20 Best Whetstones For Knife Sharpening (2023 Updated)

I’ve used the fine grade (red) stone for sharpening kitchen knives. It’s had nearly ten years service now and still does the job as well as the first day. Produces a good, lasting quickly edge with relatively little practice.

I just use water as a lubricant (works fine) which means cleaning is also easy: wash the slurry off under cold, running water then dry carefully and store in a dry place. I’ve never used on woodworking tools and not sure I would: the stone is quite small.

So I think using a honing guide and/or free-handing a plane blade any wider than No. 3 would be difficult. Have rated 4 out of 5 primarily for the size limitation. It also tends to slide about the worktop a bit (and the rubber feet are a bit prone to popping out).

But can’t fault it for knives and probably fine for smaller tools too.

I had a plane blade that I had been rubbing on a coarse oilstone for many hours, finally gave up and bought this diamond whetstone; the blade was ready to finely sharpen after about half an hour with this.

Unlike other diamond whetstones I’ve tried, there was no sign at all of the diamonds coming loose, even when the sharp front of the blade tried to dig in. Well worth paying the extra for.

Product is great! You can really hear it sharpening when you run your knife over the diamond surface. I bought the fine sharpener. Since I keep my knives sharp all the time, I should have bought the super fine or finer sharpener instead.

But the fine is a good buy and good sharpener.

I purchased this product three days ago at a local Bass Pro. I used the manufacturer’s online tutorial to learn how to use the product. The online tutorial is excellent. I watched it three times. With a just a little trial and error I was finally able to sharpen three very dull kitchen knives.

I am satisfied with this purchase and recommend it.

I think I’m going to really like this. It’s a first for me, so I’ve watched the YouTube video several times and tried it on some old knives for practice. It appears to be a matter of learning a new movement.

I really like the stone and it’s bench. Grips the counter, holds water, and offers 2 angle guides (which for me, are very necessary). Practice tillI get it!.

First time using this type of sharpener. Easy to get a good edge. Needs to stay wet for most effectiveness, so get it wet after one or two knives if you’re going to sharpen a handful of knives.

The DMT line of sharpeners are built with quality. They also perform like an expensive sharpener providing simple to achieve sharp edge with put removing too much. No chance for damaging an expensive knife with the manual sharpening.

No concern for me but the method does take time. As I want sharp and no chance of damage possible with an electric sharpener removing too much blade.

The fold up handle works nicely. It protects the surface from abuse when not in use, and also keeps one from being accidentally punctured. I’ve used it to sharpen and dress some of my cutting tools that have small hard to reach areas, and it easily brought their cutting edges back to where they cut as they were designed.

Very satisfied with my purchase.

I use different grids of Dia-Fold sharpeners to sharpen our own and Friends’ breadknives. They are the only decent sharpeners for that purpose which I have ever found.

Excellent product, just like old DMT things are. I bought this as a replacement for the very inferior Axminster version and I’m exceptionally happy with this diamond stone. I mostly use it for sharpening kitchen knives.

It gets the job done extremely well and very quickly.

This is the second DMT Knife Sharpener that I have owned and love them. This one has two sides, a course and a fine. The handles close over the sharpener and it can then be carried in your pocket, which comes in handy when at a hunting camp.

The first one I bought will now sit by my kitchen sink for a quick touch up of knives as I wash them and this new one will go with me to the hunting camp. These things are great and easy to use. No oil or anything else to use on them.

Just wipe them with water and they are ready to go.

This is a product that I saw used on Alaska the last frontier. It was not named or discussed but they used it numerous times and that’s what lead to my search and ultimate satisfaction , I bought the blue coarse one as well as the Red medium.

My Bro in-laws also liked them as well as my son-in-law. My son and daughter also liked the product. They are truly an excellent product and make great gifts.

As a HEMA swordsman and keen bushcrafter a good sharping system is essential and I have a few sharping systems at home – the Fallkniven DC4 Diamond Ceramic Sharpening Stone has to be the best infield portable system I have ever used.

Pocket friendly and more than effecent to keep my edges keen. I have used it in axes, swords, knives and just about ever steel type without complaint. I wouldn’t recommend it for re-profiling but for touch ups and honing it’s a ten out of ten from me.

Do yourself a favour and buy one you won’t regret it. Rob.

For the price this is a deal but don’t expect you will hone any fine razors with it. This stone is described as having “Medium” and “Fine” sides but I would rate the grit grade as “Coarse” and “Coarser.

