Today I’ll be answering a reader question specifically about sharpening stainless steel knives. Let’s start by taking a look at the question I was asked first.
John’s Knife Sharpening Question
Well, I have one question. It’s a timeless one, so there must be lots of good answers.
Is there a best way to sharpen most any (non-serrated blade) stainless steel knife?
Carbon steel blades seem easy to sharpen. I once had a 440 stainless knife what would take an edge in an instant … and keep it for a while. But otherwise, for me, it’s pure guess work at whether 5, 10 or 15 minutes will produce a decent blade on any stainless knife (high dollar or cheap).
I have a nice set of 3 stones. I’ve tried various oils. The most effective technique seems to depend on pressure – LOTS OF IT! But still, after scores of years, I’m a complete novice at putting an edge on a stainless blade.
Our Response: Stainless Steel Knife Sharpening Tips
Howdy John! Excellent question. It really can be quite tricky to go from sharpening carbon steel to sharpening newer stainless steels like CPM S110V. While carbon steels are easily sharpened on Japanese waterstones or standard Arkansas stones, newer stainless steels frequently have high carbide forming allies like vanadium thrown in the mix, making them much more difficult to sharpen.
The trick is actually not in the technique you use, but rather it’s with the abrasive that’s being used to sharpen. Softer abrasives, like aluminium oxide stones, Japanese water stones, or Arkansas stones, are simply not abrasive enough to remove material and form an edge on modern stainless steels.
Ultimately, you have four options for sharpening when it comes to modern stainless steels:
Spyderco Endura 4 FFG Folding Plain Edge Knife – Amazon / Blade HQ
Different Ways to Sharpen Stainless Steel Knives
Option #1: Sharpening Stainless Steel with Diamond Based Stones
Sticking to stones is fine so long as you go with diamond based ones like DMT. They will sharpen pretty much any steel around, as no steel is as hard as diamonds.
With diamond stones, use very light pressure, as heavy pressure will cause the diamond layer to strip away (ask me how I know!).
Diamond stones can be quite expensive, but it’s is a method that you will be very familiar with going from sharpening carbon steel to stainless steel. It takes roughly 5-10 minutes to sharpen a stainless steel blade using this method.
Option #2: Sharpening Stainless Steel with Manual Systems
Your second option is to purchase a manual system that has preset angles, and offers diamond abrasives as an option. These manual sharpening systems range from (relatively) inexpensive Spyderco Sharpmakers, to fully loaded Wicked Edge/Edge Pro systems.
The Spyderco Sharpmaker is a classic for a reason, and in my opinion, a very intuitive system.
Wicked Edge/Edge Pro style systems are much more finicky, since they have so many more adjustments and parts. Of course, Wicked Edge/Edge Pro sharpeners are frequently used by knife aficionados to put really sick mirror edges on their customs, so keep them in mind if you’re looking for something like that. The level of sharpness and how clean the edge will look won’t be rivaled by much.
That being said, the financial investment is pretty high, and it does take a while to put an edge on using those systems (about 20 minutes).
The learning curve isn’t steep, though, you can definitely manage to put on a nice edge, even without much experience, though it will take a lot more of a time investment than if you were using a Sharpmaker (which would only take about 5-10 minutes).
Option #3: Sharpening Stainless Steel with Sandpaper
The budget option. Go to your local hardware store, purchase a bunch of silicon carbide sandpaper sheets, ranging from 60 to 1200 grit, and lay them on a very flat surface, a slab of marble will do. Whilst most sandpaper is aluminium oxide based, if you go for silicon carbide, the abrasive is hard enough to grind away even the hardest stainless steel. Obviously, an extreme low grit like 60 will form an edge much quicker than the standard 220/400 grit stones. Be aware that the initial edge will be very rough, and you will have to graduate to finer grits to get an acceptable, non-toothy edge. Of course, if you like a toothy edge for cutting material like cardboard, then just take the edge up to 200 grit and leave it at that! Expect around 5-10 minutes of work using low grit.
