchmade 4 inch blade pocketknife. Wow, that's good steel. The Gerber would have been dull by now, but the Benchmade is still dangerously sharp. I sharpened it anyway yesterday, using some small diamond plates, and leather. Took me a bit to find the edge angle, but once I did, I got a super edge.
How all this works is that with the coursest stone you get a wire edge. Go to the next finer stone and the wire edge is still there but finer. The eventual remaining wire edge, almost non existent, will be removed by the strop. Then you will have two mirror edges on the blade and no wire edge.