” If you have a shattered edge on an axe or machete—or even a badly chipped pocketknife blade—you can do some fast reshaping with this stone. But you’ll be reaching for a lot finer stones after you’ve ground away the chips or other big boogers.

Also, it’s impossible to keep a film of oil on this stone—it drinks it like a thirsty camel drinks water. I suspect this stone will wear fast, but it is about 15% of the price of the Smith’s stone you’ll probably use for finishing your edge.

So buy 2 or 3.

I was restoring some hand planers and needed to shape and sharpen the irons. A quick trip to HF and found this stone. It comes as just the two-sided stone, no case, holder, etc. I was able to build a quick roughed out block to hold it in, and got to work.

This stone was pretty flat right out of the package, but I flattened it a little further. It took the flattening really well on both sides and made a great surface for sharpening my planer irons. My planers are running great after some time on this stone with perfectly smooth cuts.

This will get the job done, but the medium grit side especially is like chalk when you take an edge to it, it just crumbles. I guess you could call it a feature (?) – you’ll never have the stone clog up with metal shavings even if used dry since the surface is constantly rubbing off.

I sharpened one axe with it and there’s already a very noticeable indentation in the stone. I think it would be best used to sharpen large tools that don’t need a great edge like shovels and beater axes, especially when you’re in the field and don’t want to mess around with an oil stone.

Honestly I think you’d be better off to spend more and get something that’ll last beyond a few uses.

I received the Wusthof Tri-Stone sharpener as a birthday gift recently. The three whetstones have a great mix of grit and work very well. The squeeze bottle is a bit unnecessary as the stones work best if you soak each side in water for a good while before using.

The base is very stable when in use and the tri-stone sits in it securely. I do worry a bit that the stain may begin to wear off after continued contact with water, but I suppose that is to be expected.

After my first use on all three stones I was able to use my 8′ Wusthof Classic Chef Knife to cut right through a piece of paper I was holding in midair. I’d say that’s a success.

I bought these stones because I purchased a used set of Classic Wusthof knives that were way beyond sharpening on a steel. I have used oil Arkansas stones in the past, but never used water stones. I found these very efficient in sharpening the forged steel blades and within no time have the knives razor sharp.

The stones do wear quickly but if your knives are sharpened with a steel in between usage you really won’t need the stones very often. I was very impressed with the job that the stones did and for the money would recommend them to anyone that wants their knives kept sharp.

I decided to just jump right in to home sharpening with these and found that right off the bat I got my knives razor sharp. I started with knife I didn’t really care about that much in case I screwed it up.

But, I didn’t – it was actually easy. Very relaxing actually to listen to the sound of the knife on the stone. If you watch a few videos online including Bob Kramer’s you’ll naturally find the right angle and be able to get your knives razor sharp – it just kind of falls into place, but you can use the reference tools like pennies and matchbooks and some other plastic guides that you can find online to train your hands into the right angle.

Just start slow and easy and build. I didn’t push down with the 8lbs of pressure at first, I gradually built that up until I was more comfortable with the motions. You’ll see that people on line have a lot of different techniques.

I kind of mix and match depending on the blade style. Anyway, it just works – And, you won’t f-up your knives that have a bolster in them using one of those old pull through machines that doesn’t sharpen to the heel of the knife and end up with a sway.

Technically you could probably grind this down and I did on a smaller knife using the 400 grit stones, but had a shop with a grinder take out the curve before using the stones on my larger knives. If you go to Kramer’s website you can buy other stones that are lower and higher in cut.

I don’t have any comparison for these stones but they work well. My only tip is to make sure you get the burr and then do the fast and lighter pulls at the end of each stage. I believe that this this gets rid of the burr at the end of each stage.

I use this on the kitchen counter with a towel underneath the holder. I use a spray bottle full of water (I use purified because I have lots of minerals in my water and use the water for other tasks) to keep the stone wet and it works great.

I don’t end up with too much of a mess at all. The eraser stone works awesome and the stones look fresh after each use. Per the peeps at Kramer, you do need to buy a flattening stone as all stones, even with careful use will get a bit of a curve in them.

I also got the stropping block which is recommended as well. The peeps at Kramer also recommend a ceramic honing rod in between sharpenings. I don’t know if they are recommending to spend $ or not, but the whole system is working.

To summarize, my knives have never been sharper, even taking to a local professional sharpening place that does them for chefs. Obviously you can use these on pocket knives, etc. The tip of my knives get sharpened a little more up the blade than you get from someone using a grinder, I’m not sure if that’s technique or a function of hand sharpening.

