How do you sharpen your edges?

[Patrick Chase]

I use diamond plates and then I finish on a Spyderco ceramic stone. I tried one of the extra-fine diamond plates but I found that it didn't leave the fine polish that I was after--the edge was still a little scratchy. After some research I found that a lot of these stones had "rogue diamond particles" that were bigger than the rest, and since it's a diamond stone they don't wear down.

The "rogue particle" problem is specific to the nickel electroplating process that's used to bind the diamonds to most plates. Loose diamonds don't have that problem, nor do resin-binder options like the Shapton flattening plate or the various diamond films (though don't use a Shapton plate on metal, ever. The resin binder won't hold up under that sort of usage).

You might therefore want to give diamond paste and/or lapping films a try. They both leave very uniform scratch patters, provided you stick to high quality, tightly graded pastes/films. In my experience they're the fastest sharpening option there is, and the best for difficult alloys and carbide tools.

The lowest startup cost option is the 3M 668X PSA lapping film that LV resells. You can get those for less in 25-sheet inners from other suppliers, but LV's prices are hard to beat for small quantities.

One other piece of advice: Stick to glass as your substrate when using diamond films. Granite surface plates have texture that "telegraphs" through the film at fine grits. Ditto for machined metal plates, unless they've been thoroughly lapped.