Hey
I am seeking advice on which items i need to sharpen knives & swords.
I have considered buying these stones from Spyderco

Bench Stone 302M
Bench Stone 302F
Bench Stone 302UF

Total cost ca 150 $

But there are so many others makers, so what are the ultimate sharpening kit ?

Klaus

What I would recommend for a shorter blade and what would work with a long sword blade would be different.

With knives I like the Spyderco sharpmaker: The triangular ceramic stones in a plastic base. With this you just keep the blade vertical and slide on each of the V sides and your angle stays the same. ( At least with a bit of practice. )

For single edged short blades the Lansky tool that clamps to the back of the blade and uses stones ( Or diamond steels ) that are set at the ends of a narrow steel rod that goes into a hole(s) in an L shaped arm on each side of the clamp: This is very good to restore a very rounded dull edge or change the bevel angle consistently. This tool has a series of holes in the L(s) to choose the angle of bevel wanted.

With long sword blades a very long flat stone would be better than a short stone if one wants to be able to sharpen the whole length of a sword edge in one long pass if holding the sword to the stone. With short stones it is better to hold the stone to the sword edge and work on the edge section by section. Doing this freehand is an acquired skill and it would be good to practice on some cheap sword before risking trying to sharpen an expensive sword.

The type of edge wanted is also important: If one wants an appleseed edge with a rounded and blended edge rather than creating a secondary bevel.

For touch ups on a blade that already has a reasonable edge I use a hand held diamond hone or use the Spyderco triangular ceramic stones held in the hand rather than used in the base of the sharpmaker.

I also use a smooth steel burnisher to just refresh the edge without taking any significant material of the edge: Good if the edge has only slightly folded over and " looks " dull.

One shouldn't obsess too much about sharpness and resharpen every time the sword is looked at. ;)

On the other hand it is much easier to give a very light resharpening and burnishing maintaining an already sharp edge
than waiting until a blade becomes really dull: Harder to resharpen with a better chance to make thing worse rather than better.

Just my take on it as there are probably other valid approaches and I am much more confident in my ability to sharpen knives that the much more challenging sharpening of swords.

At HMAS by the Bay last weekend, I met with Dave Wilson and Jim Alvarez for some cutting instruction and practice. Dave was sharpening his Angus Trim with the Lansky system, and said he used it for his Hanwei "cuttin' iron" as well. For Atrims, you probably want the diamond version. Takes patience, one bit of the blade at a time. Seems to work, though.