SHARPAL 162N Diamond Whetstone Whetstone with Storage Box

This is the best knife sharpening tool available in the world. Just buy a wooden leather strop with green compound. Few minutes of practice would make your knife feel exceptionally sharp & uniform.

Sharpens really fast and the case provides a stable antislip base.

First impressions are great, I bought this to sharpen my wood carving knives and it raises a burr very quickly, I’m glad I bought this. I was also surprised by the weight and the quality of the base/ storage box. Very nice.

Wonderful diamond sharpening plate. #320 makes quick work for re-profiling and #1200 finish the job and you got a good working edge! Been using it for months and the diamond grit seems to be quite durable..I'm happy about this products!

Super

This has so many other reviews it hardly seems worth reviewing it, but just to add to the chorus, this is an excellent package, get it, you won't regret it (Unless, I suppose, you're a hand-sharpening newbie and aren't prepared to put the practice in.) I originally saw this being tested and recommended by a YouTuber who is, it's fair to say, very obsessive about hand sharpening and testing knives, as well as being a maker of knives. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and got excellent results really quickly using just this stone and a diamond strop. I'd been struggling with a set of the ubiquitous Chinese two-sided whetstones, so I bought one of these, and since then the whetstones have stayed in their box. I've in fact bought two of these now, one for me and, after I tried it, another one as a gift. The price I originally paid - £60 - is very good value, especially compared with some other brands, the second one was even better value as it was discounted. You can go cheaper and still get good results, especially in coarser diamond plates, but the very cheap ones are usually flimsy and need bonding to stable bases, don't come with the combined non-slip working stand and storage box (itself well worth at least ten quid, arguably somewhat more). The finer grit cheapies tend to have too much grit contamination, though there are some bargains that are very similar to this Sharpal, albeit without the box and so on. The angle guide covers a useful range of bevel angles and very handy for getting your eye in. I also bought the well-finished leather strop that Sharpal offer, and some 1 micron diamond emulsion (Enzo brand, from Amazon, which seems to have a decent percentage of diamond) and I have to say that after a bit of practice, to my surprise and pleasure, I was able to get a blade to "hair whittling" sharpness using just these things. Generally, though, so long as the last few passes are light and on alternate sides, knives come off the 1200 side pretty much shaving sharp, albeit not "comfortable" shaving without a little refinement on a strop. Certainly more than sharp enough for kitchen use, though, or for field knives. Being diamond, this stone doesn't mind how tough a steel your knife is made from, and indeed it's not much bothered by tungsten carbide either, making it really useful for a whole variety of tools. I've not tried sharpening ceramic knives on it, and I have a strong feeling that even the 1200 side is too coarse for that, as ceramic blades sharpen (and wear) by chipping, rather than cutting. I have successfully sharpened a ceramic blade using a very fine (8000 grit) wet+dry abrasive paper flattened wet onto a glass plate and kept wet throughout, using it "backwards" like a strop. Took ages, though. I think ceramic knives could be honed on a very fine diamond strop, too - 1 micron is equivalent to around 14,000 grit, but go to 0.5µ or 0.25µ and it's more like 50,000 to 100,000 grit. However, I think if a ceramic knife needs significant re-profiling, i.e. if it's properly blunt or damaged, then the best option is going to be a fine, power driven, super-smooth wheel running in water, then maybe finish on a very fine diamond strop. At the more mundane end of the cutlery spectrum, I've sharpened some very cheap knives on this stone that, previously, have not taken or held an edge very well. A combination of a clean-cutting and properly flat stone like this, and more knowledge of how to sharpen, helps to get a clean, burr-free apex that is as good as it's going to get. My only slight reservations about this stone are the occasional review suggesting perhaps glitches in quality control once in a while, and the fact that, on mine, the mirror sides of the steel substrate have already corroded a little where I've been handling it, even though it's been kept dry and stored in its box along with silica gel. The working surfaces seem fine, though, and, as others have said, after a minimal bedding in they are nice and even, and remove metal surprisingly quickly. Summary: Strongly recommended for anyone who wants to hand-sharpen knives. As and when this stone wears out, I'll buy another one.

As many others have pointed out, I too was introduced to this stone from the Outdoors55 channel. And he's absolutely right! I have more expensive DMT Dia-Sharp diamond stones and honestly, they are pretty comparable... except for the fact that this doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. In fact the case serving as it's holder is so convenient and the fact that it's dual sided makes it typically the only stone ive been reaching for. Combine this with a nice good quality strop and diamond strop paste and you can easily get any knife to be hair popping sharp. Usually I would say that for the price this product is good, but in this case it's so good that regardless of the price this stone can compete right up there with the big dogs. Zero grit contamination, very smooth and predictable feel. I personally might have liked the fine side to have been a bit more fine but that's only because I like mirror finishes on my edges, functionally its plenty fine to give you an amazingly sharp edge. Really not many bad things I can say about this. If you're thinking about it, buy it.