Perhaps the OP could let us know what kind of knife he carries, and what sharpening method he uses now? That would help us give an appropriate answer.

+1 for a hunting knife where you may need to resharpen
a bunch for a large animal or one with steel dulling hair
like pig.

I carry a 3" Buck folder and a custom fixed blade knife made by a friend.

Compare to a stone, yeah, but can't be worse than the carbide scraper people listed in this thread. I tried it in store and it works fine on fiskars axe, so maybe your bevel is off from what it's designed to do?

For occasional use, one or two small 1" x 3" x 1/4" thick EZE-LAP diamond stones like these and two small nails. Place the stone on a convenient log, and tap in a nail at each end to stabilize it. You can put a little water on the stone and sharpen just about any knife. A 400 grit is usually about right, but depending on the steel, you might want a finer or coarser grit. This might be sacrilige, but I also carry a 6 inch bastard file with the point ground off to sharpen my bigger trail knives and axe. I hate carbide scrapers, the edge they make, and the horse they rode in on.

I have a small (pocket sized) stone which, with practice, can sharpen anything. I have some scandi and flat ground (single bevel) and double bevel knives, as well as convex blades, all are OK. Axe too !

For a while I was using some sandpaper sheets mounted on a sheet of ply, as recommended on many sites, but I didn't like that, so I went back to the stone - like Byrd_Huntr mentions and pictures.

The custom gadgets for sharpening certainly are very popular and some are very good on all accounts, but to me they seem a bit overly fussy and some are quite expensive. The KISS principal for a simple and effective stone cannot be overstated IMO.



Hope its Ok to mention this ?
If you do a search for something like "Ray Mears sharpening knife" you will find a few nice videos demonstrating the technique (no affiliation to Ray etc on my part).