Can anyone suggest a good knife sharpener for a newbie at sharpening blades?

Doug has a page that does a better job than I can describing the different styles of sharpeners. At home, my personal picks are an 8"x2"x1/4" Arkansas stone mounted on a board with a patch of leather glued to the other side for stropping. In the field I use either a small diamond plate sharpener or the back of my belt as a strop.

Spyderco Sharpmaker is my favorite for maintaining a sharp edge or getting an already pretty sharp edge, sharper (like fixing a factory edge a bit). However, it isn't good for having to reprofile a blade. It would take a long time to do. For that the Edge Pro is better, but much more expensive. Both systems aren't really that portable though, but they are pretty fool-proof, which makes them great for a "newbie."

For field sharpening I love the DMT diamond stones. Especially their double sided diafold sharpeners. They work great for sharpening and maintaining an edge. The only problem is you have to be able to free hand sharpen (most importantly keeping an angle), which takes practice. I have a Blue/Red double sided diafold and a green mini-sharp. The blue/red gives me a razor sharp edge and the mini-green works like a strop to keep the edge maintained to shaving sharp.

The blue diamond sharpener in my bag is from walmart. It will sharpen both plain and serrated edges and it takes up very little space (as much as a pen). It isn't the best sharpener, but it works enough to put a usable edge back on a knife. It's also pretty cheap, and it's very versatile. Like the DMT stones though, you need to be practiced in freehand sharpening.

Paul,

Great pack. I wish all students were as well prepared (I'm a faculty member).

One thing I would suggest is some "positive" propaganda. Something like an emergency card with phone numbers of campus security, local police, next of kin, numbers for campus resources, personal contact information, etc.

Unfortunately, with all that's going on at various campuses, someone noticing your pack or finding it for whatever reason might label you as suspicious. I only mention this because I've thought of it myself in my EDC.

It's important to distinguish yourself as a well-planned individual and not someone prepared to run and hide out after committing some atrocity.

I don't think it's a fair judgment, but one I've seen on campuses when I start asking about escape routes and routine safety information.

Conventional wisdom unfortunately wants us to cower in a classroom and leave everything else to the "experts."

Have you tried these?

I had some in my car for over 6 months in the Texas heat and just opened one up and they tast fresh and were good... I split it with someone though, as it had WAY too many calories(409 Kcal) to eat as a snack!!!

That's one of the things that always amazed me. The "official" way to deal with any kind of incident is lock the hollow wooden doors (with the big glass windows), close the shades, and turn the lights off. Doesn't matter what it is.

I like knowing I'm somewhat better prepared than "lock the door and hope for the best." Generally, communication is so bad, people don't even know when to do that. The students often know before the professors. They spend so much money on everything else, yet emergency preparedness is seemingly quite neglected (though things seem to have improved a little since VT).


As far as the emergency info goes, all that is written on my planner. Which is the first thing you see when you open the bag.