The only problem with these is that if you are into making things awesome, you can become obsessed with having razor sharp knives and find yourself pulling out the stones at random times to see if you can’t get them any sharper.

Yes, they are not as inexpensive as most stones out there, but that is for a reason. The second you touch your blades to the stones you can tell the difference. These are truly exceptional and you won’t be disappointed.

The 5000 grit stones is so smooth, yet you can see the metal coming off when using it. The wooden bridge/holder is well made and does not shift or move when using it. I am very happy with my purchase.

These are fine but I have some issues with the whole setup and after some use I have spotted a defect (I’m well past the return window but I ‘ll contact Zwilling to report the issue). So first off, there’s a learning curve, so I’ve taken my time to judge the product.

Definitely watch the instructional video (online or on the included disk). The bridge does not work with a lot of rounded edge sink designs so it’s best to just put it on a damp dishtowel on the counter.

The defect is in the finishing stone, which has a little lump in it that actually nicks the blade as I’m trying to finish it off so I have to veer to one side to avoid it. Honestly the #400 is a finer grit than a lot of #400 sharpening stones I’ve felt, so I think it takes more passes to actually sharpen.

Overall I do like the product, but I’m not thrilled there’s a defect I didn’t notice at first. For this price, this product should be flawless.

The product was received as advertised. However, the length turned out to be a bit shorter than previous whetstone purchase locally. Nevertheless, it still does a great job. The attaching stand works well.

Having dealt with this company before, the product was of the expected quality at a reasonable price.

Made so much different on sharpening all knives, it has different feeling compared to cheap ones

After reading that the only way to sharpen quality knives was with Japanese water sharpening stones I looked for somewhere I could buy these locally at a reasonable price. Found the Everten site, prices were OK & it was really easy to order & pay.

Delivery about 2 business days later. Quality of the product is excellent. I did realise after reading the instructions & using the also purchased angle guides that I had previously been using the wrong angle in previous attempts.

Knives are now razor sharp.

The ceramic water sharpener works great! I don’t regularly sharpen knives, and I’m not a knife expert, but this made not so sharp knives very sharp within a few seconds.

I used the sharpener and never could get the edge on the knife I wanted. I went back to my old diamond edged sharpener 600 grit. Got the knives sharp. I then tried to put better edge on with the whetstone.

The knife was duller after I used the whetstone. It went from shaving hair to not shaving hair Not a good sharpener.

Purchased this knife sharpener and we are glad we did. It works amazing. The tutorial on the website also helped a lot. On top of being functional this looks beautiful in our kitchen. Recommend it for sure.

To maintain sharpness of your premium knives nothing can replace the use of a good quality whetstone. The 1000/6000 grit sold by knivesetcetera is all you will ever need. The tutorial that comes with it makes you able to maintain the sharpness of your knives even if you have never done it before.

The #1000 grit side is used to return a dull blade edge to sharpness. At this point, it’s perfectly fine to start using the knife. What you paid for in buying this stone though, is the #8000 grit “finishing” side, which adds a whole new level of experience in knife sharpness.

This side of the stone will polish the cutting edge into a mirror finish and enhance the sharpness of the blade. With this combination stone I was able to make my Global Sai knives sharper than they came out of the factory.

Now with just the weight of the knife and pulling to slice, my chef and vegetable knives glide through most fruit, veges and meat in one stroke. A word of warning for the unfamiliar, at #8000 grit, don’t expect to feel the typical burring you get from sharpening on a coarser grit.

I use my eyes to determine when the blade edges are polished evenly enough. The stones will get marked as your blades get sharpened on them, which I think is good as this tells you the stones are working on your blades.

As a best practice, one should always be cleaning and re-flattening the whetstones after each knife is sharpened. Which leads me to deducting 1/2 a star. After working on several knives for practice and cleaning/flattening, I’ve found that the #1000 grit surface wears down MUCH faster than the #8000 grit.

Once it wears out, you’ll have to get yourself another #1000 or medium grit stone, #8000 grit is much too fine grit to restore a dull edge in a realistic amount of time.

The plastic case is designed to hold the stone when you use it. It has good rubber feet on one side. But it you put the stone in this side the lid can not fully open so you can not use the stone. So they attached feet to the other half of the case – but they don’t stay on.

