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It has been a while since i have been active in here ;), had a lot on my plate, had to almost completely give up making charcoal this summer made a single batch with my new retort :b just got to glue the insulation to it and find a shell to protect it from rain and water :P. But My body has completely broken down.. i have constant pains and aches and cannot work at the forge because i am too heavily medicated (opioids and cannabis is the only thing keeping me sane a long side muscle relaxers...) So i have moved to stock removal by hand, i cannot trust myself around power tools and fire anymore.. at the ripe old age of 28 my body is as far gone as a person in their mid 70s -.-.. Now the main thing : I have started to live a life with a lot of seafood in the form of sushi i make myself with safe fish(mainly tuna and salmon but planning on maqurel soon if i can find some safe stock), and now i find myself in need of some other type of sharpening aids, i have a set of synthetic stones 500 grit 3000,6000 and 5000/8000 and a natural very hard mystery stone i think is way past 8k since the finish take forever to develop but is mirror like. But now i just ordered a yanagiba 270mm and a 180 mm deba for cutting fish ^^ but i kind of want to switch to a more "traditional" way and i like the way the few japanese stones i worked on was. But where do you buy a good set or single japanese natural stones for sharpening kitchen knives ? softness around level 2 to 3 not as hard as my stone for honing razors. I know they are costly and that is why i do not want to buy a fake one I know there are perfectly good synthetic stones on the market, but i am not interested - just dont like the look of them to be honest :b

As mentioned in my safari knife thread the design called for a scandi grind at 13 degrees so I made a jig to do that but the final sharpening after the heat treat was a bit of a chore and the first one seemed to take forever There is a New Zealand made sharpening system called the scary sharp that will make it much easier to sharpen the (relatively) long face of the scandi grind and by finishing with the hardest stone which feels almost like marble it will leave a polished grind that will contrast nicely with the 600 grit hand finish I take the rest of the blade to. At 14lb this is not some light weight offering and at NZ$510 it is not cheap but it is very precise and extremely effective so worth the expence to be able to send knives off that are not only scary sharp but also very accurately sharpened which I was finding was not necessarily the case doing it by hand and by eye. http://www.scarysharp.co.nz/

So, I some time ago got myself a double sided diamond stone, been trying sharpening with it a bit, it's going okay, though maybe I need a bit more patience. Anyways, What's the proper technique to use? Some tell you to do a slicing motion on top of the stone, which has done alright for me. Some tell you to do a back 'n forth motion, which has given me the best edges so far. And some tell you to do a circling motion, which I have found quite bothersome as the hilts of some knives seem to get in the way.

Hey Guys, Really new to blade making and i am chasing a bit of advice. I'm making a knife with a convex edge and i seem to be having a lot of trouble sharpening it. I guess the question how long should it take me/ how to i know when the edge is sharp/fine enough to move on to a finer grit sandpaper. I am working on the edge with 180grit wet and dry wrapped around some leather. I just have no idea how sharp/fine I should be able to get it and how to test it before moving to a finer grit. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks