What do you use to sharpen your knives?

Soft, medium and hard Arkansas whet stones. If the blade just needs a touch up, then I use my Gramp's old steel. I have a homade leather strop also.

 

Have oil and water stones, but end up using diamond hones most of the time, 4 different grits,cut quick, clean up easy, never develop hollows. Have buffing wheels, bench sander, and use 400 than 1000 paper to polish, steel to touch up while using to cut meat or cooking. Most of the new knives I have bought in the last 10 years, as well as all the axes, require almost starting from scratch to put a good edge on them, and about 25 % never will be any good..Hard to beat old carbon steel knives or old Collins axes, both require care and both do excellent work. Have found in buying custom made knives that the design is less important than the workmanship. Selecting the right steel. tempering it correctly, and sharpening to the correct angles and depth, is to me much more important then the blade shape or handle material.

 

A Worksharp KO mostly but also a plain old Arkansas stone, a Lansky kit and a Spyderco Sharpmaker get some use. No matter what I finish up on black and green compound followed by plane leather. I generally carry a small steel and field strop for touch up in the bush.

 

Like many, although i have alot of good stones, I am just not a super "by hand" knife sharpener. I can get by and have an edge that is pretty good...but for really fine sharpening, i use my lansky kit and an old leather belt. Works great for me.