Those of you that real­ly know me, know I can­not sharp­en a knife worth a damn.  I’ll get it right on one side of the blade, and  on the oth­er side man­gle the angle so bad­ly you would assume the blade is worth­less after­wards, if you just give me a sharp­en­ing stone and hon­ing oil.  I could nev­er real­ly eye­ball the right angle.  Nev­er.  His­tor­i­cal­ly, I have stan­dard­ized on the Smith’s two (2) step sharp­en­ers.  You know the ones.  One side has the steel to strip the blade into shape, and the oth­er has the ceram­ic rods to smooth out the rough edges of the blade.  I typ­i­cal­ly had aver­age and unsat­is­fy­ing results.  The blades were aver­age sharp­ness, and if your blade had a dif­fer­ent angle on it, then you were stuck with what you got from this device, and it may not be the best angle for your blade.  For this rea­son I have been par­tial to scan­di­na­vian cut blades as their ange is MUCh eas­i­er to sharp­en on a stone…

Enter Smith’s Dia­mond Pre­ci­sion Knife Sharp­en­ing Kit.  Skep­ti­cal as hell, I spent the $40.00 on the kit, and eager­ly await­ed it’s arrival.  I was going camp­ing this week­end, and this is one of those lit­tle per­fect time killers at the camp site when the major work of haul­ing, chop­ping, and fire start­ing have been com­plet­ed.

Upon receiv­ing the kit I eager­ly opened it up the day it arrived.  Fur­ther inspec­tion showed that it came with two dia­mond cut stones, a coarse and fine stone, a pol­ish­ing stone, and a stone for ser­rat­ed edges.  It came with a dia­mond cut rod as well, and I have that par­tic­u­lar rod type before.   Once at camp and the ini­tial chores were com­plet­ed, I sat down read the two pages of direc­tions, thought a mon­key could even do this, and com­menced sharp­en­ing.  Here is what I noticed imme­di­ate­ly;  This kit offeres two angles for sharp­en­ing 20 degrees and 25 degrees.  I set my blade against the stone with the rod in the hold­er, and to make sure it was either a 20 or 25 degree angle.  Most of my knives, it turns out were 20 degree edges…

The process of actu­al­ly get­ting to sharp­en the knife is that you attach the sil­ver clamp to the back (spine) of your knife blade. You screw down the front and rear screws to get a good sol­id clamp on the blade.  It took me some get­ting used to, but now have it down.  You then screw the rod into the end of the stone you are going to use, and slip it through the guide on the wing of the clamp.  You then scrape the stone along the blade using the rod and guide to keep your angle con­sis­tant on the blade’s edge.  To my sur­prise, the edges sharp­ened pret­ty quick­ly, even with the hard­er steel of a cou­ple of the knives I sharp­ened.  i.e. I sharp­ened my Mora Clip­per and a Blind Horse Knives PLSK‑1 with­out the use of the guides as both of these have scan­di grinds.

So, inspect­ing and fol­low­ing the direc­tions, I set aside the fine dia­mond cut stone for use, and com­menced sharp­en­ing.  I sharp­ened my:

• Tim­ber Wolf Bowie (Ama­zon link, here)
• Beck­er BK2 (Ama­zon link, here)
• Ger­ber Paraframe I 
• Assist­ed Open Unit­ed Cut­lery 2612 Tan­to Blade Knife 
• Cold Steel Roach Bel­ly (This one belonged to my bud­dy that I went camp­ing with)

Fol­low­ing the instruc­tions in the kit, all the knives now shave the hair off my arm, with the excep­tion of the Beck­er BK2.  I think the issue is here, that the blade is so thick that the angle is just not nar­row enough on the Smith’s kit.  I’m not too wor­ried about it, as I had planned on send­ing the knife away at some junc­ture in the near future to have the blade re ground with more of a scan­di­na­vian cut on it.  I find that I like that grind, as my Mora Clip­per and a cou­ple of oth­er knives I have had in the past have it, and like it’s util­i­ty.   It does take a bit get­ting used to, how­ev­er.  But more on that anoth­er time.

Now, I did not test the stone for ser­rat­ed edges yet, but plan to in the near future.  It is just not a func­tion of the knives I have that I use that often there­fore I did not need to sharp­en any.

This kit, in my opin­ion, allowed me to sharp­en all my knives quick­ly and effi­cient­ly.  I could take them to a knife guy and have him sharp­en them for five bucks a piece, or order a kit like this.  If I amor­tize out the cost, the kit has already paid for itself, in my hum­ble opin­ion.

This kit is going to be part of my knife mod­ule for both camp­ing and my Bug Out Bag.  It will sit next to/near my BoB and my camp­ing gear so that if I need to Bug Out, I just grab the kit with the bag…  Over­all, Smith’s Dia­mond Pre­ci­sion Knife Sharp­en­ing Kit was a good pur­chase for me, because it helped me stream­line a process that I was bad at, and will allow me to be more effi­cient in the futre.  I’m glad I spent the $40.00 on the kit thus far, and am hap­py I will get years of use out of it.