What is better Arkansas stone or diamond steel for blade?

Answer 1

Everyone who sharpens knives has their own theory on the best tools and techniques so you are likely to get a differnet answer from everyone. From my experience this is what i have found: 1) natural stone is probably best for heavy duty sharpening where a lot of steel has to be removed quickly. Very coarse diamond stones create scratches that are too big and have to work harder to remove them 2) diamond stones are best for normal sharpening giving a good compromise between removing a lot of steel but not being to slow. Diamond stones have a major advantage over natural stone in that it always stays flat where the natural stones develop worn spots that makes controlling the edge angle more difficult 3) for polishing the edge (honing) nothing is better than ceramic. Ceramic is ultra hard and smooth and will polish an edge better than anything. Its only drawback is because it is so smooth it is slow to sharpen since it removes only a small amount of steel at a time my recomendation is if you have little time to become skilled at sharpening, and want a rugged almost unbreakable stone and a very fast sharpening time, then go with diamond and 3 different coarses (fine, medium and coarse). But if you want the very best edge and can spend some time practicing go with a coarse natural stone for initial sharpening, then use a medium and fine ceramic stone for producing that ultimate super sharp edge. With either method you would be doing good to use an ultra fine ceramic steel (round rod) to do touch up honing FYI: a stone and a steel are not the same thing. A steel is a round or oval rod that is usually ultra fine, and is not used to "sharpen". It is used to "roll" the edge back to shape after being used which causes a very thin edge to bend. Some steels have a bit of coarsness to give a very small amount of sharpening. Round rods that are coarse are not steels but stones that just happen to be rod shaped. Its called a steel because tradionally they were made from smooth steel.