SOG S240 NW Ranger Hunting Knife – Amazon
Option #4: Sharpening Stainless Steel with Mechanized Systems
Your last choice is to take the nuclear option and go with a mechanized system for sharpening.
Personally, I use a full sized belt grinder, running 3M trizact belts, which will put an edge on Wolverine’s claws in 20 seconds flat.
You don’t need to go for a full 2×82 belt grinder, which can often be damn expensive. Instead, go for a 1×30 set up. Belts are easily available and cheap, and will last a good long time.
The speed at which you can sharpen a knife will really astound you, and if you’re interested, you may also be able to make your money back on the grinder by sharpening knives professionally on the side.
If you have any more questions, let me know in the comments and I’ll clear things up further!
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best lurning site i have found THANKS R.MAY
Sure you didnt get your recommendation backwards? Silicon carbide will sharpen plain carbon steel, wont touch stainless or rather be painfully slow doing it, you NEED either aluminum oxide or zirconium belts/paper. You can even get diamond belts, but serious overkill unless you are sharpening ceramic blades. I have one of the Harbor Freight belt sanders, was $30 shipped back when I got it, guess up around twice that at this point. Be aware these arent highest quality power tools out there. I had to replace the switch once and starting capacitor twice. Not expensive and you dont need to source original replacement parts, just find ones that meet specs of the original on capacitor (printed on side of capacitor) and I just found on off metal toggle switch to replace plastic one. The capacitors are pretty cheap, find best quality one you can.
The HF sander is fast but you do need practice since you are doing it freehand. You want uniform angle and sweep of blade. I just rounded up all the old junk knives I could find and practiced until I got good edge on wide variety knives, both size and quality. On cheap knives especially, you need to re-bevel them, if they were sharpened at factory at all, it was minimal and probably way too wide/shallow of an angle. The softer the metal the deeper/narrower the angle to get it to what I consider sharp, course on really cheap knives a sharp edge wont last that long. A medium quality knife (look for mention of vanadium or high carbon on label) will hold edge pretty well if you dont abuse it. most people seemed determined to abuse their knives. My favorite knife is not high end and can stay sharp nearly year with daily home use chopping veggies on maple cutting board. I keep it on magnetic strip, hand wash, and edge never touches anything but food and cutting board. A year’s sharpness with a very modest knife!!!! Now tell me again why I need some $300 knife from exotic steel? Is going 2 years without sharpening worth all that money? Cause all knives eventually get dull.
Oh I use coarsest aluminum oxide belt I can find, under 50 grit if possible to shape an edge from scratch, but work my way up through several grades and do final polish with 2000 grit. If you just need touchup, usually just 1000 grit and then polish with 2000 grit fine. I dont find going beyond that worth it on daily home use kitchen knives. You can strop with appropriate jewelers rouge (comes in different colors/grits) if you do want finer polish.
Silicon carbide is some of the hardest stuff imaginable, much sharper than AO- it will happily shred through stainless. I also recommend trizact belts as the best option for sharpening, keeps the edge nice and cool even at very low grits.
Hi, thanks for the very useful information, it certainly answered a few worries I had. I have no option here in Thailand but to go for the sandpaper method but… How do I actually use sandpaper to sharpen. i.e where to put the paper, strokes, amount of strokes. Please bear in mind I have put my marriage on the rocks trying to solve this. Not really, but you get the idea.
Thanks
Hugh
Thank for sharing! I found it hard to sharpen the stainless steel until i find out your articles! Thank agian!
You’re welcome Lita!
How about bench stones made from silicon carbide? are they no good for stainless steel blades?
Nothing wrong with them at all, I own and (to this day) use Silicon Carbide stones on my stainless steel blades. The Hapstone Gritomatic that I recently reviewed uses Silicon Carbide stones and it rocks.
I have several questions which I can’t find answers to. Hopefully you’ll be able to give me the answers I am seeking.
Is it best to use a grooved steel or a smooth steel for re-aligning blade edges?
