How to Use a Sharpening Stone

Sharpening the machete's or a knife's blade or any of its variants is not easy - you need to take care of a lot of parameters and precautionary measures. Here we will cover a detailed guide on how to use a sharpening stone .

Well, there are some absolute guidelines regarding how to use a sharpening stone so that beginners must get some ideas to sharpen the machete with a diamond sharpening stone.

Whetstone is one of the popular stone and the sharpening material used so far. It always empowers the machete knife with extra sharpness and precision to cut.

It is always a better idea to sharpen the machete regularly otherwise it can cause the blade to become dull and fully non-functional. In this article, we will provide you complete details on how to use a sharpening stone safely and sharpen the machete without self-harm, in a proper professional way.

1. The sharpening style and process are highly dependent on the blade. Firstly, measure the existing blade sharpness, so that you can evaluate the level of strength required to make the blade functional again. Moreover, the blade condition also helps us to choose the nature of sharpening stone!

2. After you have realized the blade dullness, it becomes more convenient to select the type of sharpening stone. Different types of stone sizes, qualities, and grit sizes are available!

Professional machete or knife users well know that a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one. To empower the blade with strong performance, it's better to sharpen it with the correct blade type in a fully professional way.

How to Use a Sharpening Stone

Be careful while you are using the sharpening stone to sharpen your machete blade. A dull blade can cause serious damage to your hand and thus it can be fatal. You need to take care of the angle, and it's better to place the machete blade over a sharp solid surface! Safety is a paramount issue while sharpening a machete!

Step 1

You need to place the sharpening stone on a damp cloth. The towel must be over the solid flat surface, as it prevents an accidental slip.

Step 2

It's better to start with the coarse side of the stone on top. You will find this method one of the fastest and efficient ways to sharpen a knife with a sharpening stone.

Step 3

Lubricate the stone well with oil or even with water. There are precautions listed with the sharpening stone and one needs to follow all those.

Step 4

Diamond sharpening stones don't need any lubricant. But these are quite expensive!

Step 5

You just need to keep an angle from 22- to a 30-degree off the stone. The wider and larger the angle, the harder is to get a sharp edge. A perfectly ideal angle keeps you safe, sharpens well with less effort, and it's time-saving.

Step 6

Make sure the blade is removed from the handle and is placed over the solid ground, flat and non-slippery.

Different Types of Stones

Water Stones

Water stones are the most common. These are a very easy and highly convenient way to enhance the dull sharpness of the blade. It's better to dip the water stone for half an hour in the water, as the name itself describes its function.
As these stones remain dipped in water over a long time, they become hard and ready to sharpen the blades extensively. Keep reading this article to get to know more about how to sharpen a machete with stone!

Oil Stones

Oil stones, on the other hand, are also very durable and efficient. These are made from silicon oxide mostly. You need to sprinkle the oil over these stone surfaces before they are ready to use. With respect to cost, these are considered to be the cheapest of all!

Ceramic stones

Ceramic stones are considered to be ideal and long-lasting sharpening stone, that can empower the blade with a flawless cutting performance quickly. Neither you need oil dipping or water to pour before activation. Only these stones require special attention and extra careful attention or care.

People never prefer to use this as it requires some massive scrubbing and rubbing the ceramic particles once the stone has completed the sharpening of the blade. These are some extra careful measures that people don't like! These are some important tactics on how to choose the sharpening stone and strengthen the machete.

Diamond stones

Diamond stones are undoubtedly famous for their quality, superb performance, and top-notch sharpening qualities. Due to their power, reinforced nature, and long-lasting abilities, these are used as the sharpening material.
But you will find the diamond stones highly expensive and over the budget range. It will provide you good quality sharpening and the blade will performance like an ultra-fast precise manual cutting machine.

Different Types of Grit Sizes

Surely, you've to select the stones that are used to sharpen the machete blade. These come with different types and sizes of grits. You may find there are major three types of grits that are defined and witnessed so far.

1. Coarse grit is one of the popular among all, that is used for removing chips embedded over the dull or damaged blade.

2. Medium grit is also widely been used to turn rough edges into the medium nature edged.

3. A finer grit is mostly been applied for blade edge polishing and to get a fully smooth finish!

It is a good option to use the coarse grit sharpening stone initially, especially when the tool or the blade is very weak in performance, dull or not sharped. After bringing that back to normal condition, you can use a finer grit too to sharpen it even better.

Moreover, if the machete blade is initially less dull, then try the medium grit first and then after the fine grit stone. Ultimately the process will gear up the precision and cutting range of the machete blade.

After the sharpening, or even during the process, it is better to clean the blade with silk clothes or towels. It is better to place the stone and the cleaning cloth over the flat solid surface to avoid any slippage and stay away from self-harm!

If necessary, you just need to use a lubricant to your stone to make the sharpening process easier. Keep in mind that the lubricant used must be according to the nature of the machete blade and then sharpening stone used to sharpen the blade. Otherwise, it can harm the user's hands!

On the other hand, the angle of the machete blade and the sharpening stone is highly important. For a straight and long-sized machete blade, it is preferred to keep an angle around 22.5-degree. Mostly, the professionals prefer that the machete and the stone must have a 45-degree angle in most cases.

Conclusion

In this article, we have tried to cover almost all aspects of how to use a sharpening stone and make the dead machete a powerful intact device once again. So keep in your mind about all the information, make sure you have an idea about the nature of the blade so you can decide the nature of sharpening stone too.