In fact only 1 was on the unit by the time I unpacked it. This is fixed by cutting the case down the hinge and using a rubber band to hold it together. So OK – maybe the stone was good. Well the 2. 5 stars is for the only redeeming feature – it cuts fine and quickly.

But it is one of those soft sticky stones that the metal leaves marks on (I tried high carbon and molly and stainless) – So it wont last long with all the cleaning needed – and it did not come with a stone to clean it up – which is nice to have for any 8000 stone but essential for a soft and sticky one like this.

The set is great and easy to use. I took a star off as the plastic container was damaged in transit.

Very good and portable little sharpeners. Extremely useful – they work very well indeed. Only took me 5 mins to bring a severely blunted knife back up to razor quality.

Perfect size, 70mm or 2-3/4 inch. Just what I needed. Thanks.

Compact. Easy to fit in small survival kit. And it works well.

This is a good product – having two grades of grit available means you can get your knife nice and sharp. I watched one video on YouTube on how to sharpen a knife with a whetstone, and then used this product.

The results were fantastic – I sharpened four knives and they all are cutting so much better for me now.

TranslateShow in original languageTrès content de la qualité; je n’ai pas encore eu le temps d’essayer tous les grains. Petit bémol: la livraison vient d’arriver donc 9 jours après la date limite supérieure.

Sans doute dû aux nombreuses livraisons en cette époque de fêtes.

TranslateShow in original languageLes grains sont trop gros. La 8000 doit correspondre à un 1000 et encore !! Les bords des pierres ne sont pas nets par endroits, donc problème de finition.

TranslateShow in original languageDemande un peu d’expérience pour un bon résultat, mais permet de faire un tranchant au top ! A voir la durée dans le temp mais si vous êtes pas un boucher avec 600 couteaux sa convient parfaitement !.

This stone is fantastic for sharpening my blades back to their factory edge. It has an ultra-fast grinding effect and the stone itself is extremely low wear. This stone is suitable for all types of knives EXCEPT for ceramics.

Though there is certainly a learning curve, these stones are for sure the way to go, especially for high-quality knives such as Miyabi knives, Kramer knives, and Zwilling’s. But, like the any other stone, you still need a lower grit to sharpen and you finish with the 1000.

I would recommend that you practice with a cheaper knife if possible, just to make sure you get a feel for the motions and the process. But the perfect edge really makes for effortless cutting and elevates the cooking experience.

I have a lot of really nice knives and wanted to get that factory edge back on them once they went dull. The wet stone is fantastic. Takes practice, but the results are so much better than using any other sharpening tool.

If you have nice knives, Japanese or Western, definitely go the wet stone route for sharpening.

This Miyabi stone is perfect for sharping knives that are already in good shape, just dull. It has an ultra fast grinding effect and is suitable for all types of knives and material. Just remember when you are learning use a practice knife, you can pick one up at a garage sale.

Then when you have mastered the technique switch to your beloved knives.

This is the sheet for sharpening any knife. I returned the very expensive pro chef sharpener i bought from here which was useless and cost 3 times the price. This wet stone, is amazing. 5 mins rubbing both sides of the knife and the blade is razor sharp.

When the military come door to door to force vaccinate my family, like they are doing in Australia right now, i’ll be lopping off limbs left right and centre. They’ll lose a few soldiers for sure. Totally recommend this product.

This stone is fabuous. It makes a good slurry on the 1000 grit side and that makes sharpening a blade easy as acn be. I currently have a very inepensive 8″ chef’s knife that I put on my 180/280 stone and got a little improvement.

Then my King arrived and I resharpened it with th 280 and then the 1000. The difference was astounding. The knife cut wonderfully with no feeling of catching when I was trimming the cored off of large cabbage.

I sharpened my new Mercer Genesis 5″ utility knife, a knife I was initially unhappy with until it met my stones. Again, using the 180/280 did a tiny bit but the 1000 grit made this into a great knife! I was able to hand slice guanciale wth it into thin slices with ease.

The backa nd forth slicing was controlled and easy. I have not mentioned the 6000 grit side as I am still waiting for my nauraga stone which you need for any stone 4000+ {Update: the nauraga stone came and I used the 6000 side and it was a joy.

I can’t believe how sharp the knife is. After the 6000 side I stropped it twice, once rough side and the other fine. The knife is now wonderfully sharp. It is a cheap winco forged knife and it cuts like my Mercers do.

Getting ready to do the rest of my knives!} Be suer to soak the sone until it holds a coating of water on top of the 1000 stone and then re-wet it liberally.