Which is better to realign and finish blade edges with? A 1200 grit diamond sharpening stone which will re-align aand sharpen my blade edge. Or a steel to re-align blade edges. The steel will not sharpen my blade edges.
Great questions Richard, personally I don’t steel my knives as I like to put a slight convex micro bevel on the edge. I find this stops most instances of the edge rolling. I would say a smooth steel for mild application & grooved for more serious cases? I wish I could help you further in this instance but I honestly have only steeled a knife a handful of times in my life.
I would advise sharpening with a stone & finishing up with a strop (if you are so inclined), I wouldn’t steel a sharpened blade.
The only difference is that the steel which is made of steel, as opposed to ceramic or diamond coated, will not remove material from the blade while steeling (at least nowhere near to the extent that diamond or ceramic will; obviously it depends on the individual hardness). You seem to already have a good idea of what steeling is and how it is different from sharpening, so let me just give you an example of where you might want to use a typical honing steel. When a sharp edged tool sees a lot of rough/regular use, inevitably edge damage will occur. There are different types of edge damaging, chipping, fracturing (not specific to the edge), or rolling. Rolling is a type of edge damage that describes an edge that has been bent, dented in, or some other sort of plastic deformation. A rolled edge can be repaired with a honing steel, without the need for any grinding or polishing, thus (virtually) no blade material will be lost as a result of the repair process.
If you can get done what you need to get done with a regular honing steel, I’d go for that. It will save ware on your tools. A steel honing rod is a much gentler and more forgiving approach. As far as smooth vs ridged honing steels, I’m not sure it makes much of a differences. I don’t know what the purpose of the ridges is to be honest, but my guess would be that they add some gripping power to stop the steel from sliding to easily across the surface of whatever you’re steeling.
actualy i can not find something from Worksharp?! Yes, Grizzly is good but not actualy go-to stuff as small workshap!? And some sugestions about pocket stuff like WS field sharpener ! In my oppinion this is the best pocket sharpener for every porpose and all types of steel … much better than just dmt plates …
I don’t have much experience with pocket sharpeners, I will look into the WS Field Sharpener based on your recommendation and see if it performs well for me! The Worksharp has always interested me, especially the Ken Onion edition. I do see myself getting one in the future!
Thanks for the tips!
The good news is this works!
Now, there are lessons learned:
I ordered A30 grit belts, with equates to 500 grit. This may be OK to start a really dull blade, but it’s clear from the edges I’ve gotten (a bit ragged) in a few runs that the 800 ~ 1600 range will be much more appropriate.
For the interim, I may have to get a piece of fine grit crocus cloth which is easier to find than fine grit belts.
And, as the belt wears, it ought to be a bit less abrasive.
((Now, understand that I’m applying minimal pressure and making at most two passes on one side and one on the other. That does more than 5 minutes+ of really vigorous work with a stone.))
As I learn more, I’ll pass it on.
Bottom line for the present: all those stainless steel knives that have been driving me crazy … can now get an acceptable edge in about 10 seconds!!!!!!!
Hey John, Really glad it all worked out for you! I fully recommend this and this as they will really help you put a crazy edge on your blade. Thanks for dropping by again!
Along with any number of pocket carbide/ceramic sharpeners, I’ve used a Lansky Sharpening System to put the initial edge on all of my edged tools for about 15 years now. There’s no guesswork about whether or not I’m holding the it at the proper angle and you can move from a coarse grit up to an ultra fine pretty quickly.
My problem with set angle systems is the lack of flexibility when it comes to grinds like a full convex edges, that said the lanksy is proving to be very popular (based on all the recommendations from people here and on google+/twitter) maybe i’ll snap one up to see what all the fuss is about! ;)
Latest update: I’ve ordered the Harbor Freight belt sander and belts in two fineness ranges (seems A65 & 30, if memory serves). When they arrive and are used, I’ll give a full report. Two new lessons:
(1) There seems to be no pattern to which vendor has a decent range of belt size & grit options. Worse, their product descriptions are horrible … often just a part number with no statement of size or grit.
