Following our recommendations will give you a good foundation of whetstones you can build on as you perfect your sharpening skills! Understanding whetstone grit levels can be a little confusing at first, especially when grit levels across the different stone types are not the same. A 200 grit diamond stone will cut differently from a 200 grit Waterstone. Our guide to whetstone grits and their levels will help clear up misconceptions and guide you to the best stones for your requirements.

This is where the best whetsones come in. While sharpening your knives is certainly a chore, it can be made easier with a solid, quality whetstone. Whetstones, which are also called sharpening stones, are the perfect DIY sharpening tool. Made out of a variety of materials like ceramics, aluminum oxide, or even diamond, a few swipes along one of these stones can restore your knives’ sharp, finely-tuned blades in no time at all. The whetstones that fall into this polishing category are stones that are of 4000-grit and above. The higher the grit number of the stone, the more the edge will be polished to a mirror finish. If you’ve ever done any research into blade sharpening you’ll have likely heard about the angle of the edge. Essentially the angle will determine how “pointy” the edge is — the smaller the angle the more pointy. Pointy edges are good for cutting things, but they’re not super durable. Conversely, less pointy edges aren’t as great for cutting things, but they are much more durable.Sharp Pebble is a well-known brand name in the whetstone industry and is the first choice for many people who sharpen their own knives. A: Whetstone is a general term for any sharpening stone, while waterstone specifically refers to a type of whetstone that requires water to act as a lubricant and to remove swarf (metal filings) during the sharpening process. When choosing whetstones, you need to balance cost, quality, and the number of stones and grits to maximize the efficiency of sharpening knives with this method. The recommendation is a fixing stone of 120-grit, a combination sharpening stone of 400/1000-grit, and a polishing stone of 6000-grit.

To add to my sentence from the previous section, to sharpen a knife you are scraping away metal from the knife with an abrasive at an angle. These stones are less aggressive and are used as part of the sharpening process to re-establish secondary bevels on the cutting edge.

A: Serrated knives require a different sharpening technique and tools like a rod-shaped sharpener that can get into the serrations. Flat whetstones are not ideal for serrated edges. The 400-grit stone will be used to re-shape the edge to the proper geometry, and the 1000-grit stone will refine the edge and restore the knife to a high level of sharpness.