I had previously been using a draw-through sharpener to sharpen my lowly santoku knife, but this must have worn out so consequently the knife became blunt and no amount of sharpening would make any difference.

Unsure whether it was the knife or the sharpener to blame, I decided to purchase a 1000/6000 whetstone. I did wait 3 weeks for delivery but once the whetstone arrived (which was handily supplied with a plastic guide to keep the blade at the correct angle) I watched the recommended “how to” video and set to sharpening my knife.

It took a while to get the knack (the angle jig is invaluable) during which time I was convinced that it was the knife and not my old draw-through sharpener that had bitten the dust as despite me sharpening frantically away for about ten minutes the knife didn’t appear to be very sharp.

Oh well, time for a new knife I thought, closely followed by thinking I’d thrown my money away on a whetstone. I decided to try the knife before I consigned it to the bin. I got the shock of my life! I thought that the draw-through sharpener used to hone the knife to a razor sharp finish, but now the scales have fallen from my eyes.

My knife has been honed to the sharpest thing known to man – it cuts through anything literally without any effort, so much so that I fear for the integrity of my chopping board. I really cannot adequately describe how sharp my knife now is – I’m sure it would put a scalpel to shame.

Needless to say I’m now an absolute convert to a whetstone. If you want your santoku knife to be ridiculously, insanely, finger-endangeringly sharp then I can wholeheartedly recommend purchasing a whetstone – you’ll never look back!.

I got the 1000/4000 block as a gift for my sister-in-law. Delivery was fast, accurate, and well packaged. We did a couple of knives while I was there to make sure she understood how it worked. They came out fantastically sharp w/ little effort.

She seemed comfortable w/ the stone and accessories. Not having to use oil is a great selling point; less mess. Loved the rubber non-slip base. All in all, I was very pleased. I will be back to order some knives and a stone for myself.

I would definitely recommend this site to friends and fellow chefs. Thanks!.

Really nice stone and with the guide guard that is superb; makes a massive difference to help that angle. The 1000 side of the stone is excellent for ensuring the angle is just right and then the fine 6000 side, its just finishes of very nicely.

The wooden stand for the stone helps too, ensure the knuckles are at the correct height and ensure the honing is perfect. Very impressed have touched up so many blades with this fantastic course/fine combo.

We were on a trip staying at a cottage and I have an aversion to dull knives (call me OCD). The knives at the cottage were literally dull as butter knives. Picked up one of these stones at Walmart because I didn’t bring my good sharpening stones from home.

This stone would be better if it were maybe a 300 / 1000 grit combo. but the 120 / 240, or whatever it is, is way too aggressive to get a fine edge. It definitely will grind an edge but finishing to a razor sharp edge is impossible.

The other issue I had is the stone loads up too quickly. I found I was constantly rinsing to get the released material off the surface.

Bought this stone and sharpened my wife very dull kitchen knives, a chef’s knife and a couple of hunting knives. On those is poor condition the coarse side quickly reshaped the edge. The finer side finished the edge to where is would shave my arm.

With a little honing the blades were extremely sharp. For $10 you cannot go wrong.

Bought this a couple weeks ago to sharpen a few of my hunting knives that were dulling up and my old stone broke. Quickly sharpens dull knives. Cant go wrong for 10

Great professional type of cutlery, nice feel, holds their edge. However they seem too large/ long for the average person. Maybe a 10” French knife, the serrated knife is extremely long, longer than the French knife the pairing knife is good size.

I own several professional knife sets, Henckels, Wusthofs and Kramer’s. The handle material feels very comfortable. I’d recommend this set for professional only, due to the length of the Essentials.

The stones arrived a little bit brutalized, but not unusable. One side of the 6000 grit stone has a sizeable chunk out of one of the long edges, and one of the corners of the coarse grit stone was pretty beat up — but like I said, not unusable.

I was a little sad that they weren’t perfect, but I shrugged and said Whatever and flipped em to the good side. I practiced on my Shuns, and I’m still practicing — but when I put my Misen knives to them, I was able to produce a better-than-factory edge with almost no effort.

So, I love the stones, I just wish they didn’t get damaged in transit.

These seem to be a very nice set. I have not used them yet but I’m pleased with the quality. Only thing is I wish they came with a a holding block. The pictures kind of looks like they do but unfortunately that is only the box in the picture.

I would think it would be affordable to include one with the set and offer as an add on for single stones. Would love it if you offer one in the future.