DMT D8E Dia-Sharp Diamond Knife Sharpener, Extra Fine Diamond Sharpening Stone, 8-Inch, White

I've used this for sharpening dozens of kitchen knives, pocket knives, straight razors, chisels, and planes to great success and for a while it was my only stone. At 1200 grit, it puts a fine enough edge on a blade for most knives and a serviceable edge on chisels (and maybe planes depending on what you're using them for). You may want coarser grits if you have chips in the blade, as it will take quite a while to grind out anything large or even moderately sized, and you will definitely want coarser stones if you are reshaping a blade profile, changing edge angle, or flattening chisels or planes. Similarly, you may want a higher grit for refining edges; I leave some knives at this level but go up to 4000-8000 on some, and higher still on planes and straight razors.It has held up very well and after many years and hundreds of sharpenings it still works great. You may notice staining on the surface, especially after using it on non-stainless steels and the grit can sometimes get gummed up, presumably from skin cell or oils from your hands. Usually, dish soap will do a good job cleaning it, but when I notice that it's not cutting as well I will occasionally use Barkeeper's Friend to really get the surface clean. It's a pretty harsh cleaner though, so I try to keep that to a minimum to avoid shortening the life of the stone.The biggest drawback to this stone is that I do think the feedback from the surface could be better, especially if you're a beginner to bench stone sharpening. It was my first bench stone and it definitely took me a while before I felt really comfortable maintaining an angle, reliably achieving a burr, and not goofing up my blades. Fortunately it's hard to do much damage at 1200 grit, but I do think that starting with a slightly coarser (maybe 600-1000 grit) water stone and a very cheap or even thrift-store level knife would be a better way to learn bench stone sharpening.

Used already for a year , sharpening chisels and plane blades. Flatness is good but not perfect. During sharpening, I'm using no more than a quarter of the space for each blade, to reduce the error. Already I have half of it, extra-extra fine. It worn out slowly, but I've noticed, this is also depends what type of steel is used to sharpen. The one brings the stone from fine to super extra fine was a chisel made by blade taken from benchtop electric planner, and I guess it was with high percentage of nickel in it. As a conclusion I can say it is most used sharpening diamond stone among 10 other diamond and natural stones and worn part now become the area for fine finish. Reading reviews for most DMD stone brands i can see that some customers just run into bad products due to poor manufacturer quality control. So if you are lucky you will have nice tool in your workshop.

For some reason I thought this was going to be a similar size to the 400 grit diamond sharpener I'd bought from Bunnings and love, but it turned out to be significantly larger. Easily large enough for all my plane blades. Diamond sharpeners are a joy to use after years using stones. They don't clog, and and keep on working. They also stay flat, which is a huge bonus as it is a royal PITA flattening stones. I found this Extra Fine sharpener a bit worrying to start with, as it was scratching my chisels, but after some use, it bedded in and works fine. I have since read advice to this affect on Rob Cosmans' YouTube channel. (Check him out btw. the best real world advice on sharpening I have come across, and I have watched a 'ton' of videos on the subject). It came out a bit expensive by the time it was converted to NZ dollars and postage was added, but I intend buying a larger grit DMT sharpener just for the size, so I must be happy with it.

I bought this instead of the Trend double sided (300/1000) I was initially shopping for because it's a lot less expensive, and I didn't think I would need a 300 grit that much. I've read you need to break them in, and decided to do it by sharpening a blade I didn't care about much. My Swiss Army pocket knife is the epitome of my belief that good steel rusts. It's stainless, and fine for what it is, but not fine cutlery. A little time on this, followed by a few strokes on a strop, and my cheap but handy knife is sharp enough to shave with. Not a great shave, but still..I also bought the extra-extra fine. No complaints there, either, but maybe not as useful. It amuses me that that one has a label to show the other side has the diamonds--both sides are so smooch, it's hard to tell by touch. Ultimately, I think I will buy a super fine ceramic stone, but I don't regret either of these DMT stones.When I turned to chisels, I soon realized the extra-fine is too slow for flattening the backs. I decided I needed a coarse, and/or fine, to start the flattening or grind out nicks. I decided to get both. Then I saw the Trend for a good deal less than it had been. Rob Cosman uses the Trend and a 16000 grit Shapton, and that looks like a good system, so I decided to spring for the Trend now, and maybe get the Shapton later. Probably should have done that to start with. Now I have the 300 grit I needed, plus the 1000 grit side, plus another 1000 in the DMT, plus the 8000 grit xx fine. Little bit inefficient on my part. That said, I may yet buy the coarse and fine DMT to make a set. After all, you can't have too many tools...Meanwhile, saving up for that Shapton. I am not mentally well.UPDATE: The more I use these, the better I like them. Tried them on a really good chisel. Takes patience with really hard steel, but results are worth it. Turns out that xx-fine is worth having, too.