An important aspect of owning a knife collection or just a special blade or two is that you must keep them sharp. A great way to maintain the sharpness of your knife is with a sharpening stone. Farm and Dairy discusses the importance of using a sharpening stone, as well as other good information on knife skills, in a recent article titled “Here’s the scoop on knife skills.”

The Farm and Dairy staff write, “Use a steel or a sharpening stone to keep your knives in tip-top condition. A knife should be held at a constant 20 degree angle when being sharpened on a steel. Alternate sides of the knife on the steel. To test if your knife is sharp enough, cut a piece of paper with your knife. If the paper can easily be cut into ribbons, your knife is sharp enough.”

In addition to keeping your knives sharp, you also have to make sure your sharpening stone is still effective. Life Hacker takes a look at maintenance for sharpening stones in a recent article titled “Flatten Your Sharpening Stone To Maintain A Fine Knife Edge.” Timothy Dahl of Life Hacker writes, “Sharpening stones are the best way to keep your knife blades sharp and in the best possible condition. But sharpening stones also need maintenance, since they tend to dish out over time and give you a rounded blade edge. A sharpening stone will perform best when it’s flat, and there are a couple of different techniques used to keep that even surface. The easiest method is to apply some 100-grit sandpaper to 1cm of glass with some adhesive, then run your stone over the sandpaper it until it’s flat. If your sharpening stone came with a flattening plate, however, you can use that to remove the high spots on each end of your stone with just a few passes.”

When it comes to sharpening stones, your best bet is the Dual Grit Combo Sharpening Stone from Armory Replicas. The Dual Grit Combo Stone offers the convenience of two grits in one stone and is great for sharpening. It works great with pocket knives; hunting and fishing knives; utility knife blades; cutting tools for gardening, woodworking, and industrial cutting tool edge maintenance. This is a must for knife enthusiasts, as well as those just starting to build their collections.

Whatever replica armory needs you might have, you can’t go wrong with Armory Replicas!