(2) The range of prices on belts is irrational! Some folks want $5 per belt, others want $9 for the same. Likewise for shipping: some are a flat $10, others vary with quantity ordered. The lesson (no surprise), It Pays to Shop Around!
Hobbyists like ourselves are a tiny market, most abrasive companies deal with industrial businesses so yeah we do tend to get screwed. Definitely shop around for the best price!
I’ve got a Spyderco Duckfoot, and a friend has lent me her Sharpmaker in the past. That’s a great solution, but I have two blades that will require a belt. I’d be happy to reimburse you for your time, Thomas…
Hey Peter! I’ll email you the address and Thomas will do them for you no problem (no reimbursement needed btw!).
Getting close here!
Here are two 1″x30″ belt sanders. If you look at the photos, they are astoundingly similar. But Grizzley is $71 and Harbor Freight is only $45. AND, Harbor Freight is always offering this or that general application discount coupon,
1 in. x 30 in. Belt Sanders
Central-Machinery – item #60543
Grizzly H3140 Belt Sander 1″ x 30″
They all seem to be made by the same manufacturer. Amazon has one for $49.99 here.
OK – here is some info THAT YOU MAY WANT TO VERIFY but seems to be vital.
The 3M Trizact belts are recommended for knife sharpening.
Trizact grit codes are non-standard.
Here are the codes: A16 = 1000 grit, A30 = 500 grit, A45 = 280 grit, A65 = 220, A100 = 150 grit
Apparently Norton Norax uses a similar code but with X vice A
I got this info at this site: http://www.supergrit.com/products/products_belts-Trizact
wide range of belts in 1″
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,43072&p=66268
I use Trizact belts exclusively, I would get the A65, A30 and A16. For the final sharpening get a hold of this and this to put a mirror finish on that edge. You will be amazed at the results.
Another good seller of belts is trugrit.com btw, I have used them for a few years.
Thomas,
Because I have lots of knives (kitchen, field, etc.), and like them constantly sharp, you sold me on the “nuclear option.” Thus, I’ve been searching for machine options (they abound), and fine grit belts. And belts via the internet are the problem!
As you can imagine, most people think of wood when they think of sand paper. Some of us who do auto body work understand truly fine grit such as up to 2000. But, try to find 400 or 2000 in belts. For that matter, try to find the available grits in any internet advertisement. (Ever heard of hen’s teeth?)
I didn’t even realize there were so many belt dimension “standards.” That is, you find a nice deal on a sanding machine, then try to find extra-fine grit media that will fit it.
Even the recommended Grizzly site* isn’t helpful … at least I’ve not broken the code.
Arrrrgh!
I’ll keep you posted.
Stay well,
John
* http://grizzly9-px.rtrk.ca/search/search?q=sanding%20belts
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PS Hmmm – just found 1×30 400 grit at Grizzly (PASCO NEW! T26635 1″ x 30″ A/O Belt 400 grit, 10 pk. $8.95), but nothing finer.
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Sometimes I wonder how I can have lived so long and remained so ignorant.
You’ve gone a long way in curing one facet of that ignorance.
As I said, I’ve used Arkansas stone sets; Norton water stones; in desperation, even files. You pretty much explained why (a) those didn’t work, and (b) if they did, why so much pressure was required.
Of your 4 options, I’ll probably go for BOTH numbers 1 and 4, in that order.
And, I do have one more category of questions regarding the belt sander method:
I’m assuming various grit sizes are available. Do I want to go with 200 ~ 400, etc?
Is there an optimum belt speed?
Is there an optimum pressure?
Do I still want to use staged, multiple “grinding” angles?
Thanks again for the splendid response.
Howdy john, glad to have helped. Regarding belt grits I would go with 400, 800 and 2000 for hair shaving sharp. I would stick to one continuous angle as belt grinders can hog steel of in little to know time so no need for micro adjustments. Light pressure is best as excessive pressure can cause the blade to heat up. Let us know how it works out for you.
Thanks again. It will doubtless take me some time to get the required tools/equipment. But I’ll give feedback.
Stay well,
John