Smith’s SK2 2 Stone Sharpening Kit – 5” Medium + 4” Fine Arkansas Stones + Honing Oil – Non-Slip Plastic Base – Outdoor Hunting, Pocket, + Buck Knife Sharpener

I bought this kit from Walmart about 10 years ago as my first sharpening kit, and finally wore out the medium stone. By wearing out, I mean the surface is now shaped like an ocean wave, and is now fairly unusable. Walmart has long since dropped this item, so I ordered a replacement from Amazon. It takes practice to get good with this kit, but once you do, you can't beat the results. The medium stone can be used to very quickly reset the edge of a knife or tool. It cuts faster and with greater control than a coarse file. However, you must keep it saturated with water or honing oil, and give it a quick, stiff scrubbing under running water with a stiff toothbrush after every few strokes to keep the pores from getting clogged. When you see a lot of metal mud accumulating on the surface, you should give it a scrub.If you look closely at the edge of your knife after using the medium stone, you will see it looks rough and scratched. Once you have a basic sharp edge with your preferred angle, you can use the fine Arkansas stone to put a gleaming, polished, mirror-like, razor-honed edge on your blade. The smoother and more polished you get the edge, the smoother it will cut. It is very important to keep the surface of the Arkansas stone well-lubricated with honing oil to keep the pores clean. If you see a lot of metal residue building, you should give it a scrub under running water, dry it, and re-lubricate. You should give both stones a good scrubbing with dish detergent after you are done with them. Use great care with the small stone if you must hone a knife longer than 6". I have successfully honed a 36" Katana with it, but I'd recommend a larger stone.The sharpening angle guide is only temporary to get you used to holding a constant angle. The angle it demonstrates is for durability over absolute razor-sharpness, and is suitable for general cutting. However, I like to use a slightly lower angle to attain greater sharpness. Whatever angle you use, consistency is most important.Pros:Superior results when used with skill.Angle Guide is good for learning.Good durability.Cons:Requires moderate practice to develop skill.Honing stone is small and unmounted.Requires frequent scrubbing/rinsing while in use.Not for Ceramic knives.Not for maintaining serration.

After using my Leatherman Wingman for probably about a year and a half or so, it started getting a bit dull. Having no prior experience sharpening knives, I brought it to someone I know who has about 40 years of experience sharpening his knives. Unfortunately, although it smoothed out some of the nicks, it never was as sharp as it was when it was new. So, I decided I needed to learn how to do it myself.Enter: this product. It's very inexpensive, in my opinion, for what you get, and if you're willing to work at it a bit, you can get a very nice sharp blade. My Leatherman Wingman knife blade is now about as sharp as it was when new. The instructions that come with this set are basic and mostly effective, but after reading through a few sharpening guides online, I determined that the guide that they include has a higher-than-optimal angle for the knife I have. I reduced the angle down to probably 15 degrees and now I can cut through packaging again with ease.One thing I've seen complaints about with sets like this is that the fine stone is smaller than the coarse stone which made sharpening with it difficult. While it is true that it is smaller, I found that I could set the fine stone on top of the sharp stone (which has an attached base) and it stayed put pretty well with no extra help and no extra danger to my fingers.I was also surprised at how little effort it took to put a nice edge on my knife. Even with the fine stone, it really does not take very long. After the first time doing it (when I was still figuring out how to do it properly), it probably would only take me 5-10 minutes to sharpen a knife now. This is not as difficult of a process as it sounds, and having everything in one place with this kit is quite helpful.

For a basic sharpening system this will do the job. The 600-grit stone in the yellow base will put a decent initial edge on a knife or other tool and the 1000-grit honing stone will finish the job. I put a nice edge on my regular pocket knife using them fairly quickly and tuned up one of my wood chisels with the fine stone, after which it peeled off a number of fine shavings from some scrap wood I had in my shop. The smaller stone fits into a recessed slot with a clip underneath the medium stone on the bottom of the holder so they can be kept together in storage.Since these are both oil and water stones that makes them more useful than other stones I've used. A couple of downsides are that the cheap plastic honing guide is really useless; there's no place to store it and it is difficult to keep in place when sharpening a blade. I'm not sure why it was even included. The small amount of honing oil is somewhat disappointing and I would rather have saved a bit of money and had them leave it out or include a larger bottle for a bit more cost.I would recommend this set for a beginner except that the fine stone has no safe way to hold it without exposing fingertips of an inexperienced sharpener. If there was a bracket that fit over the medium stone or something similar it would make it ideal for a beginner. There is nothing in the included instructions about how to safely hold it for the novice.

I keep this in my bushcraft/hiking backpack. It is nice to have if you need to touch up a blade quickly. I find the larger stone (the one connected to the yellow base) to be a little too course for most things but is still nice to have. The small fine grit stone that is stored underneath is decent and I can put a pretty good edge on most blades. The smaller stone is a little too small though, I would have preferred it to be the same size as the main (course) stone. But it does its job in a pinch. I have other stones at home that I do my real sharpening jobs with, but this is nice to keep in my pack.