Skerper sharpening stones: sharpen your stones in a traditional way

Types of sharpening stones

Sharpening stones can be divided into two categories. There are natural sharpening stones and synthetic sharpening stones.

Natural sharpening stones are made from natural materials. These stones are taken directly from a mountain and cut into straight pieces. Natural sharpening stones, like our Arkansas sharpening stones, remove little material at once. As such you have a lot of control over the sharpening process. Sharpening might take a little longer, the results are absolutely amazing. Synthetic sharpening stones are stones that are made from artificial sharpening material. The most common abrasives are ceramics (often aluminium oxide) or diamond. For ceramic sharpening stones all individual sharpening particles were combined to create one whole. The sharpening stones from our Basic and Professional collections are ceramic stones. Ceramic sharpening stones quickly remove material and provide you with great results.

The surface of diamond-coated sharpening stones consists of thousands of synthetic diamonds. These sharpening stones quickly remove material as well. However, the sharpening results are a little less sharp than when using a fine ceramic sharpening stone or natural sharpening stone.

Grain size

Sharpening stones come with different grain sizes. The higher the grain size, the finer the stone and the sharper the results. Which stone you need depends on the state of your knife. Are your knives blunt or even damaged? If so, you need a coarse sharpening stone (up to approx. grain 300) to quickly restore the edge of your knife. Afterwards you use a sharpening stone with a higher grain size to ensure your knife will become as sharp as it was before!