What Sal shows is extremely conservative in that very, very old video which supersedes current steel technology.

Very recently: To use the WHITE rods. I often took the browns, but what Sals says on the DVD sounds logic, and I´ll probably always take the whites from now on.While I love a good deal as much as the next person I also realize that tools are important and I'm OK with paying more for the high quality when it comes to tools, which I plan to have and use for a long time. Again, bear in mind this is all conjecture based on what I perceive to be the benefits of his style. Also, I've never actually watched the sharpmaker DVD, so there's that. .... I don't have enough knowledge to evaluate that information; maybe you can edu-ma-cate me. My simple question is: This means we have three different working surfaces on the stones, the flat side, a pointed corner, and the groove. Here we have the stone fitted into the base so that we use the flat surface. Cruwear is an easy to grind and sharpen steel. Your current stones will most likely handle it fine. S110V is a much more difficult to grind steel and will require some more heavy duty abrasives to assure you are cutting the steel and not burnishing it.

I’ve already mentioned a couple of characteristics of the Sharpmaker that become quite relevant to start with. Especially compared to diamond, the ceramic stones are not the fastest cutters, and add to this a design that helps keep the overall removal of metal to a minimum by maintaining the angle, and you get a sharpener that can be hard work if you need to reprofile a steep edge angle.Do you like toothy edges or polished edges? I like toothy edges myself. I have sharpened every steel Spyderco has used by setting the bevel on a diamond stone and then microbeveled/deburred with the brown rods and can get an impressive edge that way. It I want more a strop with 1 micron emulsion will get it sharper than I ever need and it will still have some toothy bite.

Again, bear in mind this is all conjecture based on what I perceive to be the benefits of his style. Also, I've never actually watched the sharpmaker DVD, so there's that. My sharpening techniques are basically a result of trial and error over the years. There is no better system out there but you have to buy the Diamond rods for repair and rebeveling or the CBN.Get those diamond and/or CBN rods for the Sharpmaker. This may not be essential right off the bat but I highly recommend them for the long run especially for repairing serration edge damage. Again...you may not need anything more than the Sharpmaker and these stones depending on what steels you have. You could get by with only the Sharpmaker/CBN/diamond rods if you mostly use and carry Salts for example.

vs 40deg depends on more variables ... what steel and what you're cutting being the two primary things to consider. So, as an example if you had a knife in a steel that you knew to be brittle with poor edge stability and you were to put it to heavy use on hard, tough material you'd likely be best off with a 40deg bevel as opposed to a 30deg bevel. On the other hand if you were using the same knife to open letters you could use a 20deg bevel.Now the Salt 2 is basically a linerless Delica - crazy light (but still robust) and completely rustproof. From my personal experience, a quality Torx set, libricant, and sharpener is a great place to start. There are a ton of Sharpmaker videos up on YouTube and here’s a decent one showing how to use the Sharpmaker: With the triangular stones, this is one of the few systems that can sharpen serrations, and is also happy working on hawksbill and recurve blades. To understand fully why, we need only look at the four ‘grades’ of sharpening that are achieved from the two stones. I replaced my medium stones for the first time last year, and man what a difference 10 years makes.