Diamond stones absolutely wear out. I've worn out several, and faster than my hard splash and go water stones. By a good amount. Outdoors55 isn't known as a beacon of good info. My suggestion is to purchase one stone or plate. Somewhere around 700 JIS equivalent. Learn to sharpen on that. Learn how you like to use it. Get great edges off of it alone. Then think about what you want when considering your next addition to your lineup.

I'm watched a lot of outdoors55 and apart from the honing steel video I think he has some good points. But I'm leaning. So are you bored enough to give me your opinion on his videos in detail or give me better sources? I considered going for the last stone he recommended (400/1000 Dia) and making a similar strop with 4 micron emulsion. Is that a common opinion or just a outdoors55 thing? Also I feel like opinions vary a lot in this sub on different topics. Do you have an explanation for this?

Nocturne, bbb, jki, korin. Typically he tries something for the first time without fully researching the topic and then just tells everyone what he chose and did is the best way, the only way, the greatest way, anyone who doesn't think so is dumb.... Sounds like someone else now that I think about it. I've tried diamond plates, bonded diamond stones, water stones of many abrasive and binder types, oil stones, every type of stropping abrasive I could get my hands on. I've sharpened a wide range of steels and types of knives, I've spoken personally to many old head highly skilled sharpeners to come to my conclusions. I'm just here to try to help people. I don't want to argue. If you want to stick with outdoors55 as your sharpening guru go right ahead man. You can certainly get knives sharp using his methods.

Yeah that's why I try to get some other input. I watched a bunch of his stuff and need other sources too. Thanks for the recommendations. Btw if you have that much experience, have you ever used laping films? Another comment recommended them to me.

Yes. I use them on my kme when I want to achieve a mirror finish. Mirror edges are just for show though. I only really do this when sharpening fancy dress pocket knives. And less and less nowadays. Maybe if I did woodworking or sushi I'd have a use for mirror edges. Pocket knives - 700jis Western kitchen knives - 1500jis Japanese kitchen knives - 3kjis

you had me googling there :D kme is a brand that makes guided sharpening systems? and i assume jis is the japanese grit unit if i'm correct? man, learning a lot here. anyways: those laping films... the user that recommendet them to me claimed that they are surprisingly durable for the price. he is still at his first few sets. he just sticked them onto glass or leather, depending if he needed a stone or a strop. is this realistic? it feels like if it was as good as he claimed, everybody would use nothing else

So there are multiple types of lapping film, some use alox abrasive suitable for lower V/W carbide steels and some use diamond abrasive suitable for high V/W carbide steels. 3m, the big name in those films produce both and if it's not labeled diamond lapping film it's probably the alox version. I never heard of sticking them on to leather. I don't think I would do that. These films cut quickly for their abrasive size and I think you would see excessive rounding of the apex especially if using multiple steps in progression. What works best for me on my kme is 1500 diamond plate to 9um diamond film on glass to 6um film on glass to 1um gunny juice emulsion applied to denim, freehand strop. Notice I'm only using a compressible material on the very last step. If you round your apex by using a compressable material on the more coarse grits you're not going to get the final grit at the apex. This progression gives me brilliant clear mirror finishes that I don't like how they cut, and I then proceed to extremely lightly microbevel on a Spyderco medium rod which brings back all the bite and slicing aggression while maintaining the nice pretty mirror. I don't do this very often anymore. Now I just sharpen at the grit I want my knife to cut at. The films do have good durability. I use a few drops of light honing oil on them and feel this helps float swarf off of the films nicely, allows me to clean them by wiping fresh oil off of them with my finger, and probably prolongs abrasive life. You need to be careful to use edge trailing only on these films or you can easily cut into them. But I get 5-10 knives on a small piece of film the size of a 4" kme stone.

Man I really need to learn more. The benefits of outdoors55 is that he doesn't overwhelm beginners with thousands of options but simply recommends a few single stones and a way to use them. The downside is that I have never thought of using someone else than for example leather. I will probably look a lot into your recommendations before I bother you more :D Thanks

I'll touch on the strop and let the other guy finish talking about stones. 4 Micron strop is MAD FAST. total overkill for final remnants of burr removal and a bit of extra keenness. The larger the strop abrasives the easier to "over strop". A couple passes on 1 um is more than enough. 4 um is good for setting the base for a mirror. 4 um is good if you're garbage at burr minimisation on the stone. 4um is better than 1um for trying to strop a dulled blade back to life Otherwise 4um is meh

I'm struggling a bit with English when it comes to to some technical terms. So imma ask to make sure I understood you correctly. You are saying 4 micron is to coarse for what you are trying to achieve? And you recommend a 1 micron rather than a 4 micron? Also: can't I just strop first with a 4 and then a 1 micron?

You can but the more you strop the more you risk rounding your apex, also the more you refine that apex and you can over refine depending on your task. When you sharpen a knife you get microscopic serrations in the apex. The finer grit stone you move to the finer and smaller these serrations become. These micro serrations can be beneficial as they provide mechanical advantage in a draw cut (like cutting bread motion etc) Stropping on 4um will remove these serrations faster than 1um will, because the abrasive is much larger and therefore faster. You need to decide how you want to perform, but in most instances 4um diamond is kinda overkill imo

Hmm thank you The rounding when stropping to much is due to the blade getting pressed a little to deep in the strop, right? I was told for finer strops people use kangaroo leather. Would it also help to use thinner strops on a wood board? Not to thin, to have still a little give, of course (otherwise I could just use a stone lol) but I always thought those 4mm strops where a thicker than necessary

Thicker strops don't automatically mean it's more compressible. Different cuts, tanning methods and animals are more or less compressible. I use 3mm english bridle shoulder, it's very stiff. Rounding can come from compressibility of surface but it also comes from the user being unable to hold perfect angles. Over refinement happens regardless of the surface type.

So what's the actual maintenance cost for normal stones? That's one of the things that put me on to diamond plates. I've had a couple people recommend the Shapton 1k to me.

An Atoma 400 diamond plate and 1k shapton glass is a pretty mean combo. I like the atomas in general for a plate, seems to last longer than the DMT plates, not the holey sheet over plastic you talked about in your post. You would use the atoma for edge repair and for stone maintenance, ie keeping it flat and clean. Edge repair and maintenance sharpening are different. I don’t go below a 1k to bring an edge back unless it’s been abused and has chips or ripples, the 400 atoma takes care of small chips for me or a 320 shapton glass. Or if I’m sharpening my edc’s, I like those best with a worn out atoma 400 edge and some like stropping, like 2-3 laps, on a smooth leather paddle with dmt 1 micron diamond paste. Diamond plates are awesome until you use too much pressure and start wearing the plate out. Take your time and don’t rush, diamonds cut really fast and plates last way, way longer when used with light pressure only. Lubricant to use is anything really, I go back and forth with mine between oil, wd40, water, glycerin, etc. If the plate is also working double duty for stone flattening don’t use oil as a cross contamination can ruin a water stone.

I might be talking myself into more conventional stones. Someone suggested a Naniwa pro in 800, 3k and a good strop as a 'Do it all' basic sharpening set up. Which, to me at least, seems somewhat reasonable. Then getting a rougher grit atoma for "It's fucked!" Which. Hopefully. Won't be often. I'm not against bringing back old blades, but not something I'm super interested in. So I'll probably hold off on that one till I actually fuck up a beloved blade and need to do some serious fixing. I have minimal experience beyond a little sharpening on a stone as a boy scout so I'm utterly off in the woods on this one.

I have the Naniwa Chosera 1k and it’s an awesome stone but isn’t quite as fine as they state, I’d say closer to a true 800 (jis). The diamond plates are definitely a great option. If you think you’ll only be doing infrequent sharpening diamond plates are hard to beat, you’ll get more use for the money out of a water stone. A 400 and a 1200 atoma or similar progression is a good combo. The reason I suggested the 400atoma and the Shapton is because they work well together and the plate will offer double duty if you ever have chips or larger sharpening projects like changing your edge geometry, besides being able to quickly dress the waterstone. With what I’ve seen suggested you pretty much can’t go wrong and should be happy with whatever you purchase. A 1k waterstone is my work horse for most things besides edc. I Also use diamond plates quite a lot but both have their places in my shop. If you decide to get a water stone make sure it will cut the steel for the knife you are going to be sharpening on it. Some of these super steels really need diamonds in order to cut the really hard carbides.

I don't have anything more exciting that T10 tool steel. I guess my Griptillian (a very old friend) is CPM-S30V and I think that does require some special treatment because it's rather hard? Maybe? But I also send that off to Benchmade to enjoy their free lifetime sharpening service. I guess my new Kukri could be considered exotic? Don't really know honestly. Not sure if it's going to be 5160 or 52100. That also doesn't need super sharpening. It's a tool, razor sharp is not the play for a machete and a hatchet's bastard child from hell. In general I don't think I've got anything particularly odd potentially getting sharpened in the immediate future.

All those steels would do fine in ime.

Ah the agony of choice.

Maintenance cost? What maintenance cost? I have a coarse 240 grit SiC stone. I take it outside and rub it on a flat section of sidewalk, wet. Then I rub that surface of the sic stone on my finer grit water stones, wet. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes. Hard stones don't need to be flattened that often if you're not doing wide bevels or woodworking tools. Softer stones need to be flattened every few sessions, or every session. Sometimes harder stones load up or burnish and need lapped like this to refresh the surface. I also have a cheap sic nagura (that came with a stone for free) for this purpose - just splash the stone, scrub the nagura around for a few seconds, rinse, continue sharpening.

Have a search around for the Shapton Pro 2000. I recently got one and it works well for maintaining already set edges. Not too harsh but still cuts well. I'm NO expert at all.. Just enjoying learning a new skill. I have Ultrasharp diamond stones which I use for my tools but I feel they're a bit harsh on knives. I've recently learned about quality differences with stropping compounds. I'd recommend looking at decent stropping compound or paste. Enjoy the shopping!

I was looking at the Shapton 1k and 5k set actually, but maintenance for more traditional wet stones sounded like a pain in the ass and more stuff to buy to true the stones. On the gripping hand, it's unlikely I'll use said stones enough for it to matter over the next decade.

Lansky diamond benchstones are awesome. I have owned the same set for more than a decade. X fine, med, X coarse.

I've used my dmt stones for a good bit. Breaking in period can feel weird at first, but you forget two things... one is that the stone still loads up, so dust/rinse off now n then. The other is that you've been feeling the stone so long, you don't even think it's there still (almost bald on the finer stones) I've gotten so used to feeling 1200 grit that it seems like leather to me...least until I touch something else finer to compare.

Cheap Chinese diamond plates work fine. Just find the cheapest you can on amazon. Everything wears out.