How to chose a sharpening stone

Sharpening stones have a grit value. It's pretty easy to match this grit value to your needs on the basis that the lower the number, the rougher the stone, and the more material it will remove.

A rough stone of under 1000 grit will remove the most material so is usually used to repair or re-profile a damaged knife. If starting on a stone of this nature, you will want to move to a medium and fine stone afterwards to ensure the edge is refined and smoothed out to give the best performance. 


A medium grit stone, typically 1000 to 3000, is usually the first stone you'll use if the knife is very dull, but not damaged. These stones remove enough material to restore the cutting edge and get the knife sharp and then should be finished on a fine stone to clean and polish that edge to a superb finish.

A fine stone, typically 4000 to 8000 grit, is used for finishing the edge. If the knife is already sharp but you want to give it a little extra oomph then you can just use a fine stone. If you are using rougher stones for a blunter knife or repair then you will want to finish on a fine stone to refine the edge.

We recommend a double sided stone so that you have access to a fine and a rougher stone to cover more of your requirements. These are typically around 1000 and 6000, so you start on the 1000 and finish on the 6000 giving the knife a fantastic edge. Please see our Stones range.