Guides are available for knives, chisels and plane irons. The drawback of most guides is that they waste about 3 inches of stone, so you would need a longer stone. If you mount your stone flush with your work surface, you can utilize the full stone length.

The Razor Edge Guide

The Razor Edge guide clamps on the blade with four Allen screws and I find it inconvenient to use. Also I managed to grind away some of this guide when I tried it on diamond hones.  

If you find a Buck HoneMaster, buy it.  It is a good guide but no longer made.  I have seen several of then on eBay recently selling in the $25 to $30 range.

ROD-GUIDED STONE SYSTEMS

The Lansky rod-guided sharpening system has been the
industry standard for years, with good reasons.

Rod-guided systems have a rod on each stone that slides through a hole in the guide. This controls the angle and also prevents scratching the blade with the stone. Since the guide slides on the rod and not on the stone, a smaller stone is needed. Rod-guided systems sell in the $30 to $50 range, depending on the number and type of stones. A variety of stones are available, including ones for serrated blades. They will sharpen up to a 4 inch blade before you have to move the guide to a new position.

Rod-guided systems are available from Lansky, Gatco, DMT and others. The Lansky has an aluminum guide that goes from 13 to 25 degrees in 4 steps; each angle is 3 to 5 degrees lower than indicated.  The GATCO guide is aluminum and reinforced plastic and goes from 17 to 34 degrees in 6 steps, each step is about 6 degrees greater than indicated.  I prefer the GATCO to the Lansky because of the GATCO's larger stones and selection of angles.  The DMT Aligner guide is all plastic, and goes from 12 to 35 degrees in 7 steps, which are not marked.  With DMT hones, which I do not have, the Aligner would be a good choice for this size of system, although some users have observed that the plastic guide is not rugged enough.

The class act in rod-guided systems is the EdgePro Apex Sharpening System. Ben Dale, the owner of EdgePro, has spared no expense in his pursuit of excellence in hand sharpening. The Apex is rugged and uses relatively large 1 x 6 inch aluminum oxide waterstones. The angle guide is continuously adjustable for any angle from 10 degrees to 35 degrees, with marks at 10, 15, 18, 21 and 25 degrees.   My measurements confirmed that the marks were accurate. The Apex comes with a good instruction book.

SKARB
EdgePal

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Updated December 6